LY Podcast: Ep. 44: Why Copying a Launch Won’t Lead to Sales

Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is the Launch Yourself podcast episode number 44, all about launching your digital product for more information and show notes, go to launchyourself.co/44.

Melissa Anzman (00:14): Welcome to the Launch Yourself podcast. My name is Melissa Anzman. I'm a bestselling author and the CEO of two businesses, an employee experience company, and launch yourself where I help entrepreneurs diversify and scale their business by launching digital products each week, you'll hear mindblowing interviews where we peek behind the curtain of other people's launches, as well as actual tips and strategies that you can implement in your daily work life to create launches that actually make you money. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started

Melissa Anzman (00:50): Launching, launching your digital product is one of those things that can go spectacularly well, or just terrible. There's hardly any ever in between with it. But what I find is most people create their digital product or course first. So maybe they say, Hey, you know, I want to buy a course. So they'll buy a course on how to build a course or they'll buy a course on how to build a membership site, or maybe they'll get coaching on how to create an ebook. And then they put it out there in the world with a launch. And the thing is, is most of these courses that you purchase have their tried and true launch step-by-step program to help you launch your thing into the world. And the thing is, is because they come with that, we get super excited that, Hey, that launched worked for them.

Melissa Anzman (01:45): It probably worked amazingly well for them. It's definitely going to work for us. So we're just going to follow it step by step, but we've all seen it happen. Maybe you've done it on your own. Maybe you watch somebody else do their launch and try to sort of copy what they did or run your launch in the same way. And you just really thought, Hey, it worked for them. They're telling me it did. I saw it happen. So I'm going to do it for me. Obviously they were successful. Why can't my digital product? My course, my membership site just get plugged into their launch plan and sequence and get that same six figure seven figure. Or I even saw one recently, eight figure launch results. Here's the thing. They are the big people for a reason. They are the known quote unquote gurus in this space.

Melissa Anzman (02:43): Except when you go try copying their launch approach, you don't get the same results or maybe you even sold a lass in that format than you had when you did it on your own before. And it's a really easy trap to fall into because if you're like me, I like seeing something to be able to know, Hey, I can do that too, but it is one of the worst traps that you can fall into for the success of your digital product. Now, I'm not saying they don't have a lot to teach us and we can't learn a ton from how other people launch. In fact, that would be false. We can definitely learn a lot from watching others and seeing how they work and being on the inside of them or experiencing them from every direction. But the problem is, is it's not going to work for you.

Melissa Anzman (03:40): And I feel like we've sort of sold a bag of lies or that feels a little harsh, maybe not quite full truths around how to get sales for something that you create. I remember when a family member who shall remain nameless here to protect either the innocent or guilty, I'm not sure, but they came to me and they were like, Hey, I'm going to create something. I'm going to just put my name up. I'm going to sell it. And I was like, yeah, no, that's not how it works. You don't just put your shingle up and get digital product sales. This is not a four hour work week phenomenon type of thing. That it's not something you just do. And people flock to want it. It's a lot of work to sell things in person and on line. And so it's not your fault that you did all the right things that you followed someone else's perfect launch plan or step or process.

Melissa Anzman (04:41): And it still didn't work for you. That's likely going to happen, but there are real reasons why it's not working by copying somebody else's launch for your digital product is not going to bring new sales. So hopefully after this episode, these three reasons are going to resonate with you. And you are going to be able to know exactly what to take from those gurus and what to leave by the wayside so that your next launch is the best one you have had. Now, the first reason it's not going to work is that your biggest differentiator is you. There are tons of plug and play systems out there that give you framework and swipe, copy, and scripts to ensure your success. But in all of those systems, much, like if you just copied your favorite online marketer, you are going to lose your special sauce, your uniqueness, your brand, voice, all about you. You don't incorporate when you're copying somebody, else's swipe file. What makes you likable to your audience in the first place? Which my friends

Speaker 3 (05:53): Is you. We all,

Melissa Anzman (05:55): We all have our own point of view, our voice, our thoughts, our theories, and so on. And your audience signed up to your email list or follow you on social media or come back to buy product after product from you because of who you are because of your own unique point of view. So why do you ignore that element? I want to use a real life example here. So I have a friend who runs a very successful coaching business. She had successfully launched her product three times and she had a course in case that mattered for you. But she wanted a really big launch for her fourth launch. So following the advice that she had, she copied a mentor's launch with full permission and everything, which was more of a plug and play launch method than she had done it before. She has spent time, money and hours working on this new launch plan for herself and her course to help her get more sales.

