Launches that Convert Part 4: Evaluating Results, Changes for the Future, and Overall Thoughts

Sep 28

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In part four of this series, Katrina will be dishing out all the juicy details you really want to know, like the actual numbers behind her launch, lessons she learned, and how to adjust for future launches (plus, helpful mindset tips to keep in mind when executing your own launch). There's no gatekeeping inside this episode!

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone and welcome to the last podcast episode all about the behind the scenes of my launch this June, and how you can take my insights and the things that I've learned and really everything that I was able to implement and utilize it for yourself and your launch in the future as well. So, if you haven't listened to the previous episodes, this entire month has been all about the behind the scenes of this launch. Including a little introduction to what I was launching, how I was setting up my buying culture, how I was getting inspired and creating content for it, the four different stages of a launch, which platforms I was using and why, and that I wanted it to be fun and silly, and how I executed it and created the launch event. A lot of really, really hopefully helpful information that you can utilize for a launch for yourself in the future.

So in this last episode, what we're really going to be focusing on are the results of the launch. How everything went, what I would do the same or different, my overall thoughts about it, some mindset tips around it. There's no gatekeeping here. I'm going to be super, super blatantly honest. Tell you all exactly what my numbers were for analytics and really just overall how I was able to make this work for me and what I want to do differently in the future. So what I really wanted to do to kick off this last episode is talk about the actual numbers of how this launch operated, and what I'm going to be doing differently, the lessons that I learned, and how I'm going to be adjusting this for the future.

If you remember from one of the earlier episodes, I talked about how I really wanted this to be a Reels- focused launch. I knew from previous experience that there wasn't going to be as much engagement if I was doing primarily posts, and I wanted it to feel really fun and easy and just to let my inspiration run free. And so what I ended up doing was having this launch be primarily Reels-based. What that meant, for everyone listening, is that my reach during this time period of the launch event week and the doors are open launch week, is I had a reach of 85,800 people on Instagram. So for anyone who was listening to me earlier and was kind of wondering if doing something along these lines was really going to make that big of a difference. Let me just tell you the numbers do not lie, and 85.8k reach is something I have never had in that span of time on my Instagram, literally ever.

There is a reason why with content Reels is king. There is a reason why with content and marketing in general, people are pushing Instagram Reels and pushing TikTok because that kind of engagement? That is huge. That is more than I have ever had, like ever. What I want also, to set the stage for everyone listening, is back when I worked at Better Homes and Gardens magazine I was specifically in the digital sphere. I want you all to know that when we were working with advertisers or when we were looking at what content to create, and then later on when I was a marketing specialist and social media manager at the 9-5 role I had right before I quit and started my own business, everything that we were looking at? Reach was king, or maybe I should say reach was queen.

When it came to the numbers that we would share with advertisers, when it came to the numbers that we cared about in terms of our own products or our own content, the number one analytic that we were looking at was how much reach we had. More than engagement, more than shares and likes and comments and all that kinda stuff. What we cared about was reach. Because it meant that your face, your content, whatever you're producing was in front of more people. And so that's why I also want to note that when you're looking at reach, organic reach is one thing versus non-organic reach. And so anyone who does not speak that lingo, what I mean by that is non-organic reach would be something like if you have run an ad toward it on Instagram or Facebook, you can also boost posts so that you get more engagement and more reach. And really, we were looking at the organic reach on things as an indicator of how well it was performing overall.

Knowing that I was going into this launch different than previous launches, and knowing that I was going into it with a different approach but also a different buying culture for my audience, one of the biggest goals that I had was more about visibility and more about educating my audience and communicating the new way to purchase from me. Even more than it was about getting click-throughs to my website. Obviously I wanted to sell spots in the mastermind, but even more so I knew I was setting the stage for the future when I would be launching the next round, and getting it to a point where I wanted to make sure that the people who follow me and my audience know that this is how it's going to be moving forward.

