5 Reasons Why Your Launch Flopped

So, your launch was a flop. Barely anyone turned up to your webinar, your sales were dismal, and you’re ready to curl up in a ball and invite the existential dread to take over. Dramatic? Maybe. But it can be hard to swallow the pain of a failed (or maybe just not as successful as you wanted) launch. Here’s the thing, you know that your offer is great – that’s not the problem. The problem is how you share what you have with the world. That’s where things went wrong. 

Once you’ve worked your way through your pity party, it’s time to put on your thinking cap and figure out where the wheels came off your launch. You’re going to dig deep, peel off the band-aid, and thoroughly inspect your wounds to figure out how you can avoid the pain next time. 

Collect all the launch data you can

Data is your friend, even if you think you’re not a numbers person. Trust me on this one: You want the numbers, the rates, and all the figures you can get to avoid another failure. Every little bit of information can help. Here’s what you want to analyze. 

• Email open rates
• Clicks on social media
• Sales page visits
• Sales page conversions
• Increase in subscriptions/followers
• Webinar registrations (if you had one)
• Which days were most popular? 
• Which classes/speakers had the best attendance? 
• How many of your attendees made a purchase? How many of them were new users? 
• Full payment vs. payment plan sales
• Days with the highest sales vs. days with the lowest sales

All of this information can help you pinpoint the weak areas of your launch. You can analyze whether a specific channel wasn’t working or overused. Think of all this data like the deep dive you do on your ex after a break-up. 
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Eventually, you’re going to find the one picture where you realized things weren’t quite as rosy as you thought—the moment where things started to go wrong. But, unlike a bad break-up that you didn’t see coming, you’ve got the data to avoid another launch failure. You just have to follow the numbers. 

How were you doing before launch week?

Your launch week data may seem like the best place to figure out where you went wrong, and it usually is. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t go back further than the week of our launch. Think back three, four months before your launch. How were things really going? 

Just like a bad break-up, it isn’t the big fight that usually dooms a couple. It’s the little things, the red flags, the questions they choose to ignore before the big fight starts. Sometimes the questions you forgot to ask become the issue that dooms you. These are the red flag questions you should have been asking yourself before your launch. 

• How were your sales before the launch? How good or bad were they? 
• What was your social presence like? Did you gain followers or lose some? Did you have good engagement numbers? Were you posting consistently?
• How was your email marketing? Did your subscribers hear from you?
• How was your website traffic? Which people were visiting most? What was your bounce rate? 
• Were you soliciting feedback on your product/offer? How was it? Did you run any beta tests? 

What to do with all the launch data you’ve analyzed

Once you’ve assembled all your data and completed a launch audit, it’s time to find the culprit of your failure. And I’ve got a plan that can help if you zero in on these factors. 

Double down on your email conversions. 

Subpar email conversions can be the death of any launch. Were you struggling to reach out before the launch? Make a plan to build up your subscribers, increase engagement with each message in their inbox, or add an opt-in feature that will lead to your new offer. 

Evaluate your social media.

Were your Reels and videos getting people interested before the launch? Then keep it up. Keep doing what’s working and produce the content that is bringing in your followers. If not… maybe it’s time to start scrolling through those ridiculous audio options or find another way to catch your audience’s eye.

Don’t be afraid to look past the numbers. 

How were you feeling? How was your team? What was working for you this launch, and what wasn’t? A little self-reflection can be a great way to pinpoint some of the things that worked and those that didn’t. 

Ask your people.

Rejection hurts, but it can teach us a lot. I love to run a simple two-question survey for the people on my list who didn’t buy. These are potential customers who believe in you enough to subscribe but not enough to spend their hard earned dollars with you. Their feedback can be invaluable because they can tell you precisely what you’re missing to get that sale.

Just ask two questions:

• Answer required: Why didn’t you buy [name of product/offer]? (Give them multiple-choice options: It was too expensive, I’m interested in buying but not now, It’s not the right fit for my business, etc.). 
• Answer optional: Is there any feedback you’d like to share? (They must have some sort of opinion on your stuff if they are following you). 

Go back to your plan. 

Take a fresh look at your original plan once you’ve evaluated everything. Do you see the holes? What took too much time and effort? What didn’t give you the ROI you wanted? (If you don’t have a plan to go back to, then that might have been the problem!) 

Reframe it

I know this might be the hardest step I give you, but I want you to reframe this experience. Your launch didn’t “flop,” you got one step closer to knowing what will sell. I know that feels a bit like toxic positivity, but it isn’t. Use all of the data you collected above to look at what you can do next instead of beating yourself up for not knowing it sooner.

You can use what didn't go as planned as guidance for how to structure your next launch. Speaking of...

Create a future launch plan 

Want to make your launch plan a success? There is no one size fits all approach. You have to find the right ingredients that work for you and your brand. That’s where I come in! I know that your launch should be as unique as your offer, your business, and your ideal customer. That means sometimes you have to deviate from those strict launch plans out there.

I created my launch recipe cards to help you do just that. With these recipe “cards,” I’ll help you cook up your best launch yet — with ingredients that feel right for your business and your offer. So, good lookin’... what you got cooking?