Launch: An Internet Millionaire's Secret Formula to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love and Live the Life of Your Dreams

by Jeff Walker

The results have been staggering. I started my businesses from the humblest beginnings imaginable, and I’ve gone on to sell tens of millions of dollars of my products. And more to the point, my students and clients have dwarfed my own success—they’ve sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their own products and services.

The funny thing is, as I reflect back, it all happened accidentally. I didn’t set out to reinvent marketing or to become a leader in the industry.

In fact, when I started out, I had zero sales and marketing experience. And, to a large extent, ...

Turning Your Marketing into an Event Have you ever noticed how Hollywood tries to build buzz before a movie is released? First there’s the trailer six months before the movie. Then there are TV ads leading up to the movie. Then the actors head out on a tour of the talk shows. And nowadays there’s a social media campaign right around the release date. And how about when Apple releases a product? They always create a massive campaign leading up to the release date. In the months before a new product release, all the Apple fanboy sites are full of breathless rumors about when the release will be, the actual product to be released, and what new features to expect.

Those types of campaigns create a huge amount of buzz and excitement BEFORE THE PRODUCT IS EVER RELEASED.

In fact, sometimes the product release becomes an event in and of itself. Huge anticipation surrounds the launch, and people are ge...

Now contrast that to a normal marketing campaign, what I called “Hope Marketing” earlier. That’s where you create a product or open a business or roll out a ...

Your Market Is a Conversation So let’s start with a nearly universal truth: people find conversations a lot more interesting than monologues or lectures.

And the evolution of the Internet has basically been one long movement toward increased conversation. Never before in history has it been easier to communicate and converse with more people around the world.

People are no longer interested in being shouted at from a TV commercial about whatever features your product has. Actually, they were never interested in that, but now they have more choices, and it’s a lot easier to tune you out when you start shouting at them, “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, BUY MY STUFF!”

So instead of shouting at your prospects, what if you engaged them in a conversation?

For instance, imagine you’re a beginning guitar player, and an expert guitar teacher that you’re following online says something like: “Hey, I’ve got this really cool new technique where I can teach anyone to play one new song each week, and I just came up with a crazy idea to put together a course that teaches my ‘secret’ method. (Actually, I don’t know if it’s a secret, but I’ve never seen anyone else use this method. I showed it to a few friends, and it works like gangbusters.) In any case, before I create the course, I want to make sure...

It’s so simple . . . but asking that question starts a conversation. It definitely doesn’t shout out “BUY MY STUFF” to your followers. Opening a dialogue with your potential clients is an example of what I call “the shot across the bow,” and it’s a great way to start your prelaunch campaign. And that simple question, modified for hundreds of...

Sequences, Stories, and Triggers Okay, I just gave you a little example of the start of the PLF-style prelaunch. It might not look all that powerful or special, but you’ll see soon enough how that inauspicious start can b...

At its heart, Product Launch Formula is made up of sequences, st...

You can’t rely on one single marketing message; instead you need to think in “sequences.” Instead of relying on a single communication to make your point, you use a sequence of communications that build upon each other. Our product launches use a series of sequences—pre-prelaunch, the prelaunch, the launch, and the post-launch.

Think about the Harry Potter books. Which book release got more attention? The first book or the final book? The answer is the final book, because each book in the sequence gathered more attention and more fans—and those fans were rabidly anticipating each new book in the series.

So let’s take a quick look at the primary sequences in PLF: 1. Pre-Prelaunch: This is where you begin. You use it to start building anticipation among your most loyal fans. (And I understand that you might not have any loyal fans yet—I’ll get to that in Chapter 3.) The pre-prelaunch is also used to judge how receptive the market will be to your offer and to figure out what some of the primary objections people will have. And, surprisingly enough, the pre-prelaunch can even be used to tweak your final offer. 2. Prelaunch: This is the heart and soul of your sequencing, where you gradually romance your market with three pieces of high-value, Prelaunch Content. You use your prelaunch to activate mental triggers such as authority, social proof, community, anticipation, and reciprocity. And you do all that while you answer the objections of your market. Typically, you release your Prelaunch Content over a period of 5 to 12 days. The format for that content can vary widely, from video to audio to written PDF reports to blog posts to teleseminars to software (and I’m sure we’ll invent a few more formats as the years go by). 3. Launch: This is the big day you’ve been building up to...

If you want to make your business and your marketing memorable, then your marketing needs to tell a story.

