A Transparent Launch Debrief: BTS of Podcast Like You Mean It [Ep. 95]

 
 

Click play to hear a transparent launch debrief:

 
 

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Here’s what to expect from this episode:

You can launch a product any dang way that you want to. Every launch is work, yes, but it's also a fun experiment. And that's exactly how I approached my latest launch. 

You've all had a ton of questions about my new audio course, Podcast Like You Mean It (PLYMI for short). So in today's episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes and walking you through a transparent launch debrief. I share my idea behind this course (and why it's audio), my general approach to launches, and how I specifically launched this course.

And yes, I also give a full rundown of all the numbers and reflect on what worked well and what I might have done differently. I know we all have a little Nosey Nelly in us, so I hope you'll enjoy this episode! 

PS. THANK YOU to those who purchased. And for those who didn't, stay tuned for round 2 and sign up for the next round waitlist here. 

PPS. And if you like this type of episode or would be interested in a one-day workshop on setting up a private podcast, please let me know on IG @podcastingforeducators!

TOPICS COVERED:

  • The idea behind this course (and why it's audio)

  • My general approach to launches

  • PLYMI details and how I launched it

  • The results by numbers (including profit!)

  • Reflecting on whether it was worth it

Resources mentioned:

Connect with Sara:

Related episodes:

  • Sara Whittaker 0:01

    Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Well, hello, and welcome back to another episode of podcasting for educators. At the time of this recording, just a few weeks ago, I launched a new audio course called podcast like you mean it, it was a really fun launch. And since it was my first time, launching this specific course, it was definitely an experiment.

