Launch dates and marking your territory

I was going to entitle this post
"Which day is best for launch day?"

However, I already know the answer: Tuesday!

It seems everyone wants a Tuesday because it allows a bit of a pre-launch and then you generally have the rest of the weekend to continue to make sales before the weekend kills the launch dead in the water.

If someone has a Tuesday, then you typically need to leave 2 days before you can launch in the same week on a Thursday. However, personally I'm not too keen on Thursdays as they generally fizzle out a lot quicker with the dreaded weekend only 2 days away.

Therefore, if you want to fit 2 launches in the same week (and I mean 2 launches where the product owners will have similar JV partners on board) then one tactic is to have one launch on a Monday and the other on a Wednesday.

Its all about who (which JV partners) you can get to commit to your launch and then somehow plan it so that they arent promoting something round about the same time. i.e. marking your territory.

Any thoughts?

Hi Chris,

I'm actually on your mailing list, have been for about a year (under my personal email, not business).
I'm a newbie here but it's good to (sort of) meet you ;D

After reading your post I was interested in finding out my best sale days.
My results contradict yours slightly! :-\
But because I work during the week I spend my weekends promoting so I'm guessing that's the reason.

Anyway, based on 65 sales, here's how I've done on a day-to-day basis (remember I only really work on the weekend).

MON - 38.5%
TUES - 0%
WED - 7.7%
THURS - 15.4%
FRI - 7.7%
SAT - 7.7%
SUN - 23%

Nothing on a tuesday! Over 65 sales it's a little odd - I'd love to know your thoughts.

Cheers,

Pushy.

Hi there,

Thanks for your analysis - interesting.

You are definitely the exception to the rule.

Thousands of other marketers have already done countless promotions every day of the week and they will tell you 99 times out of 100, that promoting stuff at the weekend sucks. Most people only check their email Monday to Friday. I am not saying that is the case for everyone, as you have obviously demonstrated, but as a general rule it is.

Chris

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris Freville

You are definitely the exception to the rule.

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Thanks Chris, I'll take that as a compliment! :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris Freville

Thousands of other marketers have already done countless promotions every day of the week and they will tell you 99 times out of 100, that promoting stuff at the weekend sucks.

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I'll certainly trust you on that, you and your other partners are far more experienced in the online market than myself.

But to flip the coin, in the offline world...

One of my previous jobs was telesales (yuck) and the weekend was our best time for sales as most people go shopping on the weekend and are in more of a buying-mood. I suppose it depends on the product and the approach.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris Freville

Hi there,

Thanks for your analysis - interesting.

You are definitely the exception to the rule.

Thousands of other marketers have already done countless promotions every day of the week and they will tell you 99 times out of 100, that promoting stuff at the weekend sucks. Most people only check their email Monday to Friday. I am not saying that is the case for everyone, as you have obviously demonstrated, but as a general rule it is.

Chris

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I totally agree with you on that point :) It's also the case for forum posting... I've found that people are more active on week days :)

Regarding my experience in telesales, we couldn't work on Mondays since people were not in the mood for purchase... This means that on Mondays people are not ready to respond to offers... On weekends, they always have something better to do...For sure they are less aggressive since they are less stress but still they do not convert as on weekdays... On weekdays ,Tuesday to Friday, they always grab a chance to escape the boring day to day obligations and thus are more than willing to listen to what you have to say... This is what I've learn after having spend time selling houses though phone calls :) My call center record was a sale I've made after one hour of phone discussion... It was the longest hour of my life... :)

There are lots of factors involved in regards to what day works best for your product. In General Tuesday is thought to be the best. But Tuesday now comes with heavy competition as there are launches every Tuesday.

What products work best for weekend launches? Any website that caters to the younger crowd or even home-based moms for that matter, sending emails on a weekend is preferred anytime over a weekday because the younger crowd and the stay at home moms generally check their emails on the weekend which is definitely not the case when it comes to emailing the working businessmen.

Working people usually like to check their emails during the office hours since they like to relax over the weekends.

What day works best for you really depends on who you are marketing to.