Melissa Anzman (06:57): But unfortunately it ended up being her lowest selling launch for her course. And she had a bigger list and a bigger reach than any of the launches before. Well, why, when we started going a little deeper about it, I wanted her to ask her audience, why didn't you buy? This seemed perfect for you and the feedback she got were things like, and I'm quoting here. Your materials didn't seem very authentic, or I love what you do, but it just didn't feel like the other product. And finally, it felt like you were hard selling. I'm just not into that. You've never done it like that before. Are you seeing a theme here? Her audience, her people thought that she was just not connecting with it or phoning it in or trying too hard. Essentially. She just wasn't being herself. She wasn't operating from her biggest differentiation point, which was her and her perspective and her own uniqueness over time.

Melissa Anzman (08:01): Please remember swipe files, things of that nature are good to give you a sense, an idea, maybe a general, Hey, here's the kinds of things you should think about in this email or here's sort of what should be on your sales page. But when you just do a copy and paste and insert your own product name or your company name, or what have you, you're leaving on the table. The thing that is most critical to your audience, which is that connection, you're creating with them, the expertise that you're showing because of who you are, you are not them. As far as the guru, you are not them as far as the audience, but you are yourself. And here's like the big thing that I want you to take your audience is very different and they want you, they don't want the guru or they'll be on that person's list or buying that course.

Melissa Anzman (09:04): So stop doing a complete plug and play and instead take it under advisement, but be sure you bring who you are, what your strengths are unique to you, to your overall launch plan and especially your digital product. Now, the second reason why that plug and play approach doesn't work is you have no idea what happens on the backend. Now, friends, I have worked on over $25 million of online launches, lots and lots more when you take in my corporate side of the business and let me just straight shooting with you. You have no idea how those polished and perfect, pretty launches that looks so beautiful and successful on the outside actually truly happen on the backend. And I know what I'm talking about. I haven't seen the backend a time or a hundred before. I mean, it's kind of like magic. You watch someone else's launch from the sidelines.

Melissa Anzman (10:08): Maybe you're in it. Maybe you're a buyer you're taking notes. You're trying to figure out exactly what they did so that you can duplicate it, except you have absolutely no idea how things are working in the back of the house. What is presented to you? The public is usually just the tip of the iceberg on the overall launch plan, components, digital products, and so on. And to add to the tip of the iceberg, you're still only seeing a portion of what's going out now. Here's the thing. If you think about creating your own lodge, there are all these moving parts that you know about for your launch, that someone else doesn't, I'm looking at my to do list right now, which we can talk about in a minute, but, and it is four pages long for one small launch. And that's like all the little nitty gritty things, I'm like update the cover and share the bot message and you know, all that stuff that not everyone sees and the bigger the launch, the more of those things there are.

Melissa Anzman (11:13): Okay. So I want to use a real example of a six figure launch. And here are the things that are happening in the background. Now this is like the high level view. I'm only going to share, I think, six different things or five different things of like, Oh, what's happening that you're not seeing, but let me just tell you, this is nothing. So like, let's say there's message list segmentation. So there's only going to get a certain number of communications for each list or tag or segment that people are on, depending on how you have interacted with that guru in the past. So you're not even seeing all the email messages, if you're seeing any at all, depending your level and newness to the list and so on. There's also maybe some affiliates and you don't really know if it's a huge affiliate launch or however big those affiliates are are, or how big they're launching and all the components and extra bonuses and all the things that are happening with that.

Melissa Anzman (12:11): There are guest posts or podcasting guesting that's happening. So maybe you are seeing all the content marketing and guest posting that the person's doing, but it's highly unlikely that you're seeing all the things, especially at once during launch week or lead up to launch. So there's a lot of content creation, there's testing, which is super critical, but they're testing all the products and communications and the landing page and the checkout process, all the things that you aren't seeing that are happening to make sure there are working as well as they need to when you turn the launch open and then social media. So yes, you probably follow that person, social media, and you're looking at their blog posts, but you're not seeing the DMS. You're not seeing the consults. You're not seeing all the posts they're doing in different social media places. And you're definitely not going to see everything because of the way the algorithms work with all the feeds.

Melissa Anzman (13:09): And so listen, there is a lot going on mechanically in the background, but if you copy what someone else says, they may give you those five different buckets to say, Hey, for each of these buckets, this is what you should be doing, but you're never going to get all of the details. You'll only be seeing about 20% give or take of what they're actually doing to make the work, the launch work. And so even if you're doing step-by-step or the plug and play, or Hey, just insert your video here, type of staff, you know, it's, how do we create the video and what kind of things go into that and the animations and the graphics and the captions and the Chirons and all those things aren't usually included in that gurus step-by-step launch plan, because those plans are going to be thousands and thousands of checklist things for you to do, which is enough to make any of us throw our hands up and frustration and overwhelm.

