Do you ever feel like all you do is promote your business?

If you watch launches even half as much as I do, then you’ve seen a lot of pre-launch content released.

Some of those things you may have seen and possibly tried include:

• 3 videos/sales video (plf style)

• Webinar leading to an open cart

• A live combo of the above

• An evergreen combo of the above where people can optin any time and get the content + be sold a product.

And many people continue to use those – BECAUSE for those people and businesses, they do work. Maybe they’d even work for yours.

Or maybe they won’t.

But if you look around –  you might see that some people are taking these standard methods and doing their pre-launch the way they want to do it.

The goals are the same – and often starts with a variation on one of the standards above – but the execution is completely unique to each launch – and to me – that’s where a launch can be inspiring.

And that’s what I wanted to dig into…those ideas that inspire me and hopefully you too.

Hold onto your pants – here are 3 ways to approach your pre-launch that are gaining in popularity….but my advice is not to pick one and copy it, but rather to think of a way to build off what’s been done to create your own experience – one that’s right for your audience.

Bring your own creativity back into the strategy of launching.

3 Fresh Pre-Launch Ideas That Make Your Launch Stand-Out From All That Other Promotion You Do

I’ll admit it.

These are my favorite pre-launch strategies right now…they have gotten a lot more common recently, but I love how there is such a variety in how each idea was executed and really fit each person and business.

And to me – they are a jumping off point – a mixed bag of ways to engage your audience while qualifying + preparing them to make a buying decision.

1. Week Long Online Events

These are usually weeklong events that give people a free sample of your goods. A taste of how you train. The experience of being in your community.   They can be run live at specific times or available all the time through an auto responder email series and access to a private Facebook group.

The beauty in these is that it feels like you’re already in the course.  So when the week taste ends, you feel the absence of it and by the end you don’t want it to end.

Some great examples are – click throughs encouraged to see exactly why I think they are my picks.

Minimum Viable Moving Parts:

• Emails guiding people through each day or some method of delivering a daily message.
• Facebook group if it’s running live – but might not be necessary.
• Addons that might help: Freeconferencecall.com, instant tele seminar.com, videos

I got into the idea behind LKR’s Famous in Five weeklong challenge with Laura Roeder in my bonus “Relaunch” masterclass in the Fearless Launching program….

2. The Blog Tour

The first blog tours I saw were more in the creative blogging community, but I hadn’t really watched them being used specifically for a launch until The Declaration of You book launch and ramp  up was happening.

But what is a blog tour?

It’s essentially a group of people who agree to do posts on their site all about a specific topic and all linking back to you!

Then – the idea is that you’ll feature all tour posts on a page on your site with links back to all participants.

Here’s what I love about the Blog Tour:

Spreading good will. People like to help and they get a press opportunity because of it.

Lots of links leading to you and your offer!

Each blog post in the tour acts like mini pre-launch teaser to what you’re offering!  You set the themes, topics, guidelines for all the content and the best part is that you don’t have to create it all by yourself!

Here are a few examples – and you can link to see exactly what they did:

Minimum Viable Moving Parts:

• Email to reach out to the bloggers
• Webpage where all  links to blog posts live
• Social Media
• Someone to keep bloggers on schedule
• Fun add-on: a special hashtag everyone uses

If you want to learn more about blog tours and how to manage and pull off one, I highly recommend checking out this video with the team behind the Declaration of You.

3. The 30 day challenges and video series

30 day challenges are kind of like the week long sampler events…except that can continue to bring you traffic and leads long after the challenge is officially “over”. In fact, once the first round is created, you can offer these 30 day content series on autopilot if you choose.

My favorite benefit is that they continue working to share what you do, what you teach and get people excited about what you do long after the launch. Plus – set up correctly – they are great list builders.

Here are some of my absolute favorites…click and discover what they’re all about:

Minimum Viable Moving Parts:

• Content creation help – like additional people if possible
• Lots of content created in advance.
• Primary channel driving to the content – blog sidebar? Facebook Page?
• Optin Page
• Emails delivering daily content announcements
• Addons: regular social media, promo partners spreading the word, and who can resist a hashtag.

The Work You’ll Need To Put Into It

All of these alternatives to the generally accepted launch styles do require the same amount of energy and work…but if your audience isn’t used to them, they are a great way to “wake” people up and get them interested in what you’re doing.

That said – here’s a basic list of what you might need to do in order to make any of these work:

• advance planning party with a few other people where you plan out what will happen

• plot out what’s going to happen during each day during the week

• write your emails in advance and load them as an auto responder in your email marketing provider

• create additional downloadables to give the feeling of being in your course

• clear your schedule – so you can be “on” all week

• Create an orientation landing page with all the week’s details and an email that gets sent as soon as someone signs up

• Make graphics

• Social Media

• template emails so any participants can easily share what they are doing and part of!

• figure out what happens when the challenge is over – make it an optin? Continue to use it to grow your list? Offer in another way?

At the end of the day – even if you don’t create buyers – these types of events that create fans.

You’ve got the ideas now and a sense of what it takes to pull of these online events…

Decision + Creation Time

Here are a few things to help you decide if you can or want to do one of them:

1. Each type of event above are launches in themselves and require a lot of pieces managed…preferably by someone other than you or working with you. So – be strategic about it and choose something that may live on as a piece of content people can enjoy long after the launch.

2. Timing is crucial…so be prepared to create a detailed plan that you stick to…

3. All still require you to have solid email marketing in place to make sure people know about the events… and that takes a little finesse to help people understand why you’re doing this new event AND launching something too.  You want to be able to create a fun ramp up to your launch…so make sure you tell people right away – this is to celebrate the upcoming launch of my …x, y, or z!

4. And along the same lines – ask yourself if your “fun” idea supports or elevates your offer?  The best types of pre-launch content give a taste of the way you teach, what you’re selling, and it gives an intro to the actual thing you’re selling plus the experience of working with you.

5. Identify people and businesses that are using an accepted prelaunch method and mixing it up with something a little different.  Those are the people you want to watch…and be inspired by…but never copy.

If you’re feeling good about your answers, then get to work now!

Comments? questions? Need help fleshing out your pre-launch content ideas?

Let me know in the comments below.