I tend to find the best days to launch a new product is on a weekday (preferably Tuesday and Wednesday). Monday, Thursday and Friday are too close to the weekend and people tend to focus on the weekend more on those days.

It's human nature for people to not be in the mood for receiving emails about new product launches on weekends. It's not how most people want to spend their free time. Product launches will get more attention the closer it is to the middle of the week.

Some great replies so far... excellent.

How about some thoughts to the "marking your territory" ??

i.e. if you want certain JV partners to promote for you, you have to make sure they're not promoting anybody else within 1-2 days of your launch.... otherwise there is a conflict.

So, if you want to get JV partner X on board, but he is committed to promoting publisher A on Tuesday, then your only realistic chance is to launch on Thursday, so that JV partner X can still fit 2 promos into the same week. Not ideal, but if you really want to get certain, specific partners on board, then you may be forced to launch the same week as someone else, and see if they can promote two launches in the same week.

The alternative is you wait and wait and wait to try and get all your most wanted JV's on board when none of them are busy... which now seems to be booking them at least 8 weeks in advance, and even then pray that someone else doesnt come along in the mean time and tempt your partners on to something else.

It seems to be getting harder and harder
to pick a launch date...

My launch was between PPC Classroom 2 and
Get More Buyers.

The PPC 2 Classroom launch seemed to go on forever.

Even having your own week can be hard if you have to
follow a huge launch...

Craig

Yes picking a date is getting harder...because there seems to be many MORE launches these days.

I think there at least 2 pretty big products launching on the same day as mine...but it's all systems go 8)

A launch doesn't just consist of the 1st day remember ;)

Well it’s always a good idea to give your core JV partners at least a month heads up to make sure they will get on board, but picking up a few strays may be difficult if there is another big launch that week. Cross your fingers and hope competition in limited that week!

I've been brokering JVs and giving affiliate management/product launch advice for almost 6 years, Online ... and October/November has always been much heavier than the rest of the year, as a rule. There is a stigma about getting launches in prior to Black Friday, so you'll no doubt see a crush to get launches in before that day ... a few have ventured into the first 2 weeks of December and done well because there is less action, but merchants are getting wise to that ... too.

If you simply have to get your launch out at year end, I'd ...

1) Carve out the domain and set up a place marker blog or squeeze MORE than a month in advance.

2) Go after your A List Partners at LEAST a month in advance, and stay in close, personal contact with those you think will comprise your core 'inner circle' of 15, 20, 25, 50 or whatever number of high level partners you feel have the ability to do the most good for your campaign. Schedule calls, offer custom creatives and copy, brainstorm, etc.

3) Have your marketing plan completely laid out and available to your partners (you may want to hold back on the actual content used in specific stages to prevent leaking, and simply give a brief description of the logic and goal of the stage) ... including all pre launch, launch, and post launch outlines ... including rough ad copy and (qualified) product access, what they will be paid ... and WHEN.

4) Stick with your JV Partners at timed intervals throughout launch and pre launch with daily updates (perhaps hold off on Sunday) including any positive numbers, new phase, creatives and/or copy, peer and prospect social proof ... try to mail at the same time every day. I prefer 12PM, EST (except launch day, where I'd email a call to action an hour before, and give an added how we look update at about 6 hours in).

5) 24 hours in ... look at your list, and start following up personally with those who have NOT registered any clicks, or has only a handful. Let them know you're concerned that either they are not getting the JV notifications, or there is a problem that has caused them not to promote that you would gladly try to help them find a solution for ... even if it means setting up a solo emailing at a date after launch - don't let any chances to keep the relationship going escape.

Why go through all this?

Because regardless of how many ... or how good, the only JV partners that will make sales for you are the ones that push the 'send' button ... ;)

</end> Tuesday Sermon .. ;)

Best,

Mike

Great advice Mike...

Craig

Brilliant stuff everyone (especially Mike),

It's certainly given me some perspective.
So taking all advice as a given (and also doing a fishing), when it comes to the New Year...

Do you aim for New Year's resolutions?