    Sara Whittaker 0:51

    I've had a lot of people reach out asking about how the launch went. And I think that's partly probably because it's an audio course, which sparks some curiosity and people. So I thought it would be fun to do an episode just kind of breaking down how everything all went a launch debrief. I've heard other business owners doing this type of episode, and I always find it so interesting. Plus, I think we've all got a little nosy Nellie in us somewhere, which is why we love hearing the numbers and all of the juicy details that might not normally be shared after a launch is over. Now, I know for me, I don't know if it's the same with you. But typically, I hear these launch debriefs done by very well known people in the online space who are having like these six figure, maybe seven figure launches, which is why I also thought this would be kind of a cool conversation because you can really hear the behind the scenes from a quote unquote, average online business owner, because spoiler alert, I did not make $100,000 from this launch. I've got some of my numbers in front of me and some of my notes about what I did with this launch. And so let's get into it. First, let's talk a little bit about how I came up with this idea for this course. I created my first course, which is actually a mini course it's called guesting for educators over a year ago, this course was to help educators land guest spots on other podcasts as a marketing visibility strategy. Then my second course I created is called the podcasting for educators prep school. It's an online course that walks you through how to plan and launch your podcast and build a really strong foundation for your show. Well, after working with lots of podcasters, through one on one work, and talking with lots of podcasters. And being a podcaster, myself, I really saw what a need people had for a next step. you've launched your show, you're doing the thing, but what are you actually doing? Are you actually getting the most out of your show? How are you planning your content? Do you know who's listening? How do you align it with your business goals? How do you see an ROI? All of these questions that pop up for podcasters, especially after they've had their show? Six months, one year, two years. And then back in episode 66 of this podcast I had on one of my clients, Sara Murray. And in that episode, we really pulled back the curtain on how she got to 100,000 downloads with her podcast, and how she's done a really, really great job at making her podcast, the center of her business, which is really what I try to encourage all podcasters to do who are using podcasting for their business. I got so much feedback on that episode. Lots of you really loved hearing those little details about her journey and different things that we have tried with her show, and that have really helped with her growth. That episode mixed with an audience survey that I did. back I think it was in the fall. It made me realize that I really wanted to created this next step course for podcasters. So that's kind of where this idea stemmed from. Now, let me pause and just give you a little bit of insight as to how I approach launching something like an online course. Long story short, the idea of a traditional full fledged launch. Absolutely exhausts me. And when I say traditional I mean like hosting multiple live webinars while the cart is open sending 20 Plus emails doing Instagram lives like all of these things within this one or maybe two week window. I am in absolute awe of people who do this like props to you. I even know some people who love launching that way. And if that's you, then you go and you keep doing that because it's working for you. I am not that person. I am just a very tired mom out here doing everything in my power to not have that kind of launch. And as a consumer, I don't attend webinars, I've signed up for them. 100% Yes, but do I go? Almost never probably 98% of the time I don't I just don't. And I know that I can't be the only person. And I know that everybody is different. Everybody's audiences different people have different buying behaviors. But my thought process is why would I use a method that I don't even like, as a consumer? And if you're nodding your head right now, like yes, yes, yes, I'm on the same page. As you, Sarah, I hate hosting live webinars, I have very good news for you, it is possible to launch in other ways. I have always used my podcast as my jumping off point for my marketing, I plan my episodes, or at least try to definitely not 100% of the time. But when I know that there's something coming up, especially I am, I try to plan out my content very, very intentionally. And I always want it to be really thought out and intentional, because I want you to be getting the most that you possibly can out of my episodes. And when it came to this launch, and I mean, if I'm being honest, any launch that I've done, I I really kind of plan it as I go. I knew I wanted to create this course, but I didn't 100% know what that was going to look like. Until pretty soon before I actually opened the doors. I knew the goal that I wanted for it. I knew what I wanted people to get out of it. I even had all the lessons mapped out like I had a very clear journey that I wanted to take people on. But I wasn't 100% set on how I wanted to present this information. And ultimately, I landed on an audio course, because I honestly was just curious to see how it would go and how people would respond to it, how I would enjoy it. As a creator of this course, I had created a private podcast before and it's landed really well. And considering who my audience is, I felt like it was the perfect fit. In case you didn't see me talking about this course during the launch, what what it ended up being is an audio course, called podcasts like you mean it and an audio course is essentially set up like a podcast, it's a private podcast, people can listen to it on the go through a listening app like Apple podcasts. But it's not searchable for just anybody you have to pay and get access to it in order to receive the content. It's 10 lessons have audio, each of the lessons has a very actionable step to take at the end of the lesson. It includes worksheets as well that go along with the content to help you take that action and do your brainstorming and all of that good stuff. It also includes a podcast metrics bundle, which honestly, in my opinion, is worth the price of this course alone. My friend Allison, who's a data expert, she actually helped me create this bundle. And I just absolutely love how it turned out. And she for anybody who's curious because I told you, I am going to be transparent and give you like numbers of things. Because she created this for me, she gets a percentage of anything that I make with this course that's how we have it set up. I use Thrive cart. And so I was able to add her as a partner and part of whatever I make automatically gets sent to her. The course also includes private Facebook group access for 90 days and a bonus guests trainings. I priced it at 127. And then there was also a payment plan option too. Now when it came to marketing this launch, I use a combination of my podcast, my social media, Instagram specifically and my email. I did not use any paid ads that ran directly to this course. And I did that intentionally because I wanted to see what kind of organic traffic I would be able to get without doing paid ads. However, I will say I did run list building ads in February. And I'm trying to think back I can't remember if I did it in January. I know I did it in November and February. I just can't remember January. But I did do some list building ads in the months leading up to this, which I think is good for all of us to be doing anyway. It doesn't necessarily have to be through ads. But I feel like we should always be working on building our email list. And if you need a Facebook Ads Manager highly recommend Facebook ads by Curtis who is Lauren tingles husband. I've had Lauren on the podcast before. I'll put her info in the show notes too. But they do an absolutely fantastic job with Facebook ads. Now, as far as my podcast goes, I did a podcast growth series that began the first week of January, and it ran through the first or second week in February. And that series was all focused on organic ways to grow your podcast. I wanted podcast growth and marketing your podcast to be front of mind. For people who are listening to this series. This was definitely intentional in terms of timing, because I wanted that to lead nicely into when I did end up announcing that I had this new audio course. I also ran a waitlist. I did this with my prep school. And it went really, really well. I always give my waitlist or a coupon code. I ran a dynamic ad for the waitlist for two straight weeks. And I also posted about it on my Instagram. I also did an episode that was I think, a couple of weeks before doors open about finding gaps in your podcast. So that was after the growth series ended. But before doors open, so that was just kind of another way that I was utilizing my podcast content to make a nice transition into this course. When doors opened, I had card open from a Sunday to a Sunday. So one week, and during that week, I ran a dynamic podcast ad, letting people know that the doors were open and how they could sign up. I also that week did an extra podcast episode. I usually have my episodes on Wednesdays, I ran an additional podcast episode on Friday with Allison who created that podcast metrics bundle. I had her on and interviewed her. We talked a little bit about podcast data and also about this bundle. And yes, that was definitely intentional. I wanted people to know how awesome this resource is and encourage them to go ahead and get signed up for podcasts like you mean it before the doors closed. So that's kind of how I used my podcast. And then as far as emails go, I emailed my waitlist on Saturday. So the day before doors open, and I let them know what their coupon code was going to be. I gave them a $30 off coupon code which brought their price to $97, which is an absolute steal. I am very aware of that. But I wanted this to be an affordable price point. For people. This is my first time launching this course. I always think that personally, I think it's a good idea to you know, price it a little bit lower at first, to make sure that this definitely is something that people want. And then I knew I was going to be tweaking things along the way. And the next time that I launched, I am going to raise the price. And if you're listening to this and you were not on the waitlist, I'm sorry, but I ran the waitlist for two plus weeks. And I wanted people who regularly listen to the podcast to have that chance to get on the waitlist. Okay, so that email went out to waitlist on Saturday. And then I emailed everyone letting them know that doors were open on Sunday, I sent out another email on Monday, one email on Wednesday, one email on Friday, one email on Saturday, one email Sunday morning and one last email on Sunday evening. So that is 1234567 emails total, which I feel like is not super overwhelming to put together.

