Yesterday I mentioned to my subscribers I had a special announcement, incidentally if you are not a subscriber, you can signup on the right and grab a great free report.
Anyhow, what was the announcement?
Cancelling Launches and making Decisions based on my Business Needs
On the 9th of June, John Thornhill and I were set to complete and launch a new product about product launches and how to launch your own product and make it a success! You may have noticed that I used the word ‘were’. Well there is a reason behind this which I will explain..
Launching a product
Launching a product is easy! Launching a product and making money is not easy. You see you need to plan your campaign to the most finite detail, so you leave nothing on the table. You need to cover all the angles to make the most revenue you possibly can from your target audience. I cover product launches in more detail here if you are interested.
Planning and time, is the reason why we made the decision to cancel the launch on Monday and put it back to a date later in the year. Now this wasn’t an easy decision to do considering the work we have put into this over the last few weeks, but it could have been harder. Fortunately, we had not moved into pre-launch or notified affiliates, so not a lot of people knew about it or that we were cancelling it for a month or two.
The lack of launch buzz was also a factor in cancelling the launch. You see you need to let people know what is going on, what to expect and when to expect it. Having a great product is only a small portion of the launch as a whole! Missing a critical element can be detrimental to your product launch and this can end in disaster.
Picture this
I took a call from John last week where we started to plan the week out to get ready for announcement on Wednesday the 4th which was realistically already too late to gather any real affiliates or build an affiliate competition buzz. The conversation went a little like this:
John – So are you good for a meet up on Tuesday, I’m good for later in the day as I have calls?
Dan – It’s my birthday on Tuesday, Emma has booked a meal for the family! How about Wednesday?
John – It’s Nicola’s birthday on Wednesday and we are going out for the day and It’s my Birthday on Thursday?
Dan – Lol, not much getting done here is there?
John – This is bad, how about working all day Friday?
Dan – Ok, I’ll get what I can done from home today and work all day tomorrow so we are ready to announce to affiliates on Wednesday. We can finish up on Friday and Saturday morning for launch on Monday
John – Ok
Dan – Oh shit, Emma has arranged a birthday BBQ for me on Saturday, so can’t make it then. This is bad isn’t it?
John – Yeah it’s not good at all. Lets just put everything into Asana and work through job by job and get it finished
Dan – Ok
John – Ok
I pretty much put a solid two days into the product, working with our graphics guy and building the Optimize press members’ area ready for content at the weekend.
Time to be realistic
We had a 7 day window of opportunity to launch a product for which we could have done at a push! But thinking about it, we are launching a product about product launches, so your own product launch model has to be perfect! Yes we would have made money, yes we would have recruited some affiliates but not all, yes the content is good and the product would be a success! But, we needed everything to be perfect and it just wasn’t looking to 100%.
You can say that no product launch is perfect, and you would be right. There are always unforeseen factors, but soft launching a product about product launches is potentially a recipe for disaster!
So we took a hard decision to put the launch back a couple of months to fit into another launch period, where we can create a massive launch campaign, add more content and provide something truly amazing!
Planning is essential
It is possible to wing a product launch, but it’s never going to be as good as full product launch campaign with affiliate support, ads and pre-launch buzz. Here are a few tips to help you out when you are planning your next project:
1. Give yourself ample time to get your project finished and ready
2. Ensure everyone who needs to know knows about it
3. Don’t cut corners to get to a deadline
4. If your product isn’t ready, don’t announce it just because you have a gap in your schedule
5. Ensure you make the most from your launch and leave nothing on the table.
It wasn’t easy to move our launch, but a decision had to be made to ensure we ge the most from it in the future. The risk of it not generating it’s full potential was too great to risk!
Can you think of a time when you thought of cancelling launches based on a business decision or a time when you weren’t ready and had to hold a product or project?
Hi Dan
Very interesting article, but to cancel just for a few birthday bashes come on LOL.
I look forward to the launch later in the year.
One thing i thing scares the hell out of me about launching a product is having a system in place to let people know about your product.
Will it touch on launching niche products as well as what you & John do.
Regards
Mark
Hi Dan,
Enjoyed your post. Moral of the story check birthdays before product launches. At least next year you’ll know..lol. Haven’t been doing much last couple of weeks. Computer getting fixed and at the moment up in Stornoway seeing the folks. Look forward to seeing this product launch.
Regards
Donald
Hey Dan,
Well I have just soft launched a product two weeks ago and I didn’t make any buzz for it.