I just did a little research on a term we're all familiar with: marketing.
I stuck the term into Google's Keyword Tool and checked the average search volume over the year.
The results are as follows (with busy months in RED and slower months in BLUE).

OCT
NOV
DEC - big drop
JAN
FEB
MAR
[b]APR - large spike (also busiest month)
MAY - big drop again
JUN
JUL - picks up a little during this month
AUG
SEP

(I've started from October as it's only just passed us and it's the start of the busiest part of the year)

Now we can all understand the December drop. People are more interested in the holidays than sorting out their lives and finances.

I have two theories on the spike for the term in April.

1) In the UK at least, it's the end of the financial year, people are thinking about money.
2) Marketers / Advertisers / Guru's / Whatever are fully aware that the next 5 months are going to be much quiter and are doing one last big push before it's time to hibernate for a while.

Now I know the term marketing is a very broad term indeed and won't relate to us for every variation but the next few marketing related terms provided by Google also show very similar data.

In contrast the term: earn cash online
is very low all year round but has huge spikes in January and April.

Thoughts and comments? ;D
If anyone can actually check their sales stats to see how the data reflects that would be fantastic. ;D

Thanks for data Pushy...very interesting indeed.

I guess its a good thing I delayed my launch to November and not December :D

Wow!

Excellent advice Mike.

I'm printing these great tips to keep on hand.

Cheers!

- Kim

Wow,

Really eye opening advice about product launch, so far it's only about which day...and it seems like Tuesday is the best. I'm interested in time as well.

Just a thought, Not sure whether it's reasonable to compare Launches vs WF wso, but a lot of IMers are on the WF.
I have read in WF that one of the best slot to post WSO is Thursday about noon time PST, so that your wso will get to the weekday warriors and it will still stay on the first page for the weekend warriors as well.

Now, for launches what about which time of the day? I have heard something like 11am EST.
I'm sure many of you here have done a few product launches, at least. What are the best experience so far?

I'm bit curious about getting launch partners to get on board and commit to your launch, and normally when there's a launch and when the JV news went out and partners who are interested will signup on your JV page, now do you really contact them personally after that or how do you usually do that? We can't really assume that they will send out the email on the launch day...and end out not.

Thanks::)

Thomas

Great thread everyone! I am about to launch the ClickBank Reaper (my first product launch), and I never even THOUGHT about the day of the week to launch. I was just going to pick the date that I was ready to launch, but now I saw the stats and I will definately launch on a Tuesday and / or look for a date that other JV's aren't launching on. I am so lucky to have this forum to go to for true advice. Thanks everyone for your expertise!

Alan
www.ClickBankReaper.com

Alan,

Of course there are two big downsides to launching on a Tuesday:

1) Your potential prospects will have their inboxes flooded with so many other offers from other marketers... Assuming they're subscribed to multiple lists

and more importantly

2) Your potential JV partners are less likely to mail for you as they could well be already committed to another JV partners launch happening on the same day... Someone they have a far longer relationship with.

Its a difficult one, but it maybe worth going on another day just to get people to support you, and then once you're established in say 12 months time, then book your launch on a Tuesday - giving plenty of notice to your grade A partners.

Chris,

I have learned anything it is to give adequate notice and try to have a week or part of a week to yourself in order for both you and your JV's to benefit without there being any conflict.

Mike,

That is quality information as usual...thanks. This strategy will definitely be employed during my release as it relates to my JV's.

take care
Todd

Hey Todd and others,

As you know...

The ideal is to get all your top JV partners only promoting your product in any given launch week.

If you cannot get that, then the next best thing to aim for is to get as many of them as possible to promote for you in the same week as maybe they're already promoting someone else. Needs to be at least 2 days apart. i.e. Monday & Wednesday or Tues / Thurs. If your partners are promoting someone else on a Tuesday they're unlikely to mail for you the following day, but may be two days later.

The goal is to get to option 1 above.

Chris

I have also heard from other marketers that the best time of day to launch a product is Tuesday at 3pm.

i am not sure why but thats what i heard from Matt Bacak...

Jani G