Once a year, I pull back the curtain on how I run my product launches by sharing what's working right now in my business.

I love sharing the REAL numbers, our wins, and our mistakes. Plus, the challenges and changes I'm seeing in the online marketing space.

Cos - trust me, we're not perfect either!

Over the next few weeks, along with my launch manager (and hubby) Mark, we'll share a lot of launch content with you - reviews, free training, and honest articles.

We'll take you behind the scenes of our marketing campaigns so you can find just one thing to improve your next launch - whether it's your first or tenth launch and whatever stage of business you're at.

Even if you've never launched, don't have a business yet or if you hate the idea of launching, stay tuned because I want you to know that it's possible to launch in your way - with integrity and without sleazy marketing techniques.

The world needs YOU to show up, and trust me when I say that learning how to launch can take you to the next level so you can help more people.

To kick off one of my favorite topics (and certainly Mark's fave), I want to share a breakdown of my most recent launch.

This is hot off the press - the launch of our Sacred Money Archetypes® business course was only completed a few weeks ago, and we're delivering the course right now.

Mark has put together this "Part 1" debrief to share a summary of our results from our most complex (and fun) launch ever.  

We don't share these numbers to gloat - there are so many more people doing bigger and better launches than us, we're trying to remove some of the smokescreen from launching.

My goal is that by the end of this month, you feel a little more informed, inspired, and excited to try a launch or achieve your best month in business. 

So let's get into this… dive in below.

Background

We first launched Sacred Money Archetypes® in 2017 and then had a small annual promotion for a few years after that.

Honestly, it was always kind of disappointing. 

I love the SMA framework; it has been a game-changer for my business and relationship. I know it has helped hundreds of our members, but we never quite got the messaging, promise, or pricing right. There was always something that tripped up our previous efforts to launch this course, and I was fired up to see SMA fulfill its potential. 

So I started again from scratch. I went all in because I had a big vision about what this launch and course could be. 

My creative juices were flowing, and I got to work re-designing and re-writing the course, re-creating all videos and materials, and completely changing the branding and marketing. 

I realized that all my previous efforts to market this course were based on my own Archetype, the Ruler, so I created eight different marketing funnels with different messages, videos, and looks to speak to each of the 8 Money Archetypes. 

We invested heavily in staging, styling, video production, and social media - I really want this to be a game-changer launch where I could showcase the power of using the Archetypes in your marketing and getting some fun and creativity back in my marketing. 

This meant eight different launches - 8 sets of pre-launch videos, eight sales videos, and eight versions of the course - it was a lot for my team and me. It's kinda traumatic to think back about how much work and time we've put into this. 

So to say I was heavily invested in the outcome of this launch was an understatement. 

I've never done such a complex and involved launch as this, and I REALLY wanted it to go well - which of course, brought up plenty of my own blocks and fears. 

You do NOT have to do a launch anywhere near this complicated - this was 8 launches plus! It is possible to do a simple launch your own way.

You can see more detail from behind-the-scenes and how this launch was styled and produced here, including an extended interview with me about our approach to this launch. 

I also recorded a podcast episode here about how I nearly sabotaged this launch before it started! 

The goal

We wanted to launch SMA in a way befitting just how good the new course is and how much we believe in this work.

So we invested in upgrading the pre-launch content, marketing, and branding, and we devoted six months to prepare for this launch. 

This meant we had an ambitious goal for this launch - 500 sales was our initial goal. 

I love having a big goal for launches and a project to get excited about (usually a property for us). For example, we just bought an old bank to renovate as an Airbnb, and a big chunk of the profits from this launch was earmarked for that project. 

Our big stretch goal was one thousand sales and $1m of revenue. 

We wrote "$1m+ SMA" on our shower screen daily and used it as our passwords and phone backgrounds. 

Given the $997 price, we knew that hitting 7-figures was a big stretch that would require a lot of leads. 

Previous SMA launches had low conversion rates between 0.3% - 1.2%, and this is why we wanted to redo and improve the course. 

(You can read about the mistakes we made in our worst SMA launch here) 

We knew we could improve the conversion rate and engagement but hitting $1m even with a 2%+ conversion rate would require 50,000 leads. 

We had doubts about whether we had the reach and advertising budget to generate enough leads to hit our target.

This is why it's essential to know your numbers and work backward from your revenue/sales target to know how many leads you need and what you'll need to spend on ads or via affiliate partnerships. 

Do you know the number of leads and sales you need to hit your launch goal? 

Our main launch targets were:

• 20-25,000 leads 
• 3-4% conversion rate (this is about the CR for our Bootcamp launches, but we'd never got close to this in the past with SMA)
• 800-1000 sales
• $1m+ revenue 

The schedule

We originally planned to do this launch in April, then at the start of August, and both times we had to push back. There were production delays, team members getting sick with Covid, and we were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work required to get eight different pre-launch workshops and courses ready. 

