Did you know there’s an online tool that can help you get seen and remembered more during your launch?

Have any of your recent or past launches received a lot of attention initially but then ended up NOT making enough of a lasting impression to close the deal (or make the sale)?

Was your main promotion and outreach strategy focused on social media? Tweets, FB Ads, Facebook messages or other types of social media?

Did you get a fair amount of likes, “people talking about this”, shares, comments and yet still sales seemed to elude you?

I see a lot of launches behind the scenes that can say yes to these questions. That’s the joy and pain (sometimes) of what I do.

When I first started working with Tiffany, I could see right away she had a lot going on for her – I mean, a website close to ready in her judgement, a thriving Facebook page with loads of likes and high % of people talking about it, a clear plan on what she wants to launch and when – and to whom.

But as I started to dig deeper…one thing became very clear.  Despite all the hard work — building her audience, getting a book deal, working with well known coaches and having a VERY CLEAR idea who her audience is – I could see what was holding her back.

Can you guess what it was?

The optin forms on her main website weren’t functioning.

At the time I started working with her – Tiffany wasn’t sending anyone to her mailing list.

This meant that she was limited in the messaging of her two upcoming launches, limited to where she could send people to sign up for more information, and limited in the number of people she could reach.

And while she had a nice website – it wasn’t functioning in the way she needed to grow her business or launch because of this one piece.

It had halted her from creating new content to promote launch.

She had nowhere to send people and no way of following up with all that great engagement.

I see it all the time though – this misleading hope + incomplete picture of a 100% social media launch when really there’s another much bigger issue at play.

Sure you can sell on Social Media – but you better get people to remember you if you want that to be true more often.

Getting people to notice you online is fairly easy.

Being remembered takes work and is what makes the sale.

Believe it or not – NOT having a website is NOT the problem. Not having guest posts lined up for the week of your launch is OKAY. Even choosing not to be on certain social media platforms is fine.

In the most practical, “do this” sense – you need to capture people’s information so you can continue to communicate with them OFF social media and ON a regular basis.

Doesn’t matter if it’s your blog, your website, social media – humans are fickle and the world has tons of distractions.

Have I made my case strong enough yet for building an email list? And why it is crucial for your launch to reach anyone?

Then, let’s break this down.

A Simple Guide to Being Remembered:

Here’s the quick and dirty how-to for making sure all that time you spend on social media or anywhere else online getting noticed, doesn’t go to waste and people REMEMBER YOU during your next launch:

1. Find the right email marketing service

There are tons of options for managing a list of people and communicating with them on a regular basis.

Aweber, Mailchimp, Infusionsoft, Ontraport, Constant Contact are the ones I see most often.

To find additional ones – just google email marketing service and email marketing providers.

These email marketing providers manage your list of people, allow you to send emails in the form of broadcasts or as a series of emails.

Most services allow you to segment people into different lists and/or groups – which you may need in the future, if you plan on offering different types of products or services.

But to start – keep it simple. Start with 1 main list.  You just want a place to send people if they find you on social media – and even in guest posts or other places online. Plus – hopefully – you’ll add these forms to your own website – if you’re ready to do that!

2. Direct People To Your List

Repeating this one again – Getting people to the list doesn’t require a website. It just requires a webform…and many email marketing services have ones that allow you to add a link to any of your social media platforms or share in a message/email!

• How to use Facebook Offers to grow your email list

3. Map It Out

Once you’ve got your email provider set up – you’ll want to make sure to figure out where and when you’ll tell people about your list and what you’ll share with them once they are ON your list.

Map out the following details to create your first time communication plan:

1. write 3-5 follow up emails that help them get to know you + your products/services better

2. schedule posts, tweets, etc. to your social media networks

3. place the link in your profile of your social media sites

What to do during your launch:

Communicate with your list at least 1x a week if you have no newsletter and at least 1x every other week if you do send a newsletter out to them.

Don’t forget to mix in straight up invites for people to join your list with all your all social media messages leading up to your launch.

What I Use and Why

I was an Aweber girl for years.  I had zero problem figuring out how to use it myself.

