Have you recently closed a launch? Or perhaps run a promotion that finished?

How’d that go?

If you are closing up shop on any big project you’ve worked on in your business, I’d like to invite you to come along with me as I wrap up my own!

One of the most important parts of shutting down a launch is reviewing what happened…and answering the question, “Did things go as planned? And if not, what actually happened?”

It seems obvious, but so many people miss this potentially eye-opening opportunity.

You get to really dig into all the pieces of your launch–the ones that kept you up at night for several nights or months.

Here’s the truth – I’m not that good at gathering stats.

Of course, it’s still important and here’s what I do…

I usually review behavior and big numbers that are easy to find. And I know that’s not really a full-proof way to understand what happened, I’ve actually find a way that gives me more, up to the minute way of finding out how I did.

First, let’s look at the obvious information first:

Copy and past these questions into whatever tool you use like evernote, google docs, or maybe even write them out on paper.

How many sales were you hoping to make?

How many sales did you actually make?

How many people were you hoping to add to your mailing list?

How many people actually joined your list?

Did you change anything about the launch from the last time you did it? (If you were relaunching something)

How much traffic did you get to your actual sales page?

What % of people clicked through the sales page links or any launch related links in your emails? Usually you can get this info fairly easily.

What % of people didn’t open any emails or engage at all during your launch? Check your emails and count the number of people who did not open anything…again, you should be able to find this number out very easily. In infusionsoft, I’m able to click on each email, see the % of opens, not opened and tag those people accordingly.

What was the most popular piece of content during your launch? Check Google Analytics for this information. If people were looking somewhere other than your sales page, what does this tell you?

Based on opens, un-opened, and clicks, what were the most popular and then not so popular emails? If you used trackable links (bit.ly, prettylink or google url builder), you may be able to see exactly which emails led to sales.

When did sales or sign ups happen during your launch? The beginning, the end or spread out through the launch? If you had a fast action bonus at the beginning–maybe you had a surge of sales at the beginning that then went flat in the middle of the launch.

There are plenty of other questions you can ask when you’re doing a post mortem–how was your team? Did you schedule correctly? Did your social media community grow? Did you have alternate product sales as a result of your main product? Is there anything that just didn’t feel right about the launch? Did you have tech problems on the webinar?…

What’s important is to record them.

Then, based on all that information…create a summary of the launch–including how you felt about the launch in general and what you want to do differently next time.

You are missing a huge opportunity to record what went well and then keep doing those things. If you don’t reflect on the things that worked, you may end up thinking you need to change something each and every launch!

Ask Real Humans How You Did

I never used to do this…but last year, I realized how important it was to not just evaluate the numbers, but also get some real humans to weigh in on the launch itself.

Since I do care what my community thinks, it actually cracks me up a little how long it took me to start doing a post-launch survey.

This is a survey sent out to the people on your list WHO DIDN’T buy, but were engaged in the launch. You don’t need to send it to everyone and I’ll be sending my own email out to people who clicked on the sales page link and/or opened emails in the last crucial days of the launch.

Make sure the email is not accusatory, but more like — hey, how can I make this better for you and if Fearless Launching isn’t what you’re looking for, what is…

I know some people like to offer secondary less expensive offers in this post-launch survey, but I think asking for people’s opinions on your launch is plenty.

In fact, I think you should be thinking what you can you give them instead of an offer.

Additional Resources To Help You Get The Most Of Your Launch Review

Track your launch using Google Analytics by Claire Pelletreau

How to do a launch review (true story) by Karen Sergeant

What else should you do after a launch?

Plus, you can also check out these super simple suggestions in this video:

5 Ways to hit the reset button after a launch

I’d love to hear what you do after a launch — do you bother with tracking the data and drawing any conclusions from your launch success (or lack of success) to bring with you to your next launch? Share in the comments below!