#23 My membership launch breakdown

Hello and welcome to the freelance ads club podcast with me your host Aggie Meroni. Whether you're a seasoned freelance ads manager, or just thinking about taking the leap into self employment, this podcast is for you. Every week, I'll be releasing a bite sized episode, I'll be sharing mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned from my own freelance business. I'll be showcasing some of the amazingly talented freelancers in the freelance ads club. And I also will be speaking to some incredible guests who generously be sharing that knowledge with us to help us keep updated with industry trends. And I really hope that after listening to this podcast, you'll come away full of confidence on how to win great clients, how to charge correctly, and most importantly, retain those dream clients so that you build a successful and sustainable business. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the freelance ABS club podcast. So today is a bit of an impromptu episode. And it's because I wanted to dig into the launch of the freelance as club membership. Now, one of my bugbears when it comes to people promoting how they launch, and kind of the rags to riches story, and you know, you're going to be a millionaire overnight, and things like that is really, really unrealistic. Now, lots of people launch really well. And a lot of the people that launch really well have been launching for years. So I've had loads of practice. Now, I launched my first thing in February last year, and it was an absolute disaster. On paper, I'm probably going to do a separate episode on that, because I learned a lot from it. And I don't actually see it as a failure. But I wanted to share how my launch went for the membership. Because it went really well. For me, it's the most successful launch I've had so far. And the numbers are probably really on were underwhelming, probably not ones that you think, wow, I don't see that as an amazing launch. But I'm going to tell you why this was an amazing launch, especially for me. So first of all, I'm gonna break down the numbers for you. So my launch isn't what I would say was something that I planned out for a long time. It's something that I'm sure you heard me talk about before, was something that I wanted to launch for a long time, but I really didn't have the confidence in it. And it was mostly mainly fear, because I really enjoyed running the free slack. I thought if no one joins the membership, then I was going to be a bit heartbroken, because I would have to close it all down because there wasn't demand for it. And I actually really enjoyed running it. So that's probably what I was holding back so long to launch it. So after my launch, we have 18 members in the membership. And that is way more than I expected. So my happy goal would have been 15. So I'm absolutely thrilled that so many amazing advantages have trusted me enough to join our community. And there were some interesting things that happened during the launch. So I wanted to share that with you. So first of all, as I said, I didn't have a very thorough plan. When I look when I planned the launch. It was very much right, I just need to launch this now. Because if I don't launch it now, I'm just not never going to launch it. And it's going to be one of those things that I'm terrified about forever. So I started teasing on Instagram, on on my emails, and then in the free slack group that something was coming. And then two days later, I announced that the membership was on its way. I've never been so terrified in my life. Honestly, like couldn't breathe. I felt sick. I didn't sleep, like proper fear. And my biggest fear was that I'd have to shut everything down. Even if I had one member join honestly, I would have been happy like I was just so scared. Anyway, that's a lesson to everyone. If you're terrified, just do it. What's the worst that can happen? You just feel sick for the whole thing. So I didn't have a massive audience. So the free slack. I think there's about 140 150 people in there. On the mailing list, I have 163 people that Instagram is tiny, it's like under 100 people. So I wouldn't say that my audience was massive to launch to but it's very engaged. And it's very specific to what I was launching. I'd also kind of been testing the water with polls and asking lots of questions about people watch what people Who actually needed. I also got a lot of DMS during the launch. Kind of pre launch time because I went to die announcer membership was going live. So doors opened on the first, I think it was the Wednesday before the 25th, I announced I was opening it. So I had a week basically of pre launch before doors opened. And I emailed once a day for that week, I honestly thought I was driving people nuts that it was like so many emails, but I only had three unsubscribes through that whole period. Until phase emails were from the same person, they just signed up on the email list for two different email addresses. So that's actually tiny for number of unsubscribes during the launch, so that was fine for me. What else? So I was terrified that I was annoying people by emailing them every day. I didn't post that much in the free slack probably mentioned it a couple of times. And I was kind of posting on Instagram, but it was happening. The DMS that I've got in the slack to my Instagram all asking more questions about details of the membership. And these are all questions that I answered as I went through the pre launch. So every email I wrote on the day that I sent it, because it was very much live answering the questions that came up, I set up a waitlist as well. And I had 30 people join the waitlist, which again, I was super thrilled about. But I opened up the doors to everyone. So the waitlist was more for me to gauge interest rather than to only sell to the waitlist. And one thing I would say to anyone looking to launch is open it up to more than your whitelist because I had people join that were not on the whitelist had never given me any sign that they were interested in joining the membership. And then they joined, which obviously I'm thrilled about. And there are people on the waitlist that joined and they didn't join the membership. So I think the lesson I learned from that is weightless a great to gauge interest and who might maybe