Melissa Anzman (14:12): And so if you all do that 20% that you're seeing on the front end, you're not going to have a successful launch. Now I want to more than these five buckets and components that they're doing, I also want to share with you the truth of what happens behind the scenes, which is it's never as pretty as it looks, and you have no idea how much that person has spent in that launch. So for example, I know someone who did a seven figure launch and very seasoned launcher. Okay. So don't think you're going to have a seven figure launch out of the gate. This is, you know, two in hard work over and over again, rinse, repeat, get, look at the metrics, see what's working tweak and go from there. But they also spent five and a half, six figures on ads to get people in.

Melissa Anzman (15:06): So yes, they still made a ton of money on the launch, but it's not like they didn't spend a ton of money to get the right people in there. So my point here is, is if you copy a gurus launch, you're still not seeing what they're actually doing. You're not seeing how much money they're spending on ads or retargeting, or what kind of ads, if it's just Facebook or Google or Pinterest, or what have you. You're only seeing the process of how they got to the launch or what, like the actual big rock elements are not all the details that make the actual launch and sales for your digital product run. And the final thing of why your launch fails. If you do a plug and play is your audience. And this is a really, really important factor that a lot of people don't take into consideration, but your audience and your buyers is not the same audience or buyers as anyone else's on the planet, including those gurus, you cannot recreate their lists, their network and connections, just like you have your own unique list, network and connections that can't be recreated for anyone else.

Melissa Anzman (16:22): And the actual people who are your fans and followers and buyers and customer for life. They're looking for different things from you than they are from other people. They come to you for a very different reason. Then they go to the guru. Now I'm not talking about your set bashal sauce here, although that is a factor, but they want to gain a very specific knowledge in a specific way when they interact with you specifically. And you can see that reflected in things like your open rates on your email or your click through rates or throughout other various metrics that you track. They're always going to be different than someone else's. So for an example, I have two clients who are held coaches. Their areas of focus are different. One specializes in like that mind, body spirit type of wellness. And the other is more like a fitness or exercise program.

Melissa Anzman (17:17): Now their list size was just about equal. And they both wanted to cross promote their new products cop like copying a fitness experts, launch plan and their copy. And so I want you to just imagine what happened here. It was a big fail on both sides. Their open rates on their emails was dramatically lower and their unsubscribed rates was dramatically higher for their promotions. And you may ask why, but here is why, because the way that plan and communicate to your people is going to be different. If your audience is all about mind, body, and spirit versus hardcore exercising, they didn't really consider that they've watched a fitness guru, do this with another affiliate and they cross sold. And it was great. However, it didn't work here because maybe the product wasn't quite a fit or the messaging wasn't right for that audience. Cause they're different audiences.

Melissa Anzman (18:17): But if their lot plan and communications together were more focused and unique to the needs of each audience, the launch for both of them would have been more successful because we're taking their audience into consideration. And the other thing about your audience versus a big gurus audience is number one, who knows how your people got there and how the gurus people got there. Like I hope you know, how your people got there. But if you have a smaller audience is likely more from organic reach versus ads. If you have a larger audience, it means you've either been around the block for some time, my friend, or you're also building your audience through ads. These are not bad things. Either approach totally is good, totally works, all that fun stuff. But the people who end up on your list are going to be different. And you just don't know what your audience makeup is compared to that gurus and how they can put money in and copy.

Melissa Anzman (19:16): And all that stuff is just going to be different. And their buyers may be at a different point. If they've been around for a while, their audience may be filled with people who are second time buyers or third time buyers where yours just maybe first time. So the point here is, is looking at somebody else's audience and trying to do what they're doing for your Facebook ads, for your email copy, for your sales sequence, for your swipe file. It's not going to convert for you because your people are not the same as that gurus people. Your audience is not going to necessarily respond in a consistent, ongoing manner in the same way that they do to the bigger guru names out there. So the bottom line here is just like your product needs to be unique and different and solve a very specific solution and transformation. So does your entire launch plan so that you make actual sales? Cause what is the point of having a digital product? If you are not selling it to the masses and making money from it. So let's remember next time, we're not going to copy somebody else's launch, we're going to learn from them, but we're going to remember that you are the, your biggest differentiator. You have no idea what really happens behind the scenes and your audience deserves more from you in order to really feel a connection and be your next

Melissa Anzman (20:48): To join the free Launch Yourself workshop, where you'll learn why your digital products aren't selling nearly as much as he planned for and how to diversify and scale your income by launching the right way. Text: launchyourself, all one word to: 44222.