Let’s imagine that you’ve created your ebook and now you want to make some sales.
Question: Do you want your blog to look this this?

Only $17.99! Get A Free Bonus with my AMAZING eBook! Save $599 Dollars right now!

Offer closes in only 6 hours – after that the price of the eBook will rise to $97!

Do you like that kind of marketing? I don’t. Actually, I hate it!

If you want to build an ongoing relationship with your readers, this kind of in-your-face-marketing is a definite turn-off.

How to launch a product – without aggravating your readers

Some years ago, an Internet marketer called Jeff Walker, came up with an idea of how to adapt marketing to the Internet. He created a course, called Product Launch Strategy. Every marketer (and her dog) has taken this course. Just to mention a few: Frank Kern, Jeff Johson, John Reese, and Brian Clark.

The problem is: it doesn’t work anymore.

But I’ll tell you how it’s supposed to work: in Jeff Walker’s strategy, the launch is divided into three phases: Preprelaunch, Prelaunch and Launch.

The Preprelaunch

This is a phase in your overall launch where you’re not talking about the product yet. All you are doing is warming up your list. Warming up a list is mainly about starting a conversation with people on your list. Ask questions, and find out what their pain is and how you can solve their problem.

The Prelaunch

The prelaunch is a series of articles, podcasts or videos that focus on the topic of your product. Everything you send out has to be content-rich. At the same time, you will need to address the reservations and barriers that would prevent people from buying your product, as well as convey the benefits. The reason the prelaunch phase is so important is because people buy on trust.

The Launch

The launch is the time when you open for sales until you close the sale period. Most marketers build some kind of urgency into their offer, mostly by offering a time-limited bonus or discount.

The concept that Jeff created is ‘the sideways sales letter’.

The Sideways Sales Letter

A typical long sales letter is designed for people who arrive at a site through clicking on ads, or searching the Internet through using keywords. You can easily recognize such sales letters as the headlines are usually in red and text is highlighted in yellow (like my example at the start of this article). It’s usually quite long, as it needs to explain the benefits, counter people’s reservations, lay out the content, and so on.

In contrast, the ‘sideways sales letter’ is a strategy of sending out sequential, content-rich emails that each address problems that the target group has, or benefits that the product offers. This is called ‘content marketing’.

Why Jeff Walker’s strategy doesn’t work anymore

Jeff himself had problems with his last campaign to get people to join the newest version of Product Launch Strategy. I think people are sick of these long campaigns. It’s like a machine rolling along towards the final sales page. You can spot a launch campaign a long way off. I think it’s too long and too much.

The no-launch-at-all strategy

I tried this strategy when I came out with my first ebook, Overcome Anything. What I did was to throw it at people, without preparing them in any way for it.

The result: zilch sales!

Here’s another mistake I made after non-launch misfired:

Demoralized, I then took the book off the market and gave it away for free – which was another mistake. I should have just continued to sell it on my site. At the time, Goodlife ZEN had only about 400 subscribers – so of course I didn’t make any sales. Now GLZ has over 30,000 subscribers. If I had left it up for sale in the last three years, I would have made quite a decent income from it.

How I rescued the book

I’ve now re-written and re-titled my book and have Start Over: Create the Life YOU Want up for sale for $7 and the ‘guide’ (which includes podcasts and a video) for $17. I make sales each day.

How to create a ‘soft’ launch

Ok – so if the full-on product launch strategy doesn’t work any more – and the non-launch gets you nowhere – what to do? Some of the elements of the old tried and true launch strategy still work – they just need a little tweaking and updating.

Here are three must-do launch elements:

1. The Hollywood strategy

Think about when you first hear about a new film made in Hollywood. Is it when they release the film? No! It’s long before they even start to film the project. You’ll read news snippets about who has got the leading role, the location where it’s going to be filmed and so on. You’ll also be entertained with juicy gossip about the stars. As the release date gets closer, you’ll see a few snippets of the film on TV or online. There’ll be discussions, YouTube previews and interviews with the producer, the director and the stars.

By the time the film screens in your local theater, you are well primed to see it. The Hollywood strategy is all about anticipation.

How to build anticipation

If you have a blog, it’s easy to build anticipation. Just tell your readers well ahead of time what you’re planning to create. Write some posts about your ebook topic and ask for comments to get your readers involved in the discussion. For example, I wrote some posts about starting over in life and asked readers to tell their stories about starting over, offering to publish some of them in my upcoming book. Readers wrote their stories in the comments and I then invited some of them to expand their story for the book.

2. The ‘bikini’ strategy

If you want to keep a good relationship with your readers or email recipients, you need to give away awesome content about the topic related to the book or product you want to launch. Don’t be worried about giving away important information for free! All you need to do is to use the ‘bikini’ strategy – that is, to reveal 90 percent – but keep the crucial 10 percent hidden!

In my experience, what people really need – and are willing to pay for – are step-by-step instructions. That’s why you can reveal a lot of information about a topic. They will still need need those crucial bits of information that helps them to actually learn a new skill and put it into action.

3. The ‘last days of the universe’ strategy (an alternative)

Once you arrive at the week of your first sales, you need to give people an incentive to buy the ebook or product. I don’t like triggering fear or greed. However, you can offer incentives for decisive action. For example, you can offer a bonus that is only available for a few days, or you can give a discount for those who make a quick decision. Personally, I avoid the big scarcity play that tells people ‘these are the last days ever …’ It can sound like doomsday.

Why relaunching is a great option

So maybe your launch fell flat and your product is languishing on the shelf. What to do? There is a simple answer: run a relaunch. You can do that a few times each year. All you need is a reason for your relaunch. You could do a Christmas Special, or an Easter Sale. You can bundle the ebook with other digital products to create something new (like the GLZ Start-Over Guide) and offer that for sale. There are myriad ways you can relaunch your product.

As long as you create great content to go with your launch or relaunch and don’t hammer your readers with marketing, they will be happy to buy from you.

Author:  Mary Jaksch