Live Launching Deep Dive
In this article we cover:
- What’s a Ramp Up and Why Do You Need It For Your Launch?
- Ramp Up Myths Debunked
- The Launch Timeline Breakdown
- What are Milestones?
- A Deep Dive on Milestones 1, 2, and 3
- Free Training on Crafting an Epic Workshop
Let’s get after it!
Full transparency? The content that follows is my not-so-shy attempt to tee you up for the gobs of strategic knowledge you’ll gain as we guide you toward mapping out a high-converting workshop for your launch. ⛳️
**What’s discussed in this blog post is a gentle (and essential) lead-in for the upcoming 5-Day Challenge I’m hosting: How to Craft an Online Workshop That Creates Wild Demand For Your Live Launch Offer.
If you’re looking to seriously optimize your online business offer + cash influx, grab your FREE seat HERE at this virtual table so you can learn how to reel people in with an epic workshop of your own. 👏
Do you see what I just did there? That is a real-time example of a ramp up offer. Still a little foggy on what I’m talking about? That’s okay. For the next 6 ish minutes, allow me to walk you through the inner workings of two foundational pillars that come directly from my proven launch playbook: ramp ups and milestones.
What’s a Ramp Up?
Better yet… what even is a ramp up?
Well, I’m just so glad you asked. Here’s the skinny 🍸
Everything that you do leading up to your launch is considered the ramp up period AND it’s quite literally the most important element of executing a successful launch.
You’ll probably hear that just about a million times but nevertheless—if you take NOTHING ELSE from this message—please hear me when I say that.
Alright, so! During the strategic ramp up to your launch, the goal is for your audience to become absolutely hooked. But first, we need to address a few common misconceptions surrounding the ole trusty (yet oftentimes misunderstood) ramp-up period.
Ramp Up Myths Debunked
Myth One
If you’ve come to believe that the ramp up, i.e. the promotional period, is just a necessary evil en route to your dream destination of launching, I want to challenge that thought and provide you with a hope-filled belief shift.
The build-up that is produced within the mind of your audience is absolutely essential to the success of your launch.
Allow me to repeat that.
The build-up that is produced within the mind of your audience is absolutely essential to the success of your launch.
Therefore, the timetable and overall strategy behind your ramp up is—with no ifs, ands, or buts about it—shockingly vital and definitely not just some annoying task that you need to check off of your launch to-do list.
You need well-timed milestones and thoughtfully-curated content in order to gain the attention of your desired audience properly.
This sentiment leads me to the debunking of myth numero dos—
Myth Two
The ramp up period is not a time to persuade people into purchasing your offer. In actuality, your offer is already of significant value to your ideal client avatar (ICA).
You are simply directing them, by building up trust and rewiring their beliefs, to make a smart investment for themselves.
Myth Three
Lastly, I’m going to dispel the myth that launching creates need. It doesn’t.
The need already exists for your ideal client.
Therefore, the ramp up period will show your audience that your offer has a solution that will appease their dire need. The ramp up period is what will show your audience that your offer has the solution to their dire need.
If you prime and position your offer to the people that are already lugging around this need, you will become the only viable solution for solving their problem.
The Launch Timeline Broken Down
To start, I’ve got a little analogy for ya.
Instead of building a bridge and getting over it (as the old adage says), our goal is to build a bridge and get our ideal people across it. “It” being the launch mission where they are on the edge of their seats, ready to take off.
To clarify even further, the “bridge” is the accomplishment of directing your ICA from their current needy reality toward their future fulfilled and satisfied state via your stellar and tactical ramp up content.
Mapping Out Your Timeline
The very beginning of your ramp up period is also where you meet your audience at their current state of reality. This kicks off the overall start of your launch timeline.
Are you following me? Okay, let’s keep going.
Their future state is something that will be fully and finally gratified during the open cart week—the week in which you finally open the floodgates and allow the masses to operate out of their realized need and newly garnered trust in your brand by purchasing your offer to satisfy their problem.
“But wait, how long should my ramp up period last for optimal success?!”
My honest advice is that the length of your ramp up period will be determined organically through a series of questions that all stem from these overarching factors:
🤔 How ready is your prospect? + How weighty is your offer?
