124: 4 Launch Strategies for Selling Your Offer: A Side-by-Side Comparison

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners increase their revenue with digital products and evergreen sales funnels. Today we're in our podcast series talking all about Virtual Summits. If you've been following me for a while you you know that I'm a big fan of Virtual Summits. I've hosted several of them in the past and used them as our main business building strategy in our hobby school brand. So I wanted to bring some Virtual Summit experts together and walk you through the strategies behind Virtual Summits and when you may want to use them in your business. Before we jump into today's episodes, don't forget to sign up for our free class the three part framework to triple your monthly revenue with a Virtual Summit. While building your list for free, I have put the link to sign up in the podcast show Notes, so don't forget to grab it there. Let's jump right into our show.

And my special guest today is Krista Miller with Summit in a Box. Krista helps you replace slow growth and costly marketing strategies with a high converting virtual Summit that will multiply your revenue and lead to your biggest course membership or group program launch yet. Her method incorporates highly targeted positioning and feel good engagement based strategies that lead to higher than average conversion rates, true connections, and making a difference through your summit in a way that creates ongoing benefits for months after the event wraps up. And Krista, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm super excited to jump in to this topic with you and we're going to be talking about four different launch strategies for selling your online course or membership. And I will say Krista, you and I have kind of talked about this a little bit. I have tried all of those launch strategies that we're talking about today and I do think there's pros and cons to each of them. But I do think we have a special one that we're going to be talking about and I don't want to give away all the stuff that we're going to be chatting about today, but can we jump right in to this conversation and and one of the launch strategies that we're going to be talking about are challenges like a three day challenge or a five day challenge. So can you walk us through when it might be good to use a challenge for selling an online course or membership and when it might not be such a such a good option for us?

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited to break down all of these strategies and honestly I am like a big fan of all of these things, but I think like, something I'm so excited to talk about today is that they really all have their time and place and I think people don't realize that. Honestly, after seven years in business, I very recently had the realization like, oh my goodness, like, each of these pieces is really good at certain things and like, I've been using them wrong part of this time. So I'm really excited to hopefully open some eyes today. But challenges are one of my favorites. They always have been either. But even before I was running Summit in a Box, my previous business, I was doing like monthly challenges as a way to grow my audience. Again, like mistakes were made. But I have always loved challenges. Personally, I run five day challenges where the first four days are like delivering content, getting people excited, getting them started with the process for me, with the process of hosting summits, help them see that it's possible for them and then really naturally lead into a launch when they, when they want that next step, when they're excited and when they want my offer. And delivering that offer to them is something valuable and helpful that I am giving. So where I see a challenge really shining is engaging your existing audience and selling your offer. And this, I think is a little different than I see a lot of people trying to use challenges. It's different than how I have tried using challenges in the past. Like I said, I used to try to use them as a way to build an audience. And that does work in some ways. Like if you're not looking for this huge influx of leads, if you're okay with bringing in 20, 50, 100 new leads and hosting a challenge for those people, that's great. Okay, it can do those things. But where a challenge really shines is re engaging the leads you already have on social media, on your email list, wherever you're connected, engaging those people, getting them, making progress and making your offer to your existing audience. That's where I see a challenge really shining over. Attracting a whole bunch of new leads. Does that kind of align with your experience, Destiny?

It does, it does. And you know, I really like the difference that you kind of brought out there in terms of re engaging an existing audience instead of thinking that you're going to bring in, you know, 20,000 new people right through this challenge. I think a lot of us, you know, when we were first starting out, we might not have realized that challenges might not do that unless you're spending a ton of money on Facebook ads. Right? I mean, that that would be one of the ways you could get a lot more people into a challenge. I do like challenges because you are interacting with people live, you know, every single day. And I'm kind of like you. I like doing five day challenges versus three day challenges because it gives you more time with them. But I do think my experience has been very similar to you. And you have done a challenge recently, if I remember correctly. I can't remember the last time I saw, but I think I remember that coming across, coming across through my email.

Yeah, we do challenges quite a bit actually. They are a core part of our business strategy. We will do two, three, sometimes even four per year because we do have these other strategies we're using to bring in new leads all the time. We, over the years we have created a large audience, we have a very decent sized email and social media following. So challenges are like an integral, integral part of our strategy to get those people reengaged. Taking pro making progress and getting them excited about what they originally signed up for our email list to learn about.

So what in your experience, what are some pros and cons specifically for challenges?