The launch still brought about $2K in gross revenue but I think it could have done at least 10x better if I waited a bit more and did a formal launch so I completely understand why you guys decided to postpone this for a few extra days.
It all makes sense and for the next time, I’ll stick to the product launch formulas! 😉
Sergio.
Hey Dan, how are you doing?
I hope you are fine. One of the biggest realities of internet marketing and other business is that things always take longer than planned.
Unexpected things can also happen, such as issues with the marketers health, family, even emergencies with their houses etc, causing delays in the marketing. Launches are a very huge marketing challenge. Anybody can do a ‘general launch’ but to do a ‘successful launch’ is another thing.
Many people don’t check their calender before doing a launch.
10 PRODUCT LAUNCH PREPARATION / SCHEDULE TIPS:
__________________________________________________
1) CHECK YOUR CALENDER BEFORE MAKING A LAUNCH DATE
Always check your calender before penciling the date of a launch.
2) THINGS ALWAYS TAKE LONGER THAN PLANNED.
In marketing things take longer than you initially planned so just accept this ,and don’t get disappointed if for example your product creation takes longer than planned, but create the majority of it (if not all) before offering a launch date to the public.
3) YOUR PLAN OF YOUR LAUNCH MIGHT ADJUST
Realize that the overall plan of a launch can change along the way (not the date, but the plan)- as ideas come flowing in, months before the launch, so minor adjustments to the launch might happen, accept it.
4) ASK OTHER MARKETERS IF NEED
Don’t be shy to ask other marketers questions for help/assistance/ answers to any issues before considering/planning your launch. They might unleash ‘pitfalls’ for you to avoid, so ask, the worse that they will do is not reply, but it’s worth a try. Especially past launchers who have experience
5) BE PREPARED FOR WORKERS TO ‘PULL OUT’ ON YOU,
Be prepared for the fact that your workers (affiliates, SEO team, Customer service staff, Video creation guys, etc), that they might bail out on you, due to the fact that they have their own issues, so always have backup workers in place, rather than hitting a dead end. One of these guys pulling out on you can have a Huge impact on your launch momentum, so always have a backup!
6) DON’T ANNOY YOUR AFFILIATES BY MOVING THE LAUNCH DATE
Be aware that if you announce a launch date of your product to your affiliates and your JV partners, but then you cancel your launch then you are most likely to lose those affiliate partner, (as they would have perhaps started to email their own list, and only to find out that their is NO PRODUCT to be launched, as you pulled away.) – then this can have a negative affect on your affiliates.
7) IF YOUR DATE CHANGES, LET YOUR AFFILIATES KNOW
If the worse case scenario happens and you have to change your date that you are launching your product then let your affiliates know as soon as possible. The sooner you let them know the better!
8) DON’T ADD BENEFIT BULLETS ON THE SALES PAGE IF YOU KNOW YOU WONT INCLUDE THEM IN THE PRODUCT
Many customers who purchase products get disappointed because the bullet benefit in mentioned in the sales page wasn’t included in the actual product, and many people base the decision to purchase the product based on the bullets offer. If you leave what you promised ‘out’ of your sales page, then this will also have a negative affect on your trust, so be careful what your sales page offers. The reasons ‘some’ benefits in the bullets don’t get included in the product is because the creator doesn’t have time to included (as they are rushed against a tight deadline, to release the product).
9) DON’T ANNOUNCE A LAUNCH DATE UNTIL YOU ARE CERTAIN (TO LAUNCH CALENDER SITES)
Don’t announce the date of your launch to Launch calender sites, and also to your list of affiliates and JV partner if you are still ‘pondering’ the date.
10) DON’T LAUNCH ON YOUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY DATE!
Don’t have the date of your launch on your wedding anniversary, or you could end up in some serious trouble ! (that goes for you women marketers too, don’t launch on you and your husbands ‘wedding anniversary’ ! ..us men have feelings too, lol)
Otherwise I Hope you are cool Dan.
Matt Morgan
Thanks Daniel, Thats is some great first hand knowledge on
the ins and outs of the product launch.
I got some good tidbits out of your nice work .
Keep up the great work
Good luck on your launch
Regards
Zora Blume
Hi Dan
Reading through your post has made me realise all of the factors I will have to take into consideration in launching my first product. Although I think I might set myself a launch date to aim at.
Cheers
Elaine
Thanks for sharing your article. It has lots of great insights here. I also experienced making a project with my partner all set for final, but at the last minute my partner back out quickly without knowing me the reason. So the project was cancelled and I started a new project on my own. A waste of time and money incurred.