But – I struggled with one thing – aweber only handled my email.  It didn’t handle my affiliates, my ecommerce… I had to buy other services too.

When I started to work with LKR, I had to learn Infusionsoft…and over the 3 years I learned how to do everything I needed to do – set up order forms, send emails, manage affiliate program, tag people (don’t get me started why I love tagging) and it was all under one roof.

I only pulled the trigger on the hefty IS pricing after I hit 1500 subscribers and had done 2 launches of Fearless Launching.  I knew that I had to support the $200 per month price in order to justify having the service.

Once I felt confident I could do that – I finally said yes to the sales person who’d been hounding me for a few months.

Infusionsoft allowed me to do so much under one roof and that’s how I like to roll. I hate trying to figure out how to integrate and set up 5 million different services.

Infusionsoft is not right for you if you’re just starting out – have a small list – aren’t making consistent moola yet – and if you don’t have some outside technical help.

Again – I lucked out here, because I’d been building relationships with people inside Infusionsoft as well as other outside providers who can help me with any setup issues I’m having.

The investment alone to get into an Infusionsoft account stopped me for a long time, until I realized all the headaches of running to piece together my sales process, my affiliate program, making paypal work with aweber… it seemed realllyyyy complex.

(updated 2019: I now use a platform called Active Campaign which I highly recommend you check it out!)

How to choose your email solution

If you are just starting your list – you may want to start with Mailchimp or Aweber. Those are the only 2 I even suggest to people.  Aweber is probably my top choice because I know it better. Plus – there’s a great tool that kinda does the “tagging” thing that I love inside Infusionsoft.

I know there’s Mad Mimi, Constant Contact, Send Pepper and other ones… but these 2 are the only ones I can say I know at least well enough to refer you to.

You can get  up to speed with both of these fast – today if you want to.

If you’re growing, but if your primary business plan is you seeing one on one clients – stick with the basics. Same as above.  You probably don’t need all the extra bells and whistles.

Your primary requirement is to follow up with potential clients and integrate your payment system with that follow up tool.

You don’t need all the functions in Infusionsoft. And your volume will probably not require you to have a complex system like Infusionsoft.

If you’ve got different types of offerings, a list over 1500 and growing rapidly – you can still get away with the main providers I mentioned like Aweber and MailChimp. Plenty of big businesses, online entrepreneurs, and others with a large reach/subscriber list use these with a combination of other tools for affiliate programs and payment.

However – I’m stand by pulling systems together under one roof and already had the training to know how to use Infusionsoft.

If you can find someone who knows how to do the initial set up with you and get running fast, it’s definitely worth it.  They provide training that’s very good – but having another person who’s got chops inside the system will take the pressure off you having to learn it.

So – if you can find a way to get up and running fast in Infusionsoft, you won’t feel the sting of that monthly fee and coaching $$ you must shell out each and every month.

Don’t make it difficult or believe the hype

Deciding which to use depends on a ton of factors – all of which are important. But you don’t need to make it overly complex or difficult.

The only 2 questions you really need to answer about switching to a more expensive service is –

Can I afford it? And – do I really need all the features?

Done and done.

And finally – forget about the notion that upgrading to Infusionsoft or Office Autopilot somehow makes you more pro.

If you don’t believe me – start doing some mail provider sleuthing.  Go to the bottom of the emails sent out by people you respect.  You’ll be surprised that many use the Aweber and Mail Chimp solutions.

Signing up for Infusionsoft doesn’t mean you’re all the sudden going to experience big growth or that somehow you are legit.

Do what’s right for your business now – with an eye on the bigger vision and goals…and understanding your ability to support one of those more expensive solutions.

List Building + Your Next Launch

In the comments below – tell me what you use to send emails to your potential leads and why?

Extra credit: do you have a plan to get people onto a mailing list? If not – how do you plan to reach them during your next launch – and keep reaching them?

If you liked this post, you will love Fearless Launching…click here to find out when the next round happens (it’s sooner than you think!)… Feel free to click around and see what it’s all about!