Yeah, for me one of the biggest pros is that at least after your first one, even with your first one, they're a fairly easy strategy to put together. You know, you don't need like a 90 day timeline or anything like that to put a challenge together. Now that we just kind of rinse and repeat our challenge that we host, we'll do that and like, you know, I could decide with like 30 days notice that we want to go ahead and host that challenge. All we need to do is kind of, you know, make updates to things we're already using. If I was going to host a challenge from scratch, I would probably go more like 45, 60 days. But it's a lower, lower time commitment, a little bit lower effort to put it together. I would say, you know, a big pro of a challenge is, like I said, it re engages your audience and is very effective with selling to those people. If you've put it together the right way. I like to make my challenge content like really short and sweet. So that's another part that makes it pretty easy to put together. Like I'm not doing hour long trainings. When I host a challenge, I like them to be like 10, 15, 20 minutes long with a quick action step I can give them because people don't want to sit and you know, necessarily watch you do a training for an hour every single day. So the fact that you can get people engaged quickly without having to make insane amount of content is really, really great as well. I would say another downside of challenges is I've never had a ton of success engaging my affiliates in challenge promotion. Or, you know, I'll have some that promote every single time, but I don't see them have like a ton of success promoting a challenge. We'll definitely get some referral sales here, here and there, but affiliates don't tend to be quite as engaged. And then I would say challenges aren't as great for, like, if you're looking to increase your network, increase your visibility, challenges aren't necessarily going to do those things either because you're not like bringing in other people to do this with you. If anyone promotes it, it's going to be someone you're already connected to.

So those are all great points. And I will say that the one I wasn't, I didn't realize that, or I've never tried this. I should say that getting affiliates to promote a challenge was something that you struggled with in the past. So that's, that's very interesting to me. Now, the next one on our list are bundles. So tell us a little bit about this launch strategy and what do you think it's good for?

Yeah, so bundles seem to be like the hot thing this year. Everyone is hosting a bundle. I gave a bundle a try because, you know, they look fun, right? And I was like, everyone's doing a bundle. I have to do a bundle. So, yeah, I see bundles, especially after, like having my own numbers to compare to other strategies. They're a great way to network with other people in your industry. So if you are looking to build connections, you know, do a bunch of collaborations at once, bundles are great for that, especially if you put in the extra effort to give your contributor contributors a really great experience and stay connected with them afterwards. That is such a high value part of running a bundle. They're also great for visibility if you do it the right way. If you host a bundle and like, don't put in the effort to kind of put yourself front and center, people still won't know you exist because they're there for all the resources. Right? You're promoting a pile of resources, whether it's a free bundle or a paid one. You have to put in work if you want to stand out. And they're great for lead generation because you're putting together a ton of resources that are, you know, all themed around what your audience is interested in. And they're, they're signing up for that thing. So it's good bundles are great for those. More like high, the higher parts of your funnel. The top of your funnel, networking, visibility, lead generation. Where bundles aren't so great is the middle and lower parts of your funnel. So they're not going to be great for engaging new leads. Because people sign up for a bundle and they're signing up for 10, 20, 30 different resources at once, it's really hard to stand out in their inbox after they have done that. They're not great as great for engaging your existing audience. Instead you're kind of sending your existing audience in a billion other directions, right? You're like, hey, here are all of these awesome resources. Have fun with that. Where you might even be losing their focus when you do that. And they're not great for selling your offer. When we ran our bundle, we had like $1,000 in tripwire sales and no sales in the next launch that we did afterwards, which was not, not the picture I had of a bundle. So bundles are really great for building an audience and building connections, but it's really hard to keep their attention and you're not going to see super impressive results. If you use a bundle to launch, usually you need to pair it with other strategies and just maybe have a little bit lower expectations than have expected.

So I do want to clarify something. When you were talking about the, that you had tried this, you tried a free bundle, right? It wasn't a paid bundle, it was free. So everybody were able, they were all able to get all of these free resources, correct?

That's correct, yeah. So the reason I chose a free bundle specifically was because it was a list building opportunity for me. I was like, we're just going to get as many people into this as possible. So yeah, I did a free bundle and that's interesting.

So you got the thousand dollar sales on the tripwire that you had after somebody signed up for your specific resource and no sales for your course after that.

Yep, that was like a first for me. I've. I feel like I've never done like a, like even when I speak at summits or sponsor summits or whatever, like I still see leads come in or like sales come in through those things down the road. But I did not see that for, for the bundle. And I think it had to just be because they came, they signed up for my thing, but they also signed up for what, 15, 20 other things. So I'm just not like at the top of their radar. Everyone's kind of all muddled together now.

I've never hosted a free Bundle. I've done paid bundles in another business, but I've never done a free bundle. I would say that I in but I have participated in them as a contributor and I would say that my experience has been the leads that I got or the people that came to my email list, they didn't stay that long. You know, they might just signed up and then left or if they stay, they just weren't as engaged. So I haven't had great success with them even for list building as much.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And like that's just part of this. Like for me, I probably will not host a bundle of my own again because to be the host of a bundle is a lot of extra work and it's a lot of time on your marketing calendar that you can't do something else with. If I'm a part of a bundle, it's going to be like contributing to one and like being a participant. Because even if you get, you know, let's say 400 leads and maybe half of them stick around, at least you weren't the one that had to go through all the work to be to host the bundle. And honestly, like as when we hosted the bundle, we did build in ways for us to stand out. Like after they signed up for the bundle, we had like a special, you know, special ways they could engage with us, a special audio training. We linked like our some of our own stuff in the emails. I had like videos afterwards where I was trying to get them to know me, but it was still so hard to stand out. If I'm not going to stand out, I would rather just be a contributor rather than the host of a bundle, especially if the people aren't going to stick around as much like you said.

