{"id":4696,"date":"2015-12-22T23:26:55","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T05:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/blog\/?p=4696"},"modified":"2016-02-11T13:14:53","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T19:14:53","slug":"product-launch-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.growthtools.com\/?p=4696","title":{"rendered":"All the data and numbers from our latest product launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u00a0me and Huck (my 6-month-old) started a new family tradition.<\/p>\n

The Tradition:<\/strong> Driving to Home Depot, him screaming at the top of his lungs, us buying a Christmas tree and letting the tree nearly fly off of the top of the car on the way home.<\/p>\n

Incredible tradition. You should try it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Growing up my dad always got a kick out of hiding and disguising our Christmas presents. One year me and my brother woke up, rushed into the living room and found\u00a0two gigantic boxes beside the tree.\u00a0I’m talking BIG boxes. Refrigerator-sized boxes.<\/p>\n

See, in prior years we\u00a0had developed a bad habit of shaking our presents to figure out what was inside them. My dad\u00a0wasn’t a big fan of this. So that year he wrapped\u00a0all of our gifts up like normal but\u00a0then stuffed\u00a0them inside\u00a0gigantic boxes. Then he wrapped the gigantic boxes up.<\/p>\n

There was exactly a 0% chance of us shaking the gigantic refrigerator box.<\/p>\n

= Mission Accomplished.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Other years produced many other crazy harebrained ideas from my\u00a0dad.<\/p>\n

It was fun though. It was a cool tradition.<\/p>\n

I like traditions.<\/p>\n

Last year I inadvertently started a new tradition on this blog. I wrote this recap article<\/a> of the first major product launch I ever did. And then a few months later I followed it up with a recap of the first<\/a>\u00a010ksubs product launch.<\/p>\n

Looking back on those articles, they were two of the most fulfilling (and best)\u00a0articles I ever wrote. You guys commented, emailed and told me in person how much they’ve helped you and how much you enjoyed them.<\/p>\n

So, going forward we’re going to keep that tradition alive!<\/p>\n

\"\"

At the end of every product launch we do, I’ll\u00a0do a detailed analysis of what went right, what went wrong, a revenue breakdown and other fun stuff we discovered along the way.<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what this article is.<\/p>\n

2 weeks ago we wrapped up the Fall 2015 enrollment into our primary product, Get 10,000 Subscribers. This article will deconstruct that product launch so you can learn from our mistakes and occasional genius decisions.<\/p>\n

[su_note note_color=”#4c96c6″ text_color=”#ffffff”]Side Note:\u00a0<\/strong>One thing I slightly regret from the previous two launch recaps\u00a0are their headlines. They focus on the amount of money I made. And I don’t really like that. I certainly don’t mind sharing revenue as other people like Nathan<\/a><\/span> and Brennan<\/a><\/span> sharing their revenue numbers played a key role in me starting Videofruit.<\/p>\n

So I have no plans to stop sharing launch revenue but I don’t want that to be the emphasis.<\/p>\n

I don’t want these articles to read like “Oh hey! Look at all this money we made! Ain’t that cool!” Those types of articles suck. They make it sound too “Get rich quick” for my taste. They can be misleading.<\/p>\n

Instead, the emphasis of these launch recap posts will be on what we did, what we screwed up on and how you can learn from that.\u00a0[\/su_note]<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/h1>\n

To make things a smidge easier to navigate, I’ve put this fancy little table of contents at\u00a0the top.<\/p>\n

Part 1: The results of the launch (revenue, new students…all dem fun numbers)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 2: The sequence of events (everything we did and the order we did it in)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 3: Our paid advertising strategy that worked (sorta)<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 4: How we used upsells to generate over $30,000 in additional revenue<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 5: Random stuff (Q&A, lessons learned, ideas for next time)<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Onward!<\/p>\n

[su_quote style=”modern-blue”]Featured Download:<\/strong>\u00a0Download our internal launch checklist that will walk you through what to do before, during, and after your launch.\u00a0([content_upgrade id=”46″]click here to download[\/content_upgrade]).[\/su_quote]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Part 1: The results of the launch (and one big lesson)<\/h1>\n