So looking at that reach number? I am blown away by that number. I am so proud of the work that I did because I believe I created 16 or 17 Reels in that span of time. In addition to that, less than 10 posts. I know I didn't mention this as much before, but I also want to reiterate that when it did come to posts, I was specifically doing carousel posts more than I was doing a static post. And the reason why I did that is because if you have a carousel post, which means the post where you have multiple images, Instagram is actually going to retarget people who have seen it the first time with that second image.

So what that means is the first time someone is on Instagram and they see my post and maybe they don't engage with it, or maybe they don't comment, like, et cetera, et cetera, Instagram is going to show them it again the next time that they're on the app. But instead of showing the first slide in that carousel post, they will show the second slide in the carousel post. And it's really a way to retarget people who they think are going to be the most likely to interact with your content. Also just like a little tidbit for anyone who is doing posts, I always recommend doing carousels as opposed to a single static post, because you'd have natural built-in retargeting.

But so to give you guys a little bit of the difference, for Reels alone my reach was 85.8k. For my posts, all of my posts, it was less than 500. That is in 85,300 difference. 85,300 difference in reach between my Reels and my posts! And it's not like I did three posts and 17 Reels. I did probably around 10 posts and I believe it was 16 or 17 Reels. So that difference in the reach in the analytics alone was a great way for me to look back and say, "Okay, I now know that moving forward in the future, Reels is going to be a huge way for me to do this. This is going to be something that I'm 100% going to be paying attention to in the future and building my launch plan out around that." so for anyone who is doing a launch, let me just reiterate Reels is where it's at.

When it comes to engagement on my Reels, my engagement was over 3,000. So when we look at the reach and the engagement, it was so worth it. For me, it was something that I knew that the Reels is going to be something I'm moving forward in the future because those numbers are excellent. When I do the math and I look at for Reels alone, the difference between the reach and the engagement, and I actually sit down and like run the numbers on this, what that means is I had an almost 4% conversion rate when it comes to engagement. So I want to like mention at this point in time, when I say conversion rate I just mean like the amount of people who saw it and then engaged with it. So maybe we can say engagement rate. But a 4% engagement rate on Reels is actually something that is really good. A good marketing friend of mine told me that around 5% is what we are looking for, for someone who was putting out, in the span of like 14 days, 17 Reels. I was really doing a lot of content creation and really pushing that, and so I knew I would have a little bit less of an engagement rate, and I was okay with that. But to still have an almost 4% engagement rate was something I was very excited about.

And so yes, in the future I might be doing something to try to get that to be a little bit higher. But with that high of an amount of reach, to have a 4% engagement rate felt really good to me. And that's also something that I'm here for. I'm not complaining, I'm very proud of that number. And if you're curious how I did that math, what I did is I just took the engagement that I got from my Reels and divided it by the reach. So it basically is like, what is the percentage of that reach that actually engaged? So what that means is if 85,800 people saw this piece of content, about 4% of them engaged with the content. Which if you think of sitting on Instagram scrolling through Reels, how often you actually engage? I feel really good about that number.

So to give you the raw data on all of that, what that means is that if I had that high of an account reach, that means I reached 906% more accounts during my launch than I normally do. Which like admittedly, I'm not the most active person. So if I was doing Reels all the freaking time, that might be different. But to have it just be for a launch and to get the conversion that I got, that's great, because I also had over 2000% more engagement. So even though my reach was huge and I reached 900% more accounts, I also had over 2000% more engagement. So when we go back to that 4% engagement rate, I feel really, really happy about that. And that's also like I said, an indication moving forward that most likely those numbers are going to be super, super helpful for me to make decisions when I'm doing the next launch, and I'm looking at that different buying culture and how I want to implement this.

The reason why I wanted to start this episode off giving you guys those hard numbers, especially specifically the Instagram hard numbers, is to also call back to what I was saying earlier in one of the previous episodes that I was planning for this launch from the get-go to be about visibility. To be about retraining my buying audience. To really be about getting my face in front of more people and get them understanding what it is I'm offering, what the benefits are of what I'm offering. So that then in the future when I do another launch like this, it's not going to be a surprise. It's not going to be any different. It's going to be something that really, really resonates with them.

