166: Lessons Learned From My Last 3 Launches

I've been launching different offers in the last 3 months, and on this episode, I'm breaking down my 3 biggest takeaways that apply to all of these launches. Make the most of your launch and get out of your head on this episode. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. And now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Y'all, I have had a busy summer. It has been a busy 90 days. And today I want to talk about those 90 days because I have been launching a lot in those 90 days and I've been launching different parts of my business. But there are a few things that I have learned that have been similar in each of those launches that we're going to talk about today because I think it's important to really understand that we can learn a lot of lessons from what we're doing. We're going to talk about some lessons that I learned in my last 3 launches. So let me just break this down for you as far as timeframe and what I've been doing. At the beginning of May, I launched my Monogram Box subscription, really the end of April, beginning of May. And so that was my annual subscription box launch. I hadn't done one for about a year, so I did that. End of April, early May. Then in June, I hosted my big subscription box week, which is my SLO funnel into Launch Your Box. And so I did that in June, big launch for me. That, that's also an annual launch. And then in July, I did my annual teacher subscription launch. So I have a teacher subscription. I call it my baby subscription because I only had 145 subscribers in that. Subscription going into my launch in July. And each one of these is very different. I have thousands of Monogram Box subscribers, I have thousands of Laundry Box members, and then I have a couple hundred teacher subscriptions. So you can see that these are going to vary a little bit as far as what I was launching, but they all had very similar lessons learned. And I pulled out these 3 lessons learned that applied to all 3 of these launches. And I really want you to think about these things. If you're the kind of person that maybe is listening while you're driving in the car, great. If you are maybe on a walk, I really want you to just get outside of your norm while you're listening to this episode today and just think about these 3 things that I'm going to talk about and how to apply them to your own launches, because they're going to make a big difference for you. And I saw it. Time and time again. I saw it all 3 times. And so I thought it was really important for us to talk about it today because sometimes we think we have to just be extreme to have results and we don't, we just have to get smart about what we're doing and we have to get incredibly consistent. And honestly, all 3 of these involve a mindset block that we might be having. And so I want to talk about these today and how they applied to my last 3 launches. So let's dig in. Okay, so the very first thing— there's 3 lessons learned here. 3 lessons learned from my last 3 launches. That's what we're going to call this episode. Let's talk about the first one. Number 1 lesson learned in these last 3 launches is that people are buying. And anytime someone has a bad sales day or a bad whatever, that's the first thing that They're going to say, oh, our economy's rough. Oh, everything's more expensive. And all of that is true. Our economy has been a little unstable the last few years. Little, I say mildly. The price of things are crazy. To go buy $100 worth of groceries, you barely get anything anymore. And that used to like last a family of 4 for an entire week for me. And so despite all of that, People are buying. So what I'm wanting you to learn here is not to use it as an excuse for why you can't do something. People are buying, and I'm going to give you 3 examples of this from my last 3 launches. My Monogram Box launch, $79 box, there's not anything in it that anybody needs, it's purely wants, it's very girly. I sold 421 subscriptions in 5 days. From someone that no one needs. It's a premium price at $79, and that showed me really early on that people were buying. People buy what they want. People buy what they feel connected to. Example number 2 of people are buying: I launched my Subscription Box Week, which is my funnel into the Launch Your Box membership. And my sales for subscription box week were down. They were actually the lowest that they had ever been. I had 1,800 people sign up for my $15 a week. And from that 1,800 people, I converted over 800 people in 8 days into my membership, my $57 a month membership. Okay, people were buying. I had a 43% conversion rate from people that joined me in subscription box week who then joined my membership. You can say the economy is bad all you want to. You can say people aren't buying, but you're giving yourself an excuse because I'm showing you an example of people that are buying. Example number 3, that little baby subscription of mine that had 145 subscribers. I make 1 t-shirt a month. Got 145 people that get it every month. Last week I added 95 new people to that subscription. 