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October 7, 2022, by Becca Klein

#005: What Should You Do Before You Launch Your Course?

In this episode, we'll be covering pre-launch content (i.e., what you should be doing before you launch your course). We'll talk about:

• What pre-launch content is
• What types of pre-launch content you can create
• Where you should be publishing your pre-launch content
• When you should be publishing it
• And more

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Full Transcript:

Hey guys, welcome to The Blog to Biz Show. In this episode, I want to talk about something called pre-launch content.

So if you're creating a course, or thinking about creating a course and gearing up for your launch, you don't just want to launch all of the sudden out of the blue. There's a lot you can do in the pre-launch period to prime your audience, to get them ready to buy your course. So that's what I want to talk about in this episode.

The goal of pre-launch content

So there's a few different ways that you can do this. You always want to keep in mind that the goal of all of this content is to prime your audience. So you want to get them to buy. You want to get them ready.

That means they need to see you as an expert, as an authority. As trustworthy in whatever your topic is. It means that they have to overcome their objections, the myths, the limiting beliefs that they have about your topic.

So there's a lot that goes into this.

When should pre-launch content start?

So this prelaunch content should start usually four weeks out from your launch, maybe six, maybe eight, not much longer than that. It's not something you want to be doing for months and months, because you want to tie it to your course for the few weeks before your launch.

What should pre-launch content do?

You want to be able to shift people's mindsets so that they feel like your course is relevant to them and that it's going to solve whatever the problem is.

You want to provide value and educate them. Changing their mindset. Convincing them that you're an expert. It takes time.

So you can't just all of a sudden launch out of the blue and expect people to view you as the person that's going to solve their problem about topic X.

But if you've been priming them over the last month or two, they're going to be much more likely to do that.

What kind of content should you create for pre-launch content?

So what kind of content can you do for pre-launch content? It could be a blog post, a Facebook live, an Instagram post, a YouTube video, a podcast episode, an email. Wherever it is that you are already creating content and where you have an audience, you can create pre-launch content.

If you're on TikTok, if you've got an active, engaged audience on there, then by all means, create TikTok videos.

So you can do this anywhere where your audience hangs out, anywhere where you are already creating content.

You're not going to start a podcast just for sake of doing this, but if you already have a podcast, then absolutely, the episodes leading up to your launch should be related to your launch topic.

When you think about where you should focus your efforts here, you want to ask where your audience is most active, where do they feel the most comfortable? And what are you already doing? Like I said, you're not going to start a podcast just for this purpose. But if you already have a podcast, great. If you already have a YouTube channel, if you already have a blog, if you already have an active Instagram account, et cetera.

So where's your audience, where are you most comfortable and what are you already doing?

Now, assuming that you already have a blog, I really recommend doing blog posts in combination with at least one other platform. If you don't already have a blog, you don't want to just start one for this.

But if you do blog posts are really good pre-launch content because they can be as long as you want. They can be really meaty. We can really educate. They can really solve a problem. It can be really valuable.

So you can create a multi-thousand word posts. This isn't going to be like a 200-word post. It's going to be like a 3000, 4,000, 5,000 word post that answers some question about your topic and really makes clear you're the authority.

You know what you're talking about. They can trust you when it comes to this topic. You want people reading this post to leave, being like, “wow this girl really knows what she's talking about. And now I know how to do X.”

You don't want them leaving, thinking. Okay. This kind of provided half the answer, but now I need to go Google six other things.

You want to answer all those questions. Be thorough. Don't just answer the one little question of your blog posts.

You want to think about what are the other topics and subtopics related to this answer. Every question in that post. So if you're doing blog posts, do at least one other type of content. So Instagram, YouTube podcasts, whatever.

But don't limit yourself. If you can do more than two, if you have the bandwidth, absolutely do it.

Repurposing your pre-launch content

And you can repurpose this content. So if you write a 3000-word blog post, that can be repurposed so many times you can get multiple Instagram posts about that. Multiple reels, multiple TikToks.

You could create a podcast episode on the same topic. A YouTube video on the same topic. Wherever it is you're doing, you can absolutely repurpose that content and you should.

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. If you spent hours and hours writing this blog post, you should get as much bang for your buck as you can.

When should you publish pre-launch content?

So you're going to start doing this about four to six weeks before your launch. And for those first few weeks, you should be putting something out. Once, but ideally twice a week.

With the blog posts, maybe only once a week, because they are very time-consuming to write, but an Instagram caption, something like that. It's not going to take you that long. You should be able to do that twice a week. No problem.

And then in the final week to 10 days before your launch, you want to be putting something out every single day.

Now for blog posts, you may not be able to do a blog post every day, maybe every other day, but again, for Instagram, TikTok, stuff that doesn't take that much time, you should be doing it once a day. If not more, you can do it twice a day.

There's no reason you can't post on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook all on the same day. Publish your podcast episode, the sky's the limit.

Examples of pre-launch content

So here's a few examples of what this might look like.

You could do a blog post series. For example, if I'm creating a course on how to create and run and promote an online course. I might create a blog post series, all about course tips and each post would be one course tip.

This is going to prime my audience to see me as an expert in courses. And it's going to share value because they're getting tips, real tips, meaty tips, educational tips about courses. I'm going to do this once a week. And then, like I said, when you get really close to the launch every day or every other day.

They're going to be super meaty. Super helpful.

And they should be evergreen. So it shouldn't be a post that's not really going to be relevant in a week. It should be something that can live on your blog and be found on Google and Pinterest over weeks, months, years.

You also want to make sure to include your freebie in your post. So if you're getting ready for a launch, hopefully you have a freebie that's really aligned with your course.