If I go back to that buying culture idea, whenever you're changing a new service or changing the way you're marketing to someone, you're going to have to have a little bit of a shift around how you are interacting with them and how you are training them to purchase with you. Because they're purchasing from you in a way that they've never done it beforehand. So being able to have these analytics and really addressing them at the beginning of this episode will make more sense now, when I go into the things that I would do the same or the things that I would do differently. I think it's pretty obvious that the first thing that I would do the same is really, really have my launch be something that is Reels-focused, that is visibility forward. Because the numbers don't lie, right? 85,000 more reach! I mean, come on!

But that also means that when I look at everything I was doing and how much more engagement I got from Reels than I did from posts, how much more interaction I got from Reels than I did posts, and reach that I got from Reels then I did with posts, it also immediately makes me ask myself why the heck was I not on TikTok? I mean, there are conversations we can have about TikTok versus Instagram. For instance, just something as simple as if you're posting something in the Instagram app and you make a reel in Instagram, and then you download it and repost it to TikTok, it's just not going to perform very well because there are actually things written into the code of the videos that you post on Instagram or on TikTok, that basically Instagram and TikTok put their stamp on. So that then if you try to cross promote and use that exact same content on the other app, unless you've created it completely off app, the opposing app is going to know and it's going to specifically downgrade that.

So doing something on TikTok will be twice as much work. It's going to be something that I'll have to have planned out way more in advance. Where am I going to be creating the content for each of these? Am I going to create an off app and then upload it to both? Am I going to have a different marketing strategy for TikTok versus Instagram? Probably at the moment, is what I'm leaning toward with that. I have a couple months before I need to really nail that down. But the reason why I'm saying probably, is because also the type of content that performs best on Instagram is not going to be the type of content that performs best on TikTok.

For those of you who have utilized both of those apps, you will find that a lot of trending audios are huge on Instagram. You're getting a lot of the same. It's almost like you're getting like 10% of the variety of what you have on TikTok, where longer form videos are now picking up more on TikTok. You're able to see on TikTok that there are people who are just talking to the camera, doing super educational so it doesn't have to be trending audio. They just have different ways of utilizing the same type of content for different audiences. And so having what I would guess would be some content that I create off app and upload to both, but then specific content I upload to Instagram and specific content I upload to tikTok is going to be the route that I take.

And I'm sure everyone listening is like, "Holy shit, Katrina. That sounds like it's going to be a lot of work." And the fact is it is, but I'm already excited to look at the analytics of what happens after the fact. Am I going to have more conversion from TikTok or from Instagram? Am I going to see a specific type of content does actually perform better on TikTok or does actually perform better on Instagram? When I have the same content that I create off app and I upload it to both places, am I going to be able to see that well, "Oh, this one performed way better on TikTok." Maybe that'll change my entire marketing strategy. I don't know.

This is a key thing when you're running your business, experimentation. It's sitting down and saying, "I don't need to have all of the answers, but I can figure them out as I go," and every single thing is I'm trying something. Sitting down, looking back at what I did, learning from it, adjusting and moving forward. That's why I wanted to also make sure that we ended this podcast series with this episode on the things I would do differently and the things I would do the same, and my overall thoughts and my reminders on mindset. Because, and I know I'm talking a mile minutes sorry guys, but you can tell I'm excited about this! It's because when you're running a business, if you don't look back at the things that you've already done, you don't know how to adjust them and tweak them so that they're done even better in the future. It's not when you do something and it doesn't work out the first time you completely scrap it and you try something new. You take what you've done and you learn from it, and you evaluate it, and you look at it. You take the main takeaways away, and then you slightly adjust and use that information to move forward in a more informed, more educated way.

So some of the other things that I would probably do different, is going to be some things around what I have learned in this new buying culture / visibility launch versus conversion launch that I've talked about in the previous episodes. Some of that is going to be based off of the things that I've learned, but some of that is also going to be based off of the fact that it is not like the "switching to a new buying culture" but more "in the new buying culture". And so I'm just going to like go through all of these things for you guys and add some information where needed. But again, it makes me excited to launch again. Which I don't know if you've ever heard someone beforehand ever say "I'm excited to launch again." Because it feels fun! It feels like I'm getting some big juicy information that I can utilize to make things even better the next time around.