So let's jump into the next one. And I'm sure a lot of people who are listening are familiar with webinars. Some people call them different things, class masterclasses, webinars, training. But it's all really kind of the same thing. So tell us a little bit about your experience with webinars and what they're good for.

Yeah, so webinars, another strategy that I like and use a lot in my business. And it's another strategy where I feel like people kind of misunderstand the point of them. Webinars are really not like an audience building strategy and I would say they're even less of one than challenges. It is hard to host a webinar that is going to really grow your audience again. Maybe you'll get 20, 50100 people signed up for a webinar. Unless you're spending a ton of money on Facebook ads, where webinars really shine is converting your existing audience. So like a challenge where you're re engaging and selling to your audience, I see a webinar as the way to sell to the, to that audience, sell to an engaged audience. A webinar isn't really going to re engage an audience you have. So I like to host webinars when I have been consistent with like keeping in touch with them through my email list on social media, things like that. When I know they're warm, when I know they're engaged, then a webinar is a great thing to do and it pairs well with other strategies. So for example, I mentioned the challenge. I, I end with a webinar. I pair something that's going to boost engagement with the strategy that's so good at converting that engaged audience. So webinars aren't as great for networking. They're not as great for visibility or lead generation or engaging any leads, whether new or existing leads. But they are good at selling to the audience you already have engaged.

And that's definitely been my experience in the past. And even when I was a Facebook ads consultant, you know, we would drive signups right from Facebook ads. But I always used to tell them, you know, tell the person that I was working with, likely they might not convert this time. You might not see a conversion from them or a purchase from them, two or three or four, you know, maybe even six months down the road, depending on how long they might want to sit on their email list. But it takes time, right, to warm up your audience. And I definitely, that's been my experience. So I want to jump into the next one and we're going to talk a little bit about virtual summits. Can you tell me when they're good to use and how are they different from some of these other strategies?

Yeah, so surprising. No one. Summits are my personal favorite. And the thing I really like to open everyone's eyes to are the fact that summits do all of this at one time. So we said challenges are really great for re engaging your existing audience and launching to them. Bundles are great for list building, not quite for sales. Webinars are great for selling. Ads are great for, you know, lead generation and visibility. Summits do it all, okay? They do it all. They connect you with what, 15, 20, 30 experts in your industry all at once. Because of that, your visibility absolutely explodes because they're promoting something you did. You can see more lead generation than with any of these strategies we've talked about. They're incredible for lead generation. That's a spot where they really shine. They engage those new leads really, really quickly. They engage your existing audience in the meantime because you're doing something really fun your audience wants to be a part of. They make money on their own. Like, the strategy in and of itself will make money and they can lead to an absolutely incredible launch of your offer. So where these other pieces kind of check a box here and there, a summit checks everything all the way down the line. The thing that I like to caution people about here is that it does it all. But of course, because of that, it's going to be a strategy that takes a little bit more time and attention for you to pull off. So that's where if people are like, well, what should I be focused on? One of the first things we'll look at is, okay, how much time do you have to dedicate right now to decide if a summit is something you want to do now or wait a little bit on? But if you're looking for like the highest impact area, you can focus your attention a summit, is it because it is a full funnel all in one?

Well, you know that I'm a big fan of virtual assignments and I do them as one of our main business strategies and one of our other businesses. And I've done them several times in kind of my, my personal brand business. I call it, I call it today my personal brand business. So I'm a huge fan of virtual summits. I think my. A couple of things that I like about them and I'll just go ahead and talk about them a little bit because we talked about the visibility and the connections. I would say that the connections that I have made through doing virtual summits with all, you know, kind of my peers and the business owners out there has been one of my favorite things with the virtual summits. You know, that's what I've liked about it. But they're definitely a great lead generation. You know, it's a good opportunity for you to warm up your audience and, you know, sell, sell to them also. And I, you know, I also pair a webinar at the end of my Virtual Summit. So that's, you know, kind of combining that webinar with that virtual summit has worked well for me. Now in our next episode, so I want to kind of give everybody a heads up of what we're going to talking about next. We're going to be talking about how virtual Summits are that all in one sales funnel. So we're going to dig a little bit more deep into what Krista has mentioned here and just talk a little bit more about virtual summits and how they function and how you can use it to sell your online course or membership. So definitely tune in to the next episode that will be airing tomorrow the next day. And Krista, before we leave here today, can you tell everybody where they can find you on Instagram and I'll make sure that the link for our training that we're going to be doing together is in the episode. So show notes so everybody can sign up for it.

Yeah, you guys can find me on Instagram at Summit in a box. I'd love to stay connected with you there and cannot wait for this training we have Coming up. Destiny.

I'm so excited about it.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end of the episode. Now don't forget to sign up for our free class the three part framework to triple your monthly revenue with a virtual summit while building your list for free. Go to the link in the podcast, show notes and sign up today. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.