That doesn’t mean you have to become a novelist, but you need to tell an engaging story about your products and services and why they matter to your prospect. And you need to communicate that story to your prospects. There is no better way or better place to tell your story than in your launch sequence. This is one of the hidden weapons of PLF, because the most powerful way to communicate your message is with a story, and the serial nature of your Prelaunch Sequence is a perfect place to tell that story. It’s no accident that most Prelaunch Sequences have three pieces of content. Most movies or novels naturally break down into three parts, and no doubt you’ve heard the term “three-act play.” We’re dealing with a structure that has been proven over time immemorial, so why not use that structure in your marketing? And why not base your sequences around it? Even the launch itself has three primary sequences: pre-prelaunch, prelaunch, and launch. Again, this might seem simple, but it’s incredibly powerful stuff. And when you start to layer sequences and the power of story together, then you’re creating a powerhouse structure.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle: The Me...

Humans are funny creatures. We all like to think that we make rational, logical decisions. But it’s really not that way. In fact, the vast majority of our decisions and behaviors are based in emotion and mental programming—an...

In fact, there are a number of mental triggers that influence those decisions and behaviors. These triggers are always working just below our consciousness, and t...

For instance, if we perceive something as being scarce, we will naturally give it more value. Or if we consider someone as an authority figure, we are almost automatically more influenced by that person. Or if we consider ourselves part of a community, we will overwhelmingly act in accordance with how we think the people in that community ...

There are many more, however, and I’ll cover them a little later. But here’s the thing to understand right now: These triggers create enormous influence over our actions. They are timeless, and they are universal. They will not lose their power of persuasion anytime soon, and they work in any language, in any country, and just about any business. And at the end of the day, no matter what business you’re in, you are really in the business of influencing your prospects and your clients. And your la...

your sequences, the power of story, and the mental triggers. When you layer these mental triggers on top of each other, you’re not dependent on any one trigger but combining them to create a powerfully influential message. Then you embed those mental triggers into a compelling and memorable story that cuts through the marketing fog, a story that connects your offer to the hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations of your prospect. And you deliver that story in a tight sequence that turns your launch into a big event that captures your prospects’ imaginations and builds anticipation toward your launch day.

Now at that point a lot of people would start thinking about borrowing money, either from a bank or possibly from a friend or family member. But that isn’t what I was thinking. My first thought was “What type of offer can I make to my email list to raise that kind of money quickly?” That’s the power of the list. It means that you have the ability to create a big payday on demand. And that’s exactly what I did. I looked at all the interactions and feedback I’d had with my list, and I sat down and mapped out an offer that I knew the people on my email list would want. I also made sure it was a product that I could create quickly and easily. And then I put together a launch for that product. That’s the backstory behind my first six-figure launch—the first “six in seven” that I mentioned in Chapter 1. The result of that launch was that I did $106,000 in a single week, and of that about $103,000 was profit. And just that quickly I had my down payment for my house. That’s the power of the list (and, of course, a well-orchestrated Product Launch Formula-style promotion).

The Golden Strategy List building is one of the core strategies I always focus on in every business I own. If you take NOTHING else from this book but an obsessive focus on building your list of clients and prospects, this book will still be worth 10,000 times what you paid for it.

In the online world, your list is everything. EVERYTHING. In fact, it really is hard to fathom the power of an email list until you have a list and you push that “send” button . . . and then within seconds you start to see the people on your list responding and clicking through to your web site. That power is breathtaking, and once you experience it, you will realize the way you live your life has changed forever.

When I talk about lists and list building, it is always email that people have asked to receive. I’ve been publishing online since 1996, and I have never sent a single spam message. In fact, everything I do (and teach) is the very antithesis of spam. The reality is that spamming is a very quick way to put yourself out of business. Don’t do it. Send email only to people who have requested it.

Your List Is Not a Strategy, It’s the Strategy As I mentioned above, list building has been a core strategy for me since I started. In fact, it was the ONLY strategy I had when I started out. I actually began my list building efforts before I even had a web site. I can’t remember exactly why I was so focused on list building from day one, but I quickly realized just how powerful lists were. Those lists have become the cornerstone of everything that I do in my business. Of course, over the years, plenty of other people have figured this out as well. But there’s another thing that set me apart from the majority of other people who were building lists, and that is summed up in one word: Relationship.

Lots of times I’ll go to a conference, and people will come up to me (people I’ve never met), and they’ll start talking to me like I’m a long-lost friend. Sometimes I’ll wonder if they actually ARE an old friend I’ve somehow forgotten. They’ll start asking me about the stuff I’ve shared from my personal life in my emails—about how the skiing or the mountain biking season has been, about how my kids are doing, about how my guitar-playing is going. And that’s a good thing, because I want my readers to feel like they have a personal connection with me. That connection is what gets them to open my emails, read them, and ultimately click on the links in those emails.