join in the future, or people that want to hear more, and it might just not be the right time for them. But they'll also be the lurkers who are interested. But maybe you didn't get through get round to joining the waitlist or then they panic joined on the last day because they realised they can't join the waitlist, but they still wanted to join. So we've got 18 members in there now got our first connection call in two days, because I'm recording this the Tuesday before this goes live. One person has already asked to upgrade to annual from next month. And there are already two people on the waitlist to join again for the next time. So what I did was I closed carts on midnight on the first I literally open cart for one day. That was purely selfish reasons, because I just didn't want to long carts. I didn't want to drag it out over days. So yeah, I just kept it open for one day. And I think that worked really well because people were waiting for it to open. I mean, I woke up on the first and already people joined. So they must have woken up really early or gone to bed really late and joined. And I made it so that I set up a waitlist with an automation that I swapped into my link tree, and also had a follow up email that went out soon as the card close saying, if you missed out this time, then please join the waitlist. That's literally all I did. And two people have joined him. So there will always be people that don't make it during doors open. Or it's just not right for them at that right time. So I would recommend having that waitlist ready to go as soon as doors close. So the one thing that I wish surprised about and is amazing, I think is my sales page had a conversion rate between 20 to 22% through the day. Now, as we were marketers we know 1% is usually good 3% If it's a really warm audience is amazing. So between 20 and 22 kind of blew my mind. Now, the only thing I can put that down to is it was an amazing sales page. Or it was a very, very engaged audience that were interested in the page, or my messaging was really clear about who it wasn't for. So people I know there are people that just kind of popped in to have a nosey around on the sales page, which is totally fine and I do all the time to other people as well. But the intent was really high for people that were actually visiting that page. Things that I'm what that I've learned from this time. Making sure your audience is the right audience for your what you want to promote and sell it I'm making sure that you 100% Believe in what you're selling and that you're passionate about, it really does come across when you're talking about and what you're trying to achieve, and like your vision for what you want to do and how you want to support people. I think that's really important. And I think you don't need a big audience. That's really clear to me. Now, having the right audience is much more important. I would say, though, that making sure you keep growing your audience is important, so that you don't annoy your audience with what you do. So now that I have more time, I will be creating more things to support everyone in the in the paid membership, but also in the free group. And the one the biggest lie, but I've ever heard about launching. And I keep hearing it. From lots of things. I've done launching courses, I've done launching training, I've done launching programmes. And there's always some really unhelpful example of where someone wrote something on their Facebook page. And like 100 people, so they wanted to join, they had the easiest launch ever, because 100 people joined like in 20 minutes. That doesn't happen in normal life. I've never known a launch for someone's literally just feel something with 100 people, unless it's like Marie Forleo. Or, as I any of the big names, it really does take like consistency. And you feel like you're repeating yourself and annoying people because you repeat the same message so much. But you just have to keep repeating it. So it's quite uncomfortable. But even if only a few people join the thing that you want to do the first time if they love it, and they have taken away what they wanted to learn from what you want to sell or how you want to support people, it will keep growing. And that's something that I've seen with my Sprint's, meta as refresh Sprint's. But that's something I'm going to talk about separately as well. But how that's grown and how that came about. But yeah, that's a summary of my launch in numbers, what I've learned from it, and yeah, how excited I am about relaunching it when it's all up and running properly, because my current members are extremely lovely and patient with me as I build everything else. But yeah, I'm determined, it's going to be the best answer membership out there. So if you want to join the waitlist for the next cohorts, then I'll add the link to the show notes. If you're just coming across this for the first time, and you want to have a mosey in the free group, I'll add the link to the slack, the Slack channel, or the application for Maven, in the show notes as well. But yeah, thanks so much for listening. I hope you've come away with that with a more realistic inside view of what it takes to launch something and the emotional turmoil it sometimes involves. But, yeah, don't let it put you off. I think you have to launch a few things. And for it to go badly for a few times before it starts to get better. It really is a skill. And I'm actually looking forward to Nachi mappings this year, which I never ever thought I would say because I hated launching before. But yeah, let if you're in the slacks or the membership, then drop a note in there. Let me know what you think about my launch story. And yeah, I'll see you in there. If you enjoyed listening to this episode today, then please hit subscribe or follow depending on where you're listening. It really helps other people find us. Also, if you're a freelance ads manager, and you're looking for a lovely community of other ads managers to support you as you grow your business, then check out the show notes and apply to join us. And if you're a brand or agency that are looking for talent, support your new projects. There's also an application form for you in the show notes to tap into the talent in our community. So thanks again for listening in. And I will see you on the next episode.