So with the new buying culture, I know that the launch is going to look a little bit different just in and of itself. I'm not going to have to do as much educating around how this is going to happen. I can be a little bit more blatantly obvious too, because people have seen it beforehand. People are going to know there's going to be a launch event. People are going to know that I'm going to open the doors to the mastermind. People already know what the mastermind looks like because it's not new service. It's going to be a little bit more obvious and a little bit more laid out in advance, so I won't have to do as much education around it. But that also means that I get to plan a little bit more in advance how I'm going to do it.

If you remember from one of the previous episodes, I said that I would recommend most launches being around six to eight weeks. And this launch for me was more four to five weeks, which is pretty short. Part of that was just because I couldn't get started until I had done all of the work around repositioning the mastermind, building out the website and the sales pages for the mastermind. I wanted to get that done first. Just even things like what was the pricing going to look like? How many people can be in it? How is the format going to look? I was completely repackaging and repurposing and repositioning, and did branding photos and copy and all of this stuff. And I couldn't launch until that stuff was ready to go, really, and that stuff was also contingent on people outside of myself.

So when it came to what I was doing then, I'm actually going to be approaching this launch differently in letting it be a little bit longer, a little bit more laid back. A little bit more, I don't know, just easy and luxurious is the word that comes to mind. What I mean by luxurious is like for how it feels for me. So I'm going to probably be starting building out this launch in September, October. Doors aren't going to open until January. But the thing is that being able to plan it out in advance, really talking about that buying culture, really like helping people get set up for purchasing it in January?

That's going to start earlier and my plan is going to start even earlier. So that then I am able to do both TikTok and Instagram, and email marketing and my referral network, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to have the time to do that in a way that doesn't feel super stressed or feel super last minute. I'm going to be able to let it feel just a little bit better in my body to go through this launch than the last time. Granted the last time, as I mentioned beforehand... really, really sick for two weeks. Accidental vacation that I wasn't planning to have in the middle of this launch. Weaning off of some medication and going through the bodily changes that were happening with that. There was a lot going on for me personally, during this previous launch.

And so also by planning out more in advance, it's going to give me the space to make it feel more fun. It's going to give me the space to experiment a little bit more. It's going to give me the space to say, "Ooh, how am I going to get inspired? What Reels do I want to do or TikToks? Or what content do I want to do? How do I want to approach this differently?" Like one of the things I'm already considering for the next time around is "How do I build in some like accessibility into it? Do I have the option right now for people to have transcripts in the mastermind. How do I build that into my marketing process? How am I accessible to all price points?" And being able to really consider those things now, as opposed to doing them in the moment.

Also some of what I'm talking about with this fun and luxurious and laid back, is I really get to amp up like, "Ooh! What felt really good in this last one? What parts felt like the most fun? Like, am I going to be doing the Hot Seat Happy Hour again? Hell yeah, you betcha! Am I maybe going to run ads to the event this time? Yeah. That's a definite possibility!" Because who doesn't want to just like grab a glass of wine or a beer or a LaCroix or whatever it is that you want to drink, and sit down and have it be a fun and interactive way to work with a business coach. As opposed to like "Hop on this webinar and I'll introduce myself for 15 minutes and then do like a half an hour very vague information, and then sell something to you for 15 minutes." Doesn't feel good to anyone. So amping up the more fun, and paying attention to what I did this last time that felt really fun and easy, is going to make it way easier and way more fun the next time around too.

Some of the other more obvious changes are going to be because the buying culture's already set up, because the mastermind's already set up, that Hot Seat Happy Hour event will also be featuring the current mastermind members and they're going to be able to answer some questions. They're going to be able to give a little bit of insight of what it felt like for them to be in the event.