Alright, before we get into all the details of what we did and how we did it, let’s get the most-asked question out of the way first.<\/p>\n

\"\"

^^^ 50% of all conversations in the last 2 weeks. ^^^<\/strong><\/p>\n

So here are the numbers…<\/p>\n

During the Spring launch we had 13,000 subscribers on the email list and launched to 11,500 of them. (More on why we excluded some people later.)<\/p>\n

The results of that launch was $220,750<\/strong> in invoiced sales.<\/p>\n

Total new students:\u00a0234<\/strong><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

During the Fall launch (the one we just concluded) we had 40,000 subscribers on the email list and launched to 22,000 of them.<\/p>\n

The results of that launch was $511,466<\/strong>\u00a0in invoiced sales.<\/p>\n

Total new students:\u00a0432<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Here is the breakdown of\u00a0who bought what.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Heading into the 2nd launch of 10ksubs I was curious\/worried\/obsessed with how the\u00a0second launch would go.<\/p>\n

Would it be a\u00a0one-hit wonder?<\/em><\/p>\n

Would we make as much as we did\u00a0the\u00a0first time?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Would growing my list so quickly (tripling size) in such a short time period\u00a0hurt the\u00a0results?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I was 100% certain that the numbers would dip to some degree. Maybe not overall revenue, but I thought that the quality of the list would degrade as it grew.<\/p>\n

I was wrong.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The revenue per email subscriber went up by 25%.<\/p>\n

The average email subscriber in the Spring launch was worth $19.90<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

During the Fall launch that rose to just over $23<\/strong> per subscriber.<\/p>\n

The average 10ksubs student during the Spring launch spent $1,064<\/strong>, whereas in the Fall launch that increased to $1,408<\/strong> per student.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

There were a handful of\u00a0factors that contributed to that increase but the biggest was a change\u00a0we made to the pricing of the course.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

READ THIS SECTION (It’s really really important!)<\/h2>\n

Pricing is freaking important.<\/p>\n

Most people tend to swing waaaaay too far one way or the other on pricing. Either they price their products 10x lower than they should because they are scared no one will buy (usually the result of a\u00a0very primitive\u00a0sense of what their market will pay)\u00a0or\u00a0they price\u00a010x higher than they should.<\/p>\n

\"\"

When pricing your product the goal is to hit the sweet spot.<\/p>\n

Not too high (or you’ll barely sell\u00a0any and total revenue will suffer).<\/p>\n

Not too low (or you’ll sell a ton but total revenue will still suffer).<\/p>\n

Your goal is to be right in the middle.\u00a0Swing too far one way or the other and the results can be drastic.<\/p>\n

Imagine\u00a0you create\u00a0a widget…<\/p>\n

\"\"

And imagine your single goal in life is to figure out the perfect price for your widget.<\/p>\n

You have a few options:<\/p>\n

Option #1:<\/strong> You could sell your widget for $1 and get 1,000 people to buy from you.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Option #2:<\/strong> You could sell your widget for $1,000 and get 1 person to buy from you.<\/p>\n

\"\"

In the end\u00a0you make exactly the same amount of money.<\/p>\n

But what if instead of just randomly picking a price you found the sweet spot of\u00a0$500 and were able to sell 100\u00a0widgets?<\/p>\n

You would go from\u00a0making $1,000 (because your pricing sucked) to making $50,000 (because your pricing was perfect).<\/p>\n

The example might seem drastic, but it’s not. It happens every day.<\/p>\n

It happened to me in this launch.<\/p>\n

How to find the perfect price for your product<\/h2>\n

So, what do we do?<\/p>\n

How are we supposed to find the perfect price?<\/p>\n

First off, stop chasing the perfect price. I know, I just told you it was super important. But the problem with chasing perfection is it becomes a really fancy way to procrastinate on shipping your product.<\/p>\n