    Sara Whittaker 14:02

    And I will say I wrote the emails on the days that they went out I think I scheduled the first two ahead of time. But then I wrote the other ones on the day that they went live or maybe the night the night before for some of them. But this really helped alleviate some of the overwhelm. In the couple of weeks leading up to the launch. There's so many little details to think about. And instead of just getting everything scheduled ahead of time, I just decided, You know what, I'm going to schedule the first couple and then I'm just going to take it day by day and see how things are going and it's going to allow me to be a little bit more in the moment when I'm sending these emails out and I actually really loved that it works really well for me. The day that I had the most sales was day one, and I absolutely think that that is because of the waitlist. My second highest day was the last day doors closing which is pretty typical for a live launch. And I thought it was interesting that the two lowest sale days were on the days that I didn't send an email. And then as far as anywhere else that I was marketing during that week, the doors were open, I was on Instagram. I think I got on live video only two, maybe three times during that week, I had a lot of slides that I used in my stories that I had created ahead of time. And I also had a few posts on my feed. And let me just tell you, thank goodness, I did it this way. And that I was not counting on live webinars and Instagram lives, and things like that for this launch, because I ended up getting a stomach virus that week, of course, right. Of course, it happens at that time. And my daughter also got it. And I know that dogs can't catch sicknesses, but my dog had something funky going on with his stomach and was also getting sick. It was not a fun week health wise. And I also had Spring Fling was that weekend that I was a presenter at. And my husband was out of town, which I did not account for when I was planning this launch. So there were a lot of other things going on. And I think sometimes we forget about what's going on in our personal lives when we're doing a live launch. And this is just another reason that I am so glad that I have these other outlets that I am utilizing for things like a launch other than relying on showing up live because we all I'm sure have had those times when you get sick at the most inconvenient times, like when you're live launching. And especially if you have children, things happen. And they always happen when it's the most inconvenient. So I have really learned that I don't want to put that pressure on myself with launches. And I want to show up how I want to show up. And that's kind of how I am approaching things, at least in this season of my life. Okay, let's talk a little bit about the results of this one week launch. My goal going into this was to get at least 20 people to sign up for this course I honestly I just wanted to get this created, I was really excited to create this content, and get it in the hands of some podcasters and see how they responded to it. And that's kind of the mindset that I have going into the first time that you launch anything, I know that I am going to launch this multiple times again. And I know especially the first time it's such an experiment, I had paid my website designer to design my sales page, which I always do with my courses. That's just something I do not excel it and I just frankly do not have the capacity to learn how to do it or the time to do it. So that was an investment for this launch. And I really wanted to definitely at least make enough to cover the cost of that. Plus, you know, a little bit of profit would be nice to write. Okay, so by the end of doors closing, I had 51 paying customers. My sales page conversion was 3.3%. And thank you, Melanie, that Esteli, who was talking to me a lot through this launch, and like asking how it was going and she's a launch strategist. I just had her on the podcast a few weeks ago. And she let me know that the average sales page conversion is between 1% and 5%. And really anything over 2% is considered good. So again, mine was 3.3%. So I was very happy with that. And my checkout page conversion was 30.1%. To be honest, not quite sure what the average checkout page conversion was, but I felt like that was pretty good. Clearly not an expert in these numbers. Now, I mentioned how my friend Allison had created that podcast bundle with me. And the way that we set this up was I did not pay her anything up front. She gets a percentage of anything that I make with this course. So we have it set up in Thrive cart where she gets an automatic payout every time that somebody purchases the course so she got a percentage of my sale was after her percentage was taken out my gross revenue was $4,987. Net Revenue was $4,355. There are some people on a payment plan. So not everything has come through. However, I looked right before recording this, and only five people chose the payment plan, everybody else paid in full. So knowing these results, was it worth it 1,000%, for me, and for the size of my audience, and the price of this product. Yes, I think that it was very successful. And I was very happy with the outcome. As far as what I wish I had done differently. Possibly, I wish I had priced it a little bit higher, that thought crossed my mind. But at the same time, not really, like I said before, I wanted it to be affordable for people. And especially because this is the first round, I knew that I'd be raising the price for the second round. So depending on the size of your audience, maybe that number sounds really great to you. Or maybe it sounds really low to you. But I think that you really do need to consider the size of your audience, the cost of what you're selling. And like I said, for me, considering all of those factors, I was very happy with the result.