And again, I'm not here to gatekeep anything. I will tell you the reason why I'm doing that, is twofold. Well, it might even be threefold. One, is to have someone who's in it to answer the questions from the people who are coming. Two, is so that the people who are coming can hear firsthand and get some social proof around the beauty of the mastermind, and how flipping productive and inspiring and motivating and just fricking fun it is. I love this mastermind, if you couldn't tell. But then also three, to get the current members excited about possibly rejoining and staying in it long term, because they're the ones who the doors open to first. So having them in the Hot Seat Happy Hour means that they also get the opportunity to stay in it longer, and give them a little bit more of an incentive and a reminder of like, "Oh yeah. I really freaking loved this."

Some other really teeny tiny changes though? I had a replay to that event that literally, I think one person watched. I know I mentioned when we talked about the launch event and the previous podcast episode, that we also had some technical difficulties around partnering Zoom and Eventbrite, and passwords and all that kind of stuff. That will not be a thing this time around. We're going to make that much smoother and do a much better job of testing it out in advance. And also hopefully I won't be hosting that from my grandparents house in Indiana, while my grandfather's trying to barge into the room, which is a whole 'nuther story. But what I'm going to do is maybe put a 48 hour replay limit on it. So it's like, "If you want this information, you have this 48 hours to get it." Because if they don't watch the replay and they aren't at the live event, then what incentive does someone have to sign up for the bonus, right? And so giving people a little bit more incentive around that.

One of the things that I do want to 100% make sure that I keep... I mean, we've talked a lot about things I might change. Something I'm going to keep is a big push toward talking directly to me, as opposed to coming to the website to purchase. Part of this is because of how the apps operate. Instagram for instance, is going to be less likely to promote your Reels or your posts if you have the words "link in bio" in them. I mean, Instagram is smart. The algorithm is smart. It knows people don't really want that "link in bio" content as much, so it's not going to show it to you. Whereas they want you to stay on the app as long as possible, so they're going to give you something entertaining. Something that is going to keep you scrolling. So telling people like "Pop into my DMs, let's talk through it," they're going to promote that over "link in bio," 'cause "link in bio" is taking you off app, and "talk in my DMs" is keeping you in app. So that's going to be something that I definitely keep.

One of the other things that I'm going to be sure to keep is, we've talked a lot about the social media, but its also the email marketing. This is something I'm going to keep, but I'm also going to adjust how I utilize it. As I have mentioned, that launch was a heck of a ride for me personally. It just happens to be really wrapped up with everything else. And so what I'm going to be doing is also really paying better attention to the analytics of my email while I'm in the event, as opposed to just waiting until after the event.

And you want to know why? Because I got to the point where it was after the event and the doors were closed and it was like, "We're starting the mastermind right here and right now," and I was able to go through and say, "Oh. This person clicked through to read about the mastermind and I can see exactly who clicked through to read about the mastermind." I didn't follow up with them. I didn't initiate a conversation with them. I didn't say, "Hey, it looks like all of you people were interested in possibly joining the mastermind. It looks like you wanted some more information. Do you have any questions? Is there anything I can talk through with you? How can I help you?" I could have used that to create more warm leads and to actually go through and figure things out. I could have looked through everyone who opened up the emails and paid attention more to that. I could look through who interacted with what, who clicked through to what, and really cater how I reached out to people one-on-one based off of that. I didn't do that and I really should have, and now I know for the next time that I will be checking the analytics of every single email, or my business manager or someone will, so that I know I can be reactive in the moment in addition to just being proactive in looking at it for the next one.

Overall, I'm trying to keep this episode from getting too long because that's what we do here at the Badass Business Squad podcast. But overall, my whole point of telling you guys all this information is so that you can get inspired and have something to respond to, and understand my thought process through thinking through why I created the launch I did. How I might do things differently in the future. How I just approach building out these sort of campaigns in general and why. The why, the how, the what. All of those things being answered. The where, right? Instagram, TikTok, email marketing, whatever it is.

There are definitely things that I think can help all of you, regardless of if you are similar to how you approach your business if you're a service provider, if you're doing these specific offers. Or if you are a product based business and you're like, "Well I'm not going to be doing these things, but I'm going to be able to look through on my email and see who reached out to these things, and maybe send them a reminder email. 'Hey, I saw you put this in your basket. Reminder, you get this extra discount at this point in time.'" my whole goal is just to really break down the barrier between the information on how to do something, how to approach it for you, and not have it be so behind closed doors.