Instead,\u00a0give your product three different prices, then analyze who buys at each price and adjust so that your highest-priced version accounts for\u00a015-20% of sales.<\/p>\n

\"\"

This small little tweak made us over $100,000 in the Fall launch.<\/p>\n

Here is the step-by-step of exactly what we did…<\/p>\n

In the Spring launch (remember, this was the very first launch of the product) we had two packages for\u00a0the course:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Package #1:<\/strong> Master Plan that cost $1,200 (or 8 payments of $197)<\/p>\n

Package #2:<\/strong> Pro Plan that cost $600 (or 8 payments of $97)<\/p>\n

\"\"

We\u00a0decided on these prices by mixing\u00a0one part “scientific testing” and two\u00a0parts “stick your finger in the air and see what feels right.”<\/p>\n

(You can read a full rundown of the validation process we went through that helped us get in the right ballpark in the Spring launch recap post.)<\/p>\n

The results (remember, this is from the Spring launch of 10ksubs):<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

The results were that 55% of students purchased the $1,200 package and 45% of students bought the low-end package.<\/p>\n

Ideally, you don’t want any more than 20% of your sales coming from your most expensive package.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you have more than that, it means your price is too low and you’ve missed the sweet spot.<\/p>\n

(Remember, missing the sweet spot is very bad.)<\/p>\n

And we had 55%(!!!) of our buyers buying the high end package. If you are thinking to yourself, “That’s great! That means people really wanted the high end package!”, hold that thought until you see what happened in our latest launch.<\/p>\n

Ok. So let’s summarize real quickly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Summary Point #1:<\/strong> The first launch of 10ksubs brought in 195 students.<\/p>\n

Summary Point #2:<\/strong> Those students either bought a $600 package or a $1,200 package.<\/p>\n

Summary Point #3:<\/strong> Having multiple packages is good because it gives your high-end customer the ability to spend more money and buy a more awesome version of your product.<\/p>\n

Summary Point #4:<\/strong> A sign that you’ve priced your product correctly is that no more than 20% of your customers buy your high-end package.<\/p>\n

Summary Point #5:<\/strong> 55% of people bought our high-end package (meaning we had priced it too low).<\/p>\n

Make sense?<\/p>\n

Good!<\/p>\n

Alright, we entered the second launch knowing that we needed to increase our pricing. But instead of jacking up the price across the board\u00a0we decided to simply add a 3rd package.<\/p>\n

This is what the new pricing looked like:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Package #1:<\/strong>\u00a0Complete Package\u00a0that cost $2,400 (or 8 payments of $350)<\/p>\n

Package #2:<\/strong>\u00a0Standard Package that cost $1,200 (or 8 payments of $197)<\/p>\n

Package #3:<\/strong> Starter Package that cost $600 (or 8 payments of $97)<\/p>\n

Here is the full breakdown of the packages…<\/p>\n

\"\"

And check out what happened.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The number of people that bought the smallest package stayed practically the\u00a0same (45% bought on the first launch and 49% bought on the second launch).<\/p>\n

And the remaining\u00a051% of buyers were split almost down the middle between the top two plans.<\/p>\n

24% bought the $2,400 Complete package<\/p>\n

27% bought the $1,200 Standard package.<\/p>\n

Which means that without the addition of the $2,400 package, the 84\u00a0people who bought the Complete package would have almost certainly bought the Standard package (which costs $1,200 less).<\/p>\n

That’s a $102,224 increase in sales.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Read that again.<\/p>\n

Let it fully sink in.<\/p>\n

By simply adding a third plan and giving people the ability to pay more money, sales increased by $102,224.<\/p>\n

*mind = blown*<\/p>\n

If we do a little math and extrapolate\u00a0a bit, that means by missing the sweet spot (and NOT offering a third tier) in the first launch of the course, we left $64,800 on the table.<\/p>\n

*mind = blown again*<\/p>\n

This lesson\u00a0is so incredibly important that I made a video explaining it a bit further.<\/p>\n

WATCH THE VIDEO.<\/p>\n