Obviously, you want a responsive list. It’s better to have a list of 100 people where 60% of them open your emails (i.e., 60 people are reading your email) than a list of 1,000 where 1% open your emails (i.e., 10 people are reading your email).

1. The size of your list is not nearly as important as how responsive the list is, so your list relationship is extremely important. 2. The entire PLF process you are about to learn is one of the best ways to build your relationship with your list.

In terms of pure response rates, an email subscriber is worth many times more than a social media subscriber. In fact, the latest tests I’ve seen have shown that email is at least 20 times more powerful than a Facebook list.

If you build a list on Facebook, you need to remember that the list is actually owned by Facebook, and they can change the rules any time they want. And please note that social media sites DO change the rules and have done so with regularity. Your list will become the biggest asset in your business, and it’s much too important an asset to build on a platform that you don’t control. Finally, social media sites come and go. A few years ago Myspace was the big thing. Lots of people put a lot of time into building a large presence there. Now it’s pretty much a ghost town. Make no mistake, that WILL happen to other social media sites, so you have to be careful about list building on platforms that might go away some day.

When you build a list on a social media site, you have two big dangers. The first is that the site might change the rules in how you can use your list, or they might close down your account altogether. The second risk is that the social media site might actually lose its reach, and people might abandon it for the next big thing.

Another critical distinction is between “prospect” lists and “customer” lists. The definition is pretty simple. A prospect is someone who has NOT bought anything from you yet. A buyer is someone who HAS bought something from you. In your business you will have both types of lists. And the important thing to remember is that a list of buyers is a lot more valuable than a list of prospects. In my experience, a person on your buyer list is worth 10 to 15 times what a person on your prospect list is worth. This leads to a couple of key points. First, you want to try to move people from your prospect list to your buyers list (and incidentally, a PLF-style product launch is the best way I’ve found to do that). Second, you will treat the two lists differently.

You want to maintain a great relationship with both, but if you’re going to spend extra time and effort on your list relationship, then the place to spend it is on your buyers list. That usually means spending the time and effort to send them some cool content or a bonus of some kind.

A little surprise bonus or personal touch can really go a long way. For example, we always send out a handwritten “Thank You” snail mail postcard to our new Product Launch Formula Owners. That’s a simple way to stand out and build a relationship. With an online business, it’s really easy to create and send content-based bonuses, like an extra training video or report. This obviously works great for information-based businesses (such as someone selling a product on “learning to play guitar”), but it will also work well for other businesses too.

First off, this is going to be a hyper-abbreviated lesson on list building. I could write an entire book on the topic. And I’ve actually created an entire course on list building, because it’s a rich and deep topic and so important.

If you want to take this topic further (and you should!), you can get my List Building Blueprint free at http://thelaunchbook.com/list.

So the first thing you need to do is get clear on who your prospect is—we...

So this is the deal: Your list building effort is the very sharp end of your marketing efforts. It’s the first place where people have contact with you, so you have to get it right. And the very first step in getting it right is understanding to whom you are selling, who your avatar is. The reason you have to get this right is we’re going to create what is called a “squeeze page.” That squeeze page will have an “opt-in offer”—that’s the offer you will make to get someone to join your email list. One way to think of this offer is as a bribe, but an ethical one. You have something of value that you will give to your web site visitor if they join (or subscribe) to your list. Your squeeze page and your opt-in offer will be the key to your list building efforts.

IMPORTANT: As I just mentioned, it’s important to get this first piece of your marketing right. In fact, it’s critical. This is your lead element in the battle for your business.

HOWEVER, you don’t have to get it perfect right out of the gate. In fact, no one gets it perfect right away. The good news is that it’s really easy to be incremental about this. You get your firs...

How many times do you ever return to a web site that you visited randomly? Even if you bookmark a given site—even if a site is really cool? Probably not very often; instead, it’s a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.” Your visitors will be the same. Once they leave your site, they will never think about it again . . . UNLESS you capture their email address. Everything changes if they join your list, because then you can use your emails to drive them back to your site (or any site you want to send them to).

So one of the most important things that makes a squeeze page work is having a really strong opt-in offer (this is the ethical bribe that I mentioned earlier). Basically, this is the honey that you’re going to offer your visitors on your squeeze page to convince them to opt in.

So what’s the ethical bribe? It all depends on your avatar . . . what do they really want? What are their greatest fears? Their biggest desires? What keeps them awake at night?

Going back to golf, if your avatar is an average male duffer who plays one round of golf a week with his buddies, then maybe he just wants to drive further than his friends . . . especially on the first tee. If that’s the case, then a great ethical bribe might be a video tutorial on how to completely crush your drive on the first tee . . . every single ...