The No.1 Thing You MUST DO BEFORE Launch Day!

One of the BIGGEST mistakes made by marketers (doesn't matter whether they're a newbie or experienced) is the failure to test their sales funnel and conversions before even considering passing it to JV’s for a product launch. This happens more often than you would think!

Even experienced marketers don't test and have their launch bomb because of it.

If you don't test your sales page with live traffic before your launch, DON'T send it to your JV's to promote - you are shooting yourself in the foot if you do!!

Why?

Because if you are new nobody is going to send you any of their hard earned leads without proof that it converts!

And If you are 'famous' then your JV's are going to send lots of traffic to your page expecting really good EPC's and then when they don't get anywhere near good EPC's they're not going to re-mail!

So always test your sales page before getting JV's to mail for you.

This is how you do it..

--- Use Paid traffic. Probably the fastest and easiest way to HYPER Target niche markets is to advertise on Myspace or Facebook. It is the testing and conversions we are after here.

--- Use a forum special offer. If you are in the Internet Marketing niche, use the warrior special offer. If you are in another niche, then post in the Buy/Sell Section of your favorite forum. You must offer it at a lower special price then link them to your special sales page. For scarcity, put a time limit on the post to force people to take action and increase exclusivity and not blow your cover for the main launch. This builds the buzz in your community (which is what you want), gets you feedback from hyper targeted prospects and earns you a little starting cash.

--- Call in a favor. If you have a friend who has a targeted email list then get them to mail to a special page. Hype it up as a special limited time only offer just for their list. You don’t know until you test it if the offer will convert or not. Get them to mail small segments and test the conversions until you are satisfied.

And don’t forget to split test. This is very important! Little changes make big results. You always have to be split testing the test mailings and the sales page during launch too to ensure maximum conversions for JV's.

Once you test your sales page before launch you will have PROOF!

Without proof of conversions, then no serious JV is going to send you their hard earned leads. I recommend getting one of your JV friends to help you out and take a chance on you. Then if they get good conversions thats proof. You will want to take a screen-shot of the actual conversion numbers and quietly brag about it to create a buzz.

So after that is all tested, then comes setting up the actual launch.

**Thanks for reading, would like to hear your feedback!** :)

Right, an internal launch is good for sure - or a "soft launch". Also, gives you a chance to get testimonials, make some money (hopefully), split test upsells, squeeze, etc. - and get data to give to JV partners.

Great info thanks Aaron...

Just one question - how long would you say is a reasonable time to run a successful pre-launch test?

Cheers - Keith

Hi Aaron,

Good information, thank you for that.

I'm just wondering, if you're launching a product via Clickbank, would you run these tests through CB payment processor or via Paypal just for these tests so you don't have to pay CB fees?

Also, if you do run these tests with live traffic and use CB as payment processor, wouldn't this ruin your real launch as it will already appear on CB marketplace?

Cheers,

Ethan

Very nice info. This will come in handy for my new software I am launching soon.

Exactly Nick :)

@Keith - you're welcome. you need to do it to one list, one batch (somebodies list) or better still test it to cold traffic. 1 mailing is realistic. If you want to test more, test more

@Ethan - you're welcome.
If you have to because your products not approved and worry about % fees!
The clickbank marketplace is huge so no it wont.

@Recky - thats good to hear

Thanks for the clarification Aaron...

Cheers - Keith

Great post Aaron. Thanks

@Aaron

Thanks for this informative post. The points you made reference to are very important when planning to launch a new product even if the product is free.

All the best!

Olusegun Balogun

So true Aaron, this forum is pretty good and usually has more expienced people who know better and test first... it is crazy to me that people don't think this is important! On digital point there are daily new product launches which are posted without even the vendor making a sale... insane...

We spent 3 months testing and improving our conversion rate before announcing... the difference between doing this extra month (or few) testing, which will lead to a successful product and solid launch, rather than rushing your launch out and failing... its a no brainer to me which to do..

One of the requirements to participate in a launch mailing is

"First of all, the offering should be ground floor, in the the pre launch stages or earlier ... and I'll need at least 2 weeks notice before launch to do it (and your fellow partners) justice."

How do you comply with this requirement? You have to make the product live to test conversion. Running some PPC campaigns against it does not constitute as launch? :)

Been following some major guru launches here, and I cannot see much of their stuff live before mailings start to fly around :) How do they conversion test?

Hi Aaron
Thanks for your great advice, the timing is perfect for me as I am in the process of starting my marketing/launch plan.
I have just finished creating my first product, under the direction of my mentor Chris Freville was has steered my in the right direction.
I will add your tips to my plan
Regards
Paul

@ György

I think it is just given that this initial "live testing" period is seperate from it being fully live and open to the whole market. I think he really means that it isn't just an old product that has been knocking around for months.

I agree 100% with Aaron, but I also go a step further. I buy my own products. I literally go through every up sell and down sell (and even the recurring products). I try to make sure that I see every single aspect of every possible combination to make sure there are no glitches.

I literally have to go through my product and sales process about 10 times to get it all done, but that's business. I've run into problems sometimes with a down sell where an up sell worked perfectly. I've even seen my affiliate tracking cookie die in the middle of a sales process. (That's why I have an in-house solution now that works like gang busters).

But I would have never known any of this if I didn't buy my product myself. I don't rely on staff members or testing Visa/MC numbers to get it done. I literally whip out my own CC and BUY my own products for real. But I've caught some serious mistakes with my own technologies and was able to correct them BEFORE I did any sort of sale of testing promotion.

Good advice Aaron keep it up. Always do small tests to see conversions and show them to JV partners.

Great post Aaron, I also agree with you Shaun, I go through the whole process myself a dozen times just to make sure everything is upto scratch!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shaun Parsons

I agree 100% with Aaron, but I also go a step further. I buy my own products. I literally go through every up sell and down sell (and even the recurring products). I try to make sure that I see every single aspect of every possible combination to make sure there are no glitches.

I literally have to go through my product and sales process about 10 times to get it all done, but that's business. I've run into problems sometimes with a down sell where an up sell worked perfectly. I've even seen my affiliate tracking cookie die in the middle of a sales process. (That's why I have an in-house solution now that works like gang busters).

But I would have never known any of this if I didn't buy my product myself. I don't rely on staff members or testing Visa/MC numbers to get it done. I literally whip out my own CC and BUY my own products for real. But I've caught some serious mistakes with my own technologies and was able to correct them BEFORE I did any sort of sale of testing promotion.

---

Well... you've just say it all!

Very few people don't even buy their own product.
They rely on customer feedback to test things out (Bad Idea)

Great Advice Aaron,
I am very guilty of doing small launches where I did little testing and never gave out info on conversions which I knew a while ago was my biggest mistake.

Do you have any ideas on how to do this with a membership site. I mean I understand you need to test but if you are giving out new products monthly then you want to get as many people as you can in the door the first month so how much time would you think is good for testing.

Mike

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Shaun you make a good point :)

Mike - for a membership site I would test using my current member stats. Ultimately you just need to test that too! The thing with membership sites is that you need to look after your members so you get a good retention rate. Because thats what affiliates are concerned about when promoting membership sites - is how long do people stay a member.