Ask Steph: How does your live launch strategy change when what you are launching is a low ticket offer?

This is a *great* question! It's easy to think that launching is only for high ticket offers. But launching is important for *any* offer (one at a time of course!). So in today's episode, I'm answering Morgan's question about launching a low-ticket $57 masterclass and how the strategy changes accordingly.

– Understanding the differences between live launching a high ticket offer vs a low ticket offer using the Magician's Gap.
– Why having deadlines are so important—even when launching your low ticket offer.
– Why considering your client's “total lifetime value” is important when launching offers <$100.
– What my business has taught me about live launching low ticket offers.

Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

 
Today is an Ask Steph episode. So today's question is from Morgan, and the question that Morgan submitted is:

“You mentioned that products should not be made evergreen until you have live launched them a couple of times. You are also really clear that a proper launch requires a big lead-up and appropriate strategy and a sense of urgency in having cart open and cart closing dates.

My question is if you believe that this is also what is required to live launch a low ticket offer, such as a $57 workshop or masterclass that doesn't lead to any other big ticket offer, do you personally do the same big lift for low ticket offers in your business? And how might your live Launch strategy change when they are low ticket offers?”

 

Understanding the differences between live launching a high ticket offer vs a low ticket offer using the Magician's Gap.

Now I want to clarify a couple of things that you mentioned in your question. So firstly, the big lead-up. You mentioned that I've made it really clear that a launch requires a big lead-up.

And here's the thing, it's not so much about how long the lead-up is in the launch. And it's not about building excitement during that lead-up, but rather it is about ensuring that your audience is where they need to be, to be ready to buy when doors open, when cart opens. 

Now, what do I actually mean by that?

So I'm going to use one of my offers as an example. I have the Podcast Launch Plan, that's my $200-ish offer to launch a podcast, and somebody can want to launch a podcast, but they might believe that it's too hard, it's too techy. The equipment's too expensive. So it's not possible for them to launch a podcast.

And until they understand that it's actually quite simple and that the equipment is quite affordable, they're not going to buy the Podcast Launch Plan because those things are going to get in the way. Those hesitations are going to get in the way. 

Now, usually, but not always. So lower ticket offers are going to have less of a gap between where your ideal client is now and where they need to be, to be ready to buy. This isn't because of the price point. It's usually because the smaller offer is usually solving a smaller problem or a smaller transformation, and there's less of a knowledge gap between where they are now and where they need to be, to be ready to start solving that problem or achieving that transformation.

 

Why having deadlines are so important—even when launching your low ticket offer.

The second part of my answer is when you talk about the urgency. Now, urgency in a launch is a really interesting thing because a lot of people believe that we have the urgency there to pressure somebody into buying in a launch, and it's not actually about pressuring somebody to buy. Humans are procrastinators. Our brains are wired to delay pain and spending money can feel really painful. And then couple this with the pain of making some kind of behavioural change. So starting to take action on solving whatever problem they're experiencing or achieving the transformation that your offer helps them to achieve.

They're going to put off making a decision for as long as they possibly can. So it's not so much about having urgency as it is about having a deadline for somebody to make a decision. It's not about pressuring them to make a decision, but it's more about saying, Hey, you need to make a decision either way and here's a deadline for you to make it so that you don't just keep kicking the can down the road forever.

Now, when you are teaching a live workshop, as you mentioned in your question, a $57 workshop that has natural urgency built in because the workshop is live, so somebody has to buy it before the live workshop happens. Otherwise, they're only going to get the recording, they're going to miss out on that live event.

But you can also have other deadlines. Like bonuses expiring, price increases. Those all make really nice deadlines as well. It doesn't just have to be these doors open, doors closed. You can't ever sign up again after doors are closed or you have to wait until the next intake. 

 

Why considering your client's “total lifetime value” is important when launching offers <$100.

The exception, there is one exception when it comes to having that deadline, and that is when they are in a really painful situation and your offer delivers some kind of immediate relief. 

That's a product that somebody's not going to buy during a launch. It's something that somebody's going to reach for when they have that problem, and it's really painful at that particular moment. That is the one exception that I would say, where you don't need to have some kind of deadline.

Then we want to look also at the bigger picture of this launch. 

Now we want to think a little bit more about lifetime value rather than just about sales from that one particular launch because you would have to sell a hundred of your $57 workshop to make $5,700 from that launch and that is fine, right? If you're early on your new in your business, that's probably going to be a nice chunk of revenue, but I always like to remind my students to keep their expectations quite realistic when it comes to lower ticket offers because they're not likely to be a huge revenue driver unless you have a large audience.

A launch of a lower ticket offer is probably not going to be a massive revenue launch. Unless you have that huge audience unless you're getting it in front of all of those eyeballs. So we really need to think about what is next after this offer. I know you mentioned in your question there's no next step, there's no high ticket offers part of it, but the people who are attending that workshop, they're probably going to finish that workshop, wondering how else can I work with you.

What's the next step? So give them the next step. And if there is that next step, then you need to be mindful of your overall launch strategy. So including in that Launch for that lower ticket offer, you need to be mindful that you are bridging the gap, the magician's gap, which I call it, that knowledge gap for the next step offer, as well as that lower ticket offer.

So that when you present them that next step offer, they're ready to take that next step. They don't have a huge knowledge gap that needs bridging there as well. 

 

Upsell and order bump on lower ticket offers.

And another thing to consider as well with lower ticket launches is upsells and order bumps. So that can increase the average order value when somebody's buying.

So they're not just spending $57, they might be adding on some extra things to their purchase, which might bring them up to a hundred dollars or even potentially more. 

So the difference between an upsell and an order bump. 

An order bump is usually something that's a quite low ticket. Like, you know, $7, $20, something like that and they can tick a box at checkout to add that to their order. 

And Upsell is potentially going to be something that's a little bit higher ticket than what they've already purchased and it's presented to them on a separate sales page or a separate one-pager after they've already completed checkout.

And they can still just press one button to add that to their order. So that's how I differentiate between those two. 

 

What my business has taught me about live launching low ticket offers.

And the last part of your question, you asked how I approach lower ticket launches in my business now. We haven't launched a true low ticket-like sub $100 offer in a while. Offer less sell more is probably the most recent lower lowish ticket offer that we launched, and the first time that we launched it was at the end of 2022.

It was a $100 workshop that I taught live, and I didn't do a webinar to launch it. I didn't do a huge fancy launch. I launched it to my email list with a series of cart open emails. I have been doing some podcast content around that topic in the lead-up but I already have a very warm audience. And I knew that this was something they were really struggling with.

I know that they already trust me, so it was a pretty easy yes for the people who are on my email list. 

Then after I taught that live workshop, I recorded it. I turned it into a course, and we've launched it twice this year already with live webinars. And while we haven't really done a massive lead up in those launches, you'll also notice that a lot of my podcast content is bridging the gap between where they are right now, and where they need to be, to be ready to buy offer less, sell more.

And also the webinar that I've launched it with, has bridged that gap. And now we're in the process of turning that evergreen. We've live launched it a couple of times it's been, it's converted really well, so now we're putting it into an evergreen funnel where somebody can watch that recorded webinar.

They can still get bonuses as if it were a live Launch, but those bonus deadlines are based on when they watch the webinar. 

 

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