95 people to a subscription that had 145 people. I've got 240 subscribers over there now. In one week I added 95 people for a t-shirt subscription. If you keep telling yourself that the economy is bad and no one's buying and that's why I'm not selling anything, you're doing yourself a disservice. You're doing yourself a disservice because you're giving yourself an out. You're giving yourself an excuse when I've proved not once, not twice, but 3 times in 3 different markets that people are buying. And I know people are buying in a lot of different markets because I see it with my students every single day. They're launching, they're gaining hundreds of subscribers, they're having success. So when you keep telling yourself that the economy is bad and that's why you're not being successful, you're giving yourself an out, and I need you to stop it. People want to feel connected to the brands and the products that they buy. So if people aren't connected to you, that's why they're not buying. My subscription box launch, I showed up live every single day during that launch. I sent emails every single day during that launch to connect with them. During subscription box week, I showed up multiple times live in that group every single day. I showed up in the comments, I answered questions, I encouraged, I showed— I did interviews from every single day. I did an interview of one of my students in a different niche, maybe a different age, to show them there's people out there like you being successful. And I converted at 43%. 43% of the people that signed up for my $15 week also signed up for my $57 a month membership because they felt connected to me. They felt like they could do this. It was bigger than just the course. Then you saw it again with my teacher subscription, and this one was a little bit more hands-off because not all of my audience are teachers. So I didn't go live every day talking about teacher subscriptions. I went live 3 times I sent an email every day and I ran ads targeting teachers and I sold 95 subscriptions and a subscription that I started with 145, nearly doubling my subscriber base in one week. People are buying. So that's number one. I need you to get out of the mindset that people aren't buying right now because it's just not true. It's not true. And you're giving yourself an excuse if you keep telling yourself that's why you're not successful or that's why you can't do it. I hinted at lesson number 2 in lesson number 1, but number 2 is you need paid ads. And it took me a long time to really do this with my own business because I started it 11 years ago and algorithms were a lot different 11 years ago. Facebook wasn't as cluttered 11 years ago, and we had a lot more organic growth 11 years ago than we can now. And it's really just taking me time to understand that I have to have that kind of budget in my business. If you don't have an advertising budget in your business right now, you're probably not growing. If you don't have an advertising budget in your business right now, you're fooling yourself to think you're a legit business. Every single legit business out there has an advertising budget. Every business from the coffee shop around the corner to the, to Walmart and everybody in between has an advertising budget. If you don't have one, you're doing yourself a disservice. Let's talk about the difference that these ads made during my launches, okay? Because I want you to understand this. You need that to grow. You need that to get new subscribers. During my Monogram Box launch, 82% of all the traffic that hit my sales page came directly from ads. 82%. It was thousands of people, like 9,000 people. 9,000 people came directly from my ads. 82% of my traffic was from those ads. 9,000 hits on my sales page was 82% of my traffic. For Subscription Box Week, we saw something similar. 75% of all traffic to my sales page for Subscription Box Week came from those ads. 75%. If I wouldn't have run ads, to subscription box week, I would have had 75% less traffic seeing my sales page. And let's talk about the baby subscription, my teacher subscription. That one was the highest of all. 90% of all the traffic that went to my sales page for my teacher launch was from ads. I was getting a lot of traffic from those ads. They were helping me find my ideal customer. 82% of my traffic for the Monogram Box came from ads. 75% of traffic for Subscription Box Week came from ads. And 90% of all traffic for the Teacher Launch came from ads. And you can say, that's great, Sarah, but did it convert to sales? It did. When we look at the monogram box, 45% of all our sales came from a Facebook ad. That means of my 421 people that I added in 5 days, I would have less than half of— I would have half of that had I not run ads. Do you see what that did for my launch? It took me from 200 to 420. Just by running some ads. What would it mean to you to double your efforts that you're already doing? Even if I hadn't run ads, I would have been doing lives, I would have been sending emails, I would have been making posts. But those ads that I put in place just helped me double the efforts I was already making organically. We saw the same thing with Subscription Box Week. 47% of everyone that signed up for Subscription Box Week clicked on the link from the ad and signed up right there. 