    Sara Whittaker 21:30

    And if I think about what played a big role in this, in these results, I think number one is this podcast, I come here just like you do for your listeners, come here with a new episode every single week that I do put a lot of thought and mental energy into and time. And I am so passionate about helping you start your podcast and grow your podcast. And I fully believe that I had a good launch because of my podcast. I've gotten to know so many of you through this platform, I love the fact that I know so many of you by name that we have conversations in Instagram, and on Facebook. And I absolutely feel like this platform has allowed me to build those relationships with you, and to build hopefully, that trust with you. Number two, I think that there was a need, I really haven't come across any other course, especially in the education space that really helps people with podcasting in this way. You know, there's definitely in the online space. There's tons of courses on podcasting, like how to start a podcast, but I really don't know of too many that are approaching it with this framework that I am. And then the other big thing is, you know, there was a fairly long runway and list building situation that was going on leading up to this. And I really think that that's how we should be using our podcasts and our social media and our email, like making these small intentional decisions every single week, they add up and they can make a big impact when they are all put together. I also know that like all of that my growth series and other podcast content that I had in mind leading up to this launch, I'm definitely going to be repurposing that I'm going to reuse it. I'm going to refer people back to those episodes for years to come. So everything that I put in place for this launch will be able to get reused in future launches. Hopefully hearing this was interesting or helpful to you. I really want you to remember that you can launch a product any dang way that you want to if you want to try something new, get out there and do it. It is all an experiment. Every launch is work you have to put in work, but it can look different. Depending on what season of life you're in, lean into your strengths and lean into how you are going to show up best if that's a webinar. Awesome. If it's a private podcast, awesome. If it's an email list, great. I feel like I needed to use another word and awesome. But there are so many options. You just have to have an experimental mindset and really be willing to reflect on what went well what didn't and be open to tweaking things rather than just throwing in the towel if it didn't go the way that you hoped it would. If you purchase podcasts like you mean it. Thank you for trusting me and allowing me to help you in your podcast journey. I really hope that you're enjoying it. I am having so much fun creating the content for it. And if you missed out on the first round Are will be a second round. I'm just not 100% sure when that will be, but you will hear about it first on this podcast. If you enjoyed hearing this type of episode, send me a DM on Instagram at podcasting for educators. And let me know because if you did enjoy it, I can absolutely do more of these types of episodes in the future. I've also had a lot of questions about how I created this audio course and just private podcasting in general. I have done some episodes on private podcasting, which I'll link in the show notes. But I was thinking that it might be cool to do maybe a one day workshop where I can kind of show you behind the scenes and teach you how to set up a private podcast. And you'd be able to plan out your content and all of that good stuff. There's so many ways that we can use private podcasting, you can create an audio course like I just did, you can create a new lead magnet with a private podcasts, you can put your course content on a private podcast, there's just there's so many ways to utilize it. So let me know again, send me a message on Instagram or email me and let me know if a workshop like that would be helpful for you. All right, I think that is all for today. I will see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

More about Podcasting for Educators:

Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!

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Sara Whittaker