A Case Study by Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering

There are lots of posts out there talking about the secrets to a stellar launch or the pitfalls of a launch flop. As a first-time blogger (at the time of this writing I’ve been blogging for seven months), I have no clue whether mine fits in the stellar or flop category. I do know that I am pleased with the results and that other new bloggers may benefit from my story.

This is my step-by-step process from ebook idea to launch. Use this information to help you launch your own product. Infuse these steps with your style, modify them to suit your approach, so that in the end, they become part of your launch story.

The Beginning

I gleefully approach Mary Jaksch of A-List Blogging for advice on launching a free ebook. The ebook material is ready and I hope to have it up and running in a couple of weeks. Hmm, not so fast perhaps. Mary asks me some key questions:

“What is the goal?”
“What is the destination?”
“Do you want to be an A-List Blogger with lots of subscribers or do you want to be an entrepreneur building an internet business, creating an email list and making money, or are you a hybrid of both?”

My head is reeling with thoughts of selling out and morphing into a used-car salesman, so I unplug and take a long walk to reflect upon why I’m doing this. I go back to my reasons for starting a blog and the impetus for writing the book in the first place. The purpose and meaning comes flooding back.

Here’s what I wrote in response:

“My goal is to be true to myself and to do what I love. I love to collaborate, create, write, help others, mentor, motivate and inspire. I believe that I can do these things most effectively as an A-List Blogger hybrid – a bloggerpreneur, if you will.”

It’s a big day one.

The Takeoff

Mary’s looked at my ebook and thinks I’m crazy to give it away for free. She’s come up with an ambitious plan involving a free subscriber incentive product, a course with a workbook and an e-book. I like parts of this plan and decide to simplify it. I won’t do a course, but I will offer Chapter One of the ebook as a free subscriber incentive and then sell the ebook.

And with that, I begin 70 days of tweaking, editing, designing, testing, linking, writing, rewriting, and fiddling with maddening technical stuff that takes me hours to understand – all part of a three phase plan involving a subscriber incentive, a paid ebook and a launch campaign.

The Process

When I begin this process I have 131 email subscribers.

Phase 1: Subscriber Incentive

1. Hire an editor and proofreader to polish and finalize the material (Cost: $222).
2. Hire a designer to create a clickable image and a PDF of the giveaway (Cost: $485).
3. Create a pitch page for the giveaway.
4. Create a delivery page for the free download of the giveaway.
5. Add the download of the giveaway to the delivery page.
6. Sign up to Aweber for $19/month (plus $10/month more if you have more than 500 Aweber subscribers).
7. Integrate Aweber with Feedburner and set up a blog broadcast.
8. Add the Aweber sign-up form to the pitch page for the giveaway and to the side bar.
9. Add the delivery page URL to the “success page” box in Aweber.
10. Create a confirmation message in Aweber that subscribers use to gain access to the delivery page.

Phase 2: The Paid Ebook

1. Hire a designer to create a clickable image and a PDF of the paid ebook (Cost: $655).
2. Create an ebook sales and affiliate page.
3. Sign up to ejunkie ($5/month) and create an account linked to Paypal.
4. Create an affiliate program through ejunkie.
5. Add the ebook download and confirmation messages to ejunkie.
6. Customize the “buy” button.
7. Add a message to the sales page that the ebook is coming soon.
8. Add the clickable ebook image to the sidebar and link it to the sales page.
9. Add the sales page link to the giveaway page and to the inside of the giveaway PDF.
10. Reload the updated giveaway PDF now that the link has been added.

Phase 3: The Launch

1. Send an email via Aweber to my subscribers mentioning my upcoming ebook.
2. Send an email to 15 blogging buddies asking them to participate in the launch which results in three guest posts, two interviews and lots of social media mentions the week of the launch.
3. Just prior to the launch, send a reminder to my blogging buddies and an image for them to use if they so choose.
4. Remove the “coming soon” message, add the “buy” button and affiliate links to the ebook sales page.
5. Write a post for my blog about the launch of the ebook.

Launch!

On launch day, I published the ebook-related post on my blog and my blogging buddies sprang into action. Traffic soared. Below are my stats that period. The first spike is my launch date, the second is my guest post on Zen Habits. It’s hard to tell because of the spikes, but my average traffic has tripled since launching.

It took me about 100 ebook sales to break even on my expenses. I hired a designer so the ebook would be top notch and have that long shelf life, but if you can do the design work yourself, you’re way ahead.

Looking Back

It’s been 100 days since I began working on this project, and 25 days since my ebook officially launched. I started with 131 email subscribers. Today, I have over 7,000 subscribers and counting.

I’d call that momentum.

Author: Katie Tallo