47%. I had 1,800 people in that group. Half of that, I would have had 900. There's no way I could have gotten 800 new members with 900 people in a group. I needed that other 47% for that launch. And we saw the highest conversion rate for our teacher ads and our Facebook ads. 67% of all the sales we had for our teacher subscription came from those ads. 67%. Let me do the math real quick. I'm going to get the phone out while we're talking and I'm going to do a little math because I need you to understand if I would have done my teacher launch and I would have just done it organically and I not would have paid for, for any ads at all, I would have gotten 32 subscribers. I've gotten 32 subscribers, which doesn't seem bad. It's a nice little lift to my 145. But because I ran ads, that 32 turned into 95. That's the difference ads can make. So lesson number 2 in these 3 launches, you need paid ads. And I understand that if you've never run ads, it's really hard thing for you to wrap your head around. And that's why I'm giving you my stats so that you can understand how important they are and how much difference they'll make. And yeah, there's a lot of factors in these ads. What was my budget? How many ads did I have? What were they running to? While all that, all those variables are true for the results, you have to start somewhere. All these had different budgets. Some, the lowest was $4,000 and the highest budget was $98,000. So you can see that you just have to start. You might start with $300. That's where I started when I started running ads. I started running ads for $10 a day. And that was $300 a month. And then when I started to see results from that, I started to go $15 a month and then $30 a month and then $50— not a month, a day— $15 a day, $30 a day. $50 a day, $100 a day, $1,000 a day. You have to start somewhere and you have to understand what you're doing with that $10 a day before you ever feel comfortable running $30 a day. That just took your budget from $300 to $900. But if you're seeing results from that $300, you're going to feel more comfortable going to $900. But you need paid ads. Can you do a lot organically? You can, but you can see I would have a fraction of my results had I tried to do it all organically. Would you rather have 32 subscribers or 95 for basically the same effort? I want 95 all day. You need paid ads. And we can't wait till the launch to do that. We need to start now so that by the time we launch, people recognize our brand and our face and our products. You can run page-like ads, you can run a lead magnet, you can run an opt-in, but during your launches, you need to be running ads. Number 3, my third lesson learned. With all 3 of these launches. You've got to create exclusivity and scarcity in your business. We have a real bad habit of trying to make everything available all the time. We gotta stop it. We're— we think when we do that, we're helping someone. I think if I do that, if I offer a monthly option and then a 3-month and a 6-month and a 1-year option, I see this all the time from my students. Oh, I'm just giving them a discount for the more they subscribe. No, you're giving them decision fatigue. It's monthly or it's nothing. It's not monthly and oh, they can buy a one-time box. No, they're going to choose the one-time box. Even if it's $5 more, even if it's $10 more, they're going to choose that every time because they don't have to make a commitment that way. And it might be worth it, the extra $5. To not have to make the commitment. So you're giving them an out. You're allowing them not to be a subscriber. We've got to create the exclusivity and scarcity of being a subscriber. We have to limit things. I've gotten into a bad habit of doing this in my own business. I've been ordering extras. I've been making them available as one-time boxes, and I had to stop it. And the moment I stopped it, I got 421 new subscribers. We have to guide our customer journey here. When they come to our sales page, we have to tell them exactly what we want them to do. And for me, I want them to be a monthly subscriber, period. I don't want them buying a one-time box and testing it out. I don't want them signing up for 3 months and canceling. I want them to be a monthly subscriber, period. And that's the only journey for them. I don't even have a yearly option on my site. I want them to be a monthly subscriber, and so that's how I guide them on my website. You want my box? Here it is as a monthly subscription, period. They don't have to make any decisions. We've got to be exclusive, and we've got to be scarce, and we've got to create urgency with it. We can't keep making everything available all the time. Your items sell out during a launch? Don't buy more. Let it be sold out. You have no idea what that scarcity is doing for that next launch. Oh, I missed it the first time. I got to make sure I get it this time. We're creating these behaviors. We're telling them how to shop with us, because if it's always available, if it's always readily available to them, there's no reason for them to buy right now. We have to give