We eventually run the launch for three weeks from 25 August - two weeks of generating leads followed by a week-long sales push as follows: 

25 August - 6 September - Lead generation

We needed an extended pre-launch period because we had six pieces of content with the quiz, the four videos, and all of the BTS content. Plus, we had a big leads goal, so we felt we needed extra time to engage both warm and cold audiences. 

6 September - Live call/sales webinar 

7-14 Sept - Main sales period

14 September - Close cart day

15 Sept - 30 Oct - Live course 

For the first time, we made early enrolment in the course available immediately, so people could join as soon as they had done the quiz or workshop. We had 270 people join / 28% of sales come in before the webinar. 

We did this because some Archetypes love instant gratification and hate waiting to buy - they'd rather jump straight in and take action quickly. 

The results

Although sales started slow, we had a really strong final 36 hours, averaging $10,000 per hour in revenue. 

Our final numbers were:

• 952 new members 
• $1.55m AUD / $1.04m USD
• 57% of the money was received upfront, contributing to September being our highest-ever cash-received month. 

Five hundred eight sales at the pay in full $997 price, and 180 people, chose the four pay price option. Two-hundred and sixty four took advantage of the extended 11-month payment plan when it was announced in the final two days of the launch - this was undoubtedly one of the reasons 40% of sales came in the last two days. 

We hit our $1m revenue target and got close to our stretch target of 1,000 sales. 

We threw all of our Law of Attraction manifesting techniques at this goal, and despite being exhausted, we were thrilled with these numbers. 

25,682 people opted into the launch by taking the quiz or registering for the video workshop and webinar. 

So 952 sales represented a 3.7% conversion of total leads - close to our 4% target. 

We tracked leads and sales by Archetype and recorded when, each Archetype decided to join, and we'll reveal more of this in part 2 of this launch debrief. 

The conversation rates for the various Archetypes varied from 2.4% to 6%, so next year we'll aim to attract more of the highest-converting customer groups. 

Overall, we TRIPLED our previous best conversation rate for an SMA launch. 

Here are three factors that contributed to our 3x improvement in launch conversions…

1. Clear promise

We created new training modules and focused the marketing message on "leverage your strengths and make more money." 

This clarity worked well in our biggest customer groups - Accumulators and Rulers - and clarified why people should join the course. 

We added secondary messages tailored to each Archetype based on research we had done about what each Archetype looks for in a course and sales process. 

2. Creative marketing

Advertising is becoming harder to track and more expensive, plus organic reach is declining. So because we had a significant reach and leads goal, we needed to get creative in our marketing. 

We doubled down on fun, eye-catching social media content and videos and tailored marketing to the 8 Archetypes. 

This drove this launch's engagement, energy, and excitement to a new level. 

You don't need to create eight versions of marketing content or a music video, but how can you bring your personality into your marketing, so you stand out and get people talking? 

3. Incremental improvement across the board

Your final conversion rate is influenced by many factors. A slight improvement - even a tenth of a percent - in many different areas can significantly affect the overall conversion rate. 

We invested in improving the performance of ad targeting, ad copy, click-through rates, email copywriting, SEO, re-designing our sales page, improving video consumption, abandon cart rates etc. 

One of the most significant improvements compared to our January launch was achieving a much lower cost per lead with the quiz and better ad targeting. We'll share more about our ad spend in future debriefs because we were getting new leads between $1-$4. 

Small tweaks make a big difference when you uplevel copy, messaging, and performance across a whole funnel. This was only possible because Denise advocated for her vision for the launch and made SMA a priority for six months across the company. 

This bet on SMA paid off and has created a new multi-million dollar asset for our company. 

Despite the results, there are still so many areas where we can improve and fix things that didn't go well - webinar show-up rate, pre-launch video consumption, early refunds, and better use of testimonial videos, to name a few. 

Did you play along with the launch? Did you join SMA this year? 

What stood out to you as better or different with this launch? What should we do differently? 

Read part 2 now…

Click here to read part two of this launch review, where we share more on our sales, refunds, major expenses and things we will do differently for next year's launch. 

With so much complexity in this launch and the extra workload of creating the course at the same time as running the launch, we were so grateful to have the PLF framework to fall back on. 

The Product Launch Formula course gave us templates for video scripts and checklists for precisely what to include in crucial emails and videos.

Without PLF, this type of complicated launch would not have been possible. Having Jeff in our corner as a mentor and point of reference is the only way we stay sane and don't sabotage our big launches.

xx Denise and Mark 

Sacred Money Archetypes® is a registered trademark of Heart of Success, Inc. and licensed by Lucky B Pty Ltd. Copyright 2022 Kendall SummerHawk.