Following suit, explore these questions regarding your prospects’ readiness:
- Do they yet believe it’s possible to achieve the result your offer promises?
- How deep is their cycle of self-sabotage?
- How quickly can they comprehend what your offer’s promise means?
- Does it immediately click or will this be a new concept to them that they need to chew on in theory before they can be ready to put it into practice?
- How interactive are they currently (and how consistent are you)?
- Are they currently asking you for the solution to their problem?
- Do they view you as an authority on this topic?
And these ones in relation to the weightiness of your offer:
- Is the price equivalent to your audience’s version of “happy to part with” money?
- Is the price something more expensive for them that needs considerable thought or planning in order to invest in (or is it somewhere in between the last two)?
- Is your offer on a topic that they can understand and implement immediately?
- Is your offer on a complex topic that they need a lot of education on prior to purchase in order to succeed in the offer?
- Have they ever considered this solution or deliverables as the answer to their problem, or is this a completely new concept?
Based on your answers to these questions + the warmth of your current audience, we recommend that a ramp up length is either 1 month (4 weeks), 2 months (8 weeks), or 3 months (12 weeks) in length.
What are Milestones?
Milestones are three main “belief levels” that your ICA needs to “graduate from” during the ramp up period of your launch. This three-part strategy on milestones is what moves your ICA from their limited or confused state to a full-fledged confident buyer.
Lucky for you, these milestone “stages/levels” are already pre-planned markers that I am about to reveal to you, right meow. 😸
To give you a tangible picture, we associate each milestone with a percentage.
This percentage speaks to the overall readiness of your audience for their future state.
- At Milestone One, your audience should be at approximately 30%.
- Come Milestone Two, they should be at around 60%.
- And by Milestone Three, they should hit 90% readiness.
By the end of Milestone Three (*ahem* A.K.A. open cart week), your audience will be at 100% readiness—nay, 110% readiness!
What does this mean?
It means that when your offer becomes available, your audience will know— without a shadow of a doubt—that purchasing your offer is the right decision and investment for them.
Their thoughts should go a little something like this: “[Your Name], I trust you so dang much! I have to have your offer! Gimme, gimme, gimmeee!!!”
A Deep Dive on Milestones One, Two, & Three
I know what you’re thinking.
Alright, Shan. This sounds intriguing but what the heck do these percentages actually mean? What’s the difference between launching my offer at the 30% mark versus the 90% mark?
Don’t fret, young grasshopper. Here’s the sitch.
In full TSB fashion, we’ve attached themes to each milestone to make sure there is optimal clarity surrounding the purpose of each one.
Milestone One — Liberate
Milestone One will liberate your audience of limiting beliefs that keep them in a perpetual cycle of stuck.
Your marketing efforts during the ramp up period will direct them to consider the following questions:
- What do I need to believe is possible in my current cycle of stuck?
- What is my number one “right now” task that I think I *must do*?
- What is one symptom, if solved right now, that would help me feel hopeful that there’s a solution to my problem?
Freedom follows suit after Milestone One.
Milestone Two — Attack
Milestone Two will be a full-on attack against the symptoms that have kept your audience stuck. By this milestone, you’ll confirm their top three symptoms and provide the cure (which is inevitably your offer).
Your audience will experience many “aha” moments at this point in the ramp up.
Milestone Two is a pivotal time because your audience will have truth shed on their deep-rooted and limiting insecurities AND they’ll be given tangible handles for the “how.”
You will be offering your audience a healthy mix of “I believe in you” sentiments PLUS intel to chew on prior to purchasing your whole enchilada (by enchilada, I mean your mouth-watering offer). You get it.
Milestone Three — Build
Enter Milestone Three. At this point, you begin building.
Building what, exactly? A cycle of success for your audience to identify with for themselves.
- They will see light at the end of the (previously doom and gloom-filled) tunnel.
- They will begin adopting new opinions of themselves that will lead them to invest in your offer.
- They will discover their own personal commitment.
By the end of it all, your audience will have made the declaration that they can’t risk not investing in your offer. And what a glorious day that will be—for everyone involved.
👏👏👏
To ramping up for good reason and efficiently crushing your next live launch,
Shannon
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How to Craft an Online Workshop That Creates Wild Demand for Your Offer