Case Study: What We Learned from Our First Quick Launch

This is a guest post from Mark Sieverkropp. Mark is the head of Business Operations and the Senior JV Director for Matt McWilliams Consulting, Inc. Mark, his wife Lacie, and their two children make their home in Ephrata, Washington.

Recently, while Matt was out of the office for a few weeks, I ran a Quick Launch offering several of our swipe files, a case study, and a 2-hour Affiliate Bootcamp in honor of Matt’s birthday. Today I want to do a recap of that launch and share what went well, what didn’t go so well and what you can learn from all of it!

What is a Quick Launch?

As a company, we have been going through Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula and a few weeks before Matt was taking a few weeks off this summer we had learned about what Jeff calls a “Quick Launch”.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, let’s review a few of the characteristics of a Quick Launch:

It’s quick (I know, duh, right?). Quick launches are not full-blown launches that go on for a few weeks. Our quick launch lasted less than a week.
It’s easier. Yes, it’s easier, but there is still work involved with pulling it off.
There’s a reason or event. Typically a quick launch will be based on a specific reason or event.
It uses existing products. You aren’t creating something new here. Because this is a quick launch, you use existing products.
It involves a discount. Typically you are offering an existing product and a greatly reduced price.

Our Quick Launch

Dates: June 27 – July 1

Offer: We offered four individual products in the quick launch to create a “Birthday Bundle.”

Matt’s Affiliate Recruiting Email Templates
Matt’s Top 100 Affiliate Promotion Subject Lines Swipe File
A Two-Hour Bootcamp with Matt
BONUS Interview with Copywriting Academy Founder, Ray Edwards

Price: $37 (approximately 80% off)

Promotion: 5 emails + sales page

Sales Page: mattmcwilliams.com/birthday (since this sale is passed, the links to purchase are not live…)

What Went Well

We Did it!

The biggest takeaway we had from this launch was just the fact that we did it! We learned something and then implemented it immediately. Granted, Matt didn’t know we were doing it, but before he left we had discussed doing a quick launch. I just executed on it while he was gone.

So many times we learn something and say that “someday” we’ll put that knowledge into practice…only to have weeks, months, sometimes years go by without ever actually doing it. So actually executing on something we learned was a BIG win.

If more people would just take immediate action on what they learn, there would be a lot more success stories in business. And a lot less “shoulda, coulda, woulda” stories.

Remember the legendary quote from Facebook: “Done is better than perfect.”

Remember, DONE is better than perfect. What you learn today, act on tomorrow.

We Centered the Launch Around an Event

For Jeff Walker, his quick launch was centered around an unexpected tax bill. For us, our launch was centered around Matt’s birthday. Having your quick launch centered around an event or specific reason gives context to

Having your quick launch centered around an event or specific reason gives context to why you are offering such a must-have deal on your product or service.

We Turned Subscribers into Customers

If I’ve heard Matt say this once, I’ve heard him say it a hundred times, having paying customers on your email list is infinitely more valuable than just having subscribers on your list. His point is that a paying customer is MUCH more valuable than a subscriber. I’ve heard Jeff Walker talk about someone who has bought from you being 4-10x more valuable than someone who hasn’t.

With this launch, we were able to move numerous people from being subscribers to being customers. The act of purchasing increases a person’s loyalty to you and your products. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $37 purchase like this one, or a $2,000 purchase, that person is now a customer.

That’s huge.

We Built Up To the Launch

Leading up to our Quick Launch we put out content that was related to the products we were offering in the quick launch. Since Matt didn’t know I was going to do the launch, he didn’t realize that we were doing it. However, we do have a content calendar and we work to put similarly themed content together as much as possible, so when I put together the quick launch,

I looked at the content that was coming out before the launch and kept with that theme (You can see the posts that went live prior to the launch here, here, and here.).

As you can see, the very last one was a guest post I wrote…which is why my mind was already on the swipe copy theme when it came time to put together the Birthday Bundle!

We Used Existing Resources

Because Matt was out of the office, we didn’t have a choice but to utilize existing resources — not to mention that is the textbook thing to do for a Quick Launch.

In PLF, Jeff Walker specifically states that in a quick launch you take existing products and you offer them at a discount — or in a package that you have never offered before. So that is exactly what we did, we took several of our smaller swipe file products that had been offering individually when people sign up for Matt’s list combined them together with a case study that Matt recorded previously and then added a 2-hour boot camp on top of that. Voila!! Quick Launch offer – time to create content – 0 hours upfront!

We Kept it Simple

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the past year that I’ve been working with Matt, it is that launches can be complicated…and if you aren’t careful you can make them VERY complicated.

One of things we did right with this launch is we kept it simple. Makes me think of what my sports coaches use to always say — KISS — Keep It Simple Silly (they never said silly though…). We kept this launch simple. Simple emails. Simple landing page. Simple order processing. Simple. Simple. Simple.

Here’s a look at the sales page:

This was a quick launch. It was never meant to be a six-figure singe-your-nasal-hairs type launch. Luckily we kept it that way — and it went better as a result.

If you want to see the exact email copy we used during the launch, you can get it for FREE by clicking here.

What Went Not So Well

Not Having Matt Involved

As much as I like sitting in the captain’s chair and running the show (and I do…), this launch suffered because Matt wasn’t involved. Why? Because the people on Matt’s list have a rapport with Matt. He has built a relationship with them through blog posts, emails, etc. Even though I work with Matt on a daily basis and we talk constantly, it’s behind the scenes and his subscribers don’t know me.

It was interesting when all was said and done, the vast majority of people who purchased the Birthday Bundle were people that I DID have a relationship with — I had interacted with them at some point on some level.

On our next launch Matt will be involved intimately. Emails will come from him, videos, interactions, etc.

Incoherent Offer

In my mind the offer fit together nicely — it was centered around swipe copy and copywriting for affiliates. As we’ve reviewed the offer and the launch, however, we realized the messaging wasn’t the best and it wasn’t clear who the offer was for.

You see, in a lot of ways, we have two audiences — people wanting to use affiliates to promote their products and then people want to promote offers as an affiliate. And THIS offer didn’t clearly speak to either of these groups — because it didn’t speak well to either one.

In our next launch, we will spend more time defining exactly who our offer is for and what the offer will be.

Payment Processing

For this launch, we used Paypal’s payment processing and it worked. Yes, that’s about all I can say about that. Let’s be honest, PayPal’s processing is ugly! And it is not intuitive at all. Beyond being aesthetically lacking, our biggest customer service issue was people wanting to know how to download the swipe files they had just purchased. The link was on the thank you page after they purchased, but the way it was displayed on the PayPal page made it next to impossible to find and was easily overlooked.

We used PayPal because we already had it set up, so again, as I mentioned about, we kept it simple! Going forward we will be researching another payment processing option.

What’s Next

Overall, this Quick Launch was a huge success for us — and on top of that, Matt didn’t show me the door when he got back for deciding to do this without his blessing (thanks for that Matt!).

As is the case with every launch you run, we learned a ton and will make changes and adjustments going forward. But the biggest thing is that we did it!

Which leads me to my challenge to you…

Put a Quick Launch on your calendar for sometime in the next 30-60 days. Then report back to Matt and I and let us know how it went. We’d love to share your story!

Make it easy on yourself…grab the exact email copy we used as a guide.