You don't just want to be filling your email list with random people. You want to be filling it with people who are going to be prime customers for your course.

So for example, as I'm recording this, I'm getting ready to launch a course on courses. So my main freebie right now is my profitable course planner that helps you go through all the steps of planning out your course. It's 33 pages. It's guided. I walked you through the whole thing. It's a really great freebie.

So if you have a freebie like this, which again, you should. Include it in the blog post, depending on the length of the post, you could include an opt-in form two to three times within the post asking people to sign up for this freebie.

And if you're doing this right, your blog post and your freebie, and your course are all on the same topic. So it should be a natural yes.

For people to say yes to that freebie.

You also want to make sure that these blog posts are SEO-optimized. Because again, you want these to be found on Google for years to come.

You could also do a live-stream series. You can do a Facebook live or Instagram live wherever your audience hangs out. Doesn't really matter.

And you can pull some content from your course to do this again, you can do a series. So of course, tips, series, anything like that.

Any kind of tips then, whatever it is, baking tips, gardening tips, just have a series like that.

These lives should be maybe 15 to 20, maybe 30 minutes long. But that doesn't need to be all new content, it can include chatting with people in the comments answering Q and A's, that kind of thing.

Live video is super, super powerful. So I really recommend adding the sin, even if you're not real comfortable on live video, yet the more you do it, the more comfortable you're going to get. And it's actually a really powerful tool.

And I've been a latecomer to live video because I'm not a fan of it, but I really pushed myself to do it because I know how powerful it is. And I will say, I can't say that I love it yet, but I am much more comfortable than I was when I started

And when you're doing these again, you should be promoting your freebie because the ultimate goal is to get these people onto your email list so that you can email them about your launch, about your course.

So include multiple times in your live mentioned, “Hey, if you want to learn more about X, Check out my planner, my ebook, my template at this link.” Make it an easy link. Don't make it a big convoluted thing, make it something that they can easily remember. You should always be doing that.

You can also do a series on your regular Instagram feed. So not an Instagram live, just the regular old-school grid posts like Instagram used to be.

These can basically be like mini blog posts. You can make an Instagram caption pretty long. So you can really use these to teach. This is not going to be a caption with one sentence and then like a winking emoji. It's going to be a caption where you're really teaching on whatever your topic is. So really think of it as a mini blog posts.

And again, link to your freebie. Hopefully your freebie is the link in the bio of your Instagram profile. So you can direct people there.

But you can also put the link in the text of the caption so that people have the choice of whether they want to type it in or whether they want to go to your profile.

And like I said, if you're doing this right, your freebie is going to align with your Instagram feed is going to align with your course. So it should be a natural yes.

What types of pre-launch content can you create?

So there's a few different kinds of content that you can include in this.

First is educational content. So that's mostly what we've been talking about Tips on how to do something, talking about the first major steps they need to take to get results, stuff like that. And it's totally okay. If some of his info is going to be repeated in your course, it's fine because you're trying to attract people to your course.

So it's perfectly okay. If one of the blog posts you write overlaps with something you talk about in module three of your course, that's not a problem.

It's going to show your audience that you're knowledgeable and that they can trust you on this topic, which is really important because if they're going to lay out hundreds of dollars for your course, they need to believe that you are an expert and that they can trust

So educational content is a great way to do that.

You could also do what I'll call connection content. With this, you're going to open up and build a deeper connection to your audience. So you're going to share your own story here. Talk about what your life was like before you implemented the strategies in your course and what it's like now after.

And the answer is hopefully it's better. You talk about what your turning point was, talk about what you went through, trying to learn XYZ. And talk about how hard it was, but Hey, now it's going to be easier for them because you've got this course.

So talk about all of that stuff to really build a connection with your audience.

You can also do myth content. So are there myths about your topic? Are there limiting beliefs that hold people back from doing this that could prevent them from buying your course?

You can do a post busting the seven myths about X. You want to overcome these objections every time you can. On your sales page, you're going to be overcoming objections in your webinar. You're going to be overcoming objections.

There's no reason you can't start early. So myth content can be a great way to do this.

You can also do at the very end next step content. So for the last post right before you're going to launch.

You're going all out and positioning your course as the logical next step. You're not hinting at it. You're saying: “My course is going to teach you blah, blah, blah. It's going to get you this result about X it's the next step. If you want to learn more and if you want to achieve X, if you want this result, if you want this transformation…”

You're going to remind them of the previous content. And show them why your course is the answer.

And hopefully if they've been following along with the series, even with part of it, they're already going to be primed to believe, “Yeah, she's knowledgeable about this. I can trust her. I've had my objections busted. I'm ready to learn about this. I believe that this course can solve my problem about X.”

So all of this prelaunch content can absolutely help your launch. I would never recommend launching without doing prelaunch content first. And since launches take a long time to plan, you're going to have plenty of time to write these blog posts. These Instagram captions make these TikTok videos, whatever it is.

So you shouldn't think of this as just an extra add-on you should think of this as being part of your launch strategy. It really is an important aspect. And it's something that I don't think gets talked about enough. So I really want to emphasize you should absolutely be doing this kind of prelaunch content.

And it's hard for me to tell you you're going to get X percent more people and I don't really have numbers like that to tell you, I wish I did, but I can tell you it is going to help. There are going to be more people who are going to be converted because they've already been learning about this topic from you. So they're already primed to buy this course.

So hopefully that all makes sense. I really want to encourage you to do this kind of prelaunch content. I hope that you will. And so if you have a launch coming up or if you're thinking about creating and of course keep this in mind, it's part of the process and you really should do

All right, that's it for today. I will see you guys next week.

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