them a reason to buy. You can only get this item in the subscription. It's only available right now in this subscription. We're closing the cart and you have to get on a waitlist. I did this with the Launch Your Box membership a couple months ago. I had left it as an open membership for several years, for 3 years, and I noticed that every year my launches had declined in numbers. And I also noticed that my retention rate was declining as well. And I told the team earlier this year, I said, I think I gotta close the cart. And I know we haven't done that in a long time. And I know we got a lot of funnels we gotta close up to do this. But I think that's what I need to be successful in this launch. And they said, okay, let's do it. I had my highest converting launch ever last month, ever in this awful economy where nobody's buying. I had my highest converting launch ever for Launch Your Box, adding in over 800 new members in an election year. Gas prices are fluctuating up and down every day. Groceries are more expensive than ever. And I had my highest converting launch ever, my most successful launch. I want you to think about that. All I had to do was get visible with my ads and create some scarcity that they couldn't just come in and out of my membership anymore. They couldn't wait for a few months when they were ready. They had to jump in now. They couldn't put it off. How many times do we look at something to buy and we think, oh, let me come back later. I want to read about it. I want to look into it. I want to make a decision about this, but I'll come back later. And we never come back. Just be honest with yourself. We never go back. We're so busy. We have to be able to create urgency for someone to make a decision, a split-second decision in that moment. If I know I can't get this later, I'm going to get it now. I'm going to stop what I'm doing. Pay attention to what it is and purchase it now because it won't be there when I come back. And that's what we've been doing with our subscription boxes. We've been making them readily available all the time to everyone, no matter what they want. Oh, I just want a one-time box. Okay, here you go. Oh, can you give me a discount if I get a whole year? Sure, here you go. Oh, can I just buy the one thing? Sure, here it is. No, the answer is you can get it monthly in my subscription or you don't get it at all. Period. It's our house, our rules. And we're doing ourselves a disservice by making it readily available all the time. We've got to create that exclusivity and scarcity in our business to really drive conversions, to drive acquisitions, to drive new subscribers. And that will also help you keep them. Because if they know they can jump out this month and join again next month, they'll do it. Any opportunity that they need. Oh, I've got a— my electric bill was higher this month, so let me cancel my subscription box. I'll just jump back in a couple of months. But you know what? You can't. Because it won't be available for you to jump back in a few months, you'll have to join the waitlist. And that keeps people, and that's where our retention rate soars. So I want you to think about these 3 things that I've really just taken as big lessons as I've been launching over the last 3 months. And here's another thing that people in our industry always say, in the kind of the e-commerce industry, the J months are the worst. And they talk about January and they talk about June and July. J months are the worst months. I just had 2 of my best launches ever in the J months. We give ourselves reason to tell us, we give ourselves reasons to not work hard. We give ourselves reasons to say, oh, this is why things aren't working. When we actually look behind the scenes and figure out why things aren't working, we're giving ourselves excuses. Oh, it's a J month. Oh, the economy's bad. Oh, people aren't buying. We do it all the time to make ourselves feel better. We put these mindset blocks up. People aren't buying, that's why I'm doing bad, so I don't have to do anything about it. I need paid ads, but I don't know how to do that, so I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm going to give all these options so that people can just buy my thing, but I'm not creating any exclusivity and scarcity in my business. We— these are mindset shifts. That we need to take. Get out of your head. There's never the perfect month. There's never the perfect year. There's never the perfect time to launch your business or launch your subscription. People, I said, what's the best month to launch your subscription, Sarah? And I'm like, whenever it's best for you, because it doesn't matter what month I launch any of these offers. If I go all in, if I show up, if I connect with my audience, I'm going to be successful no matter if it's J month or not. Quit giving yourself excuses not to do the work. People are buying. You need paid ads. And you have to create exclusivity and scarcity. I want you to think about that in your own business and see how you'll do things differently during your next launch. And I'll be back next week for another great episode. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.