Also as a reminder for anyone who is doing any launching, it's okay to feel intimidated. It's okay to also hate it while you're in it and be like, "No one's going to purchase from me!" I will say, I have six spots in the mastermind. I sold three of them. So I sold 50% of my spots, and I feel really good about this because I was introducing a new buying culture. The next round, I'm going to have a different goal set having already introduced this round. So also just like a reminder that if you're in it and it feels like no one's purchasing, you now also have this information to base how you might change things moving forward or why you're doing things the way that you're doing them. So you can ask yourself, "Okay. No one signed up for this, is it because I was just dropping them right into the new buying culture and they weren't already familiar with how to do it? Let's look at the analytics. Was I getting enough reach? Was I actually getting in front of people's eyes? Let's look at the open rates on my emails. Was my subject line converting? Were people getting enticed enough to go in here? How can I take this same scaffolding of my launch and edit it and shift it and change it moving forward so that then I can get closer and closer and closer and closer to what people need?"

And I also want to reiterate that like, your launch is always going to be constantly evolving. I know that there's a lot of conversation out there in this world about kind of having like a "set and forget it" way of launching. Or like, "I do the same launch type every single time." With how the world shifts and how social media shifts and all of that kind of stuff, you're going to also always be constantly adjusting it. You never get to a point where you're like, "I've perfected how I launch and it's going to be perfect." Because if you think about how people launched pre-pandemic versus how people launched in the pandemic that had a shift to accommodate what time they had, what people could afford, how people were like all of a sudden now using TikTok, right?

So you're shifting to include these new marketing techniques or outdated marketing techniques. Think about a Reels-based launch like what I did, versus a post-based launch which did not do nearly as well. All of those posts that I had? If someone was mainly just like, "Here's a photo talking about my service in the paragraph below it." It's not going to convert as much and you're going to be able to take that information and move it forward. I'm even anticipating that like the next time I launch there might be some new things. Like maybe I'm not going to really have any posts at all. I already talked about I'm going to be introducing TikTok, maybe introducing ads. Ways to do it in a way that's even more going to make sense for the current landscape of how we're living.

So if you get to a point where you're just like, "Okay like I'm adjusting these things. I'm paying attention, but I feel like I still have to keep adjusting every single time." That's fine, that's normal. That's what you want to do. You don't want it to get stale because then it will stop converting and it won't work.

And then also, also also what I always remind people is that most people purchase at the end of a launch. There are always early adopters, so you maybe get someone who's just like, "Yeah I'm going to sign up right away!" And then you'll have crickets for a week and a half, and then you have three people sign up on the last day. It's very, very, very normal. Having that mindset going into it is what will allow you to have the momentum and keep going when you are inside the launch, and you are feeling not inspired or nobody's purchasing or whatever it is. Because we're all human beings, and we all believe in our businesses so much. And we all really just want people to come and purchase from us, and also we all got bills to pay.

So just a reminder to everyone it also is not going to be the expectation that people are just going to be like purchasing every single day, every single day, every single day. Again, your launches can always shift. Your launches can always change. You are the one who is making the rules. You are the one who is making the plan. If you want to extend it a day, extend it a day. If someone comes to you and is like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't purchase! Uh, doors closed, can I still join?" You're the one who made that rule. Let 'em join if you want 'em to. There are so many ways that you can make it work for you, so also don't feel locked in. Don't feel like this is something that is holding me back. Allow yourself to have some flexibility within your launch plan and really make it work for you. Ask yourself what the goals are, ask yourself what you want beforehand, and then evaluate at the end. That's going to be the best way to prepare for the future.

So anyway, I have really enjoyed doing this four-part series with everyone. I hope that it has been helpful for you as well. As always, my DMs are open. If you're like Katrina, "I was listening to this launch podcast series and I love it. But what about this thing? You never actually talked about it. I kept hoping you would." Or "Would you mind actually telling me exactly what XYZ looked like or how you did this?" Again, my DMs are always open. Please, please, please come and find me and let me know, and I will always be happy to help.