How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 6: Prelaunch and Launch
Read previous articles in this series:
- How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 1: Build Your Preeminence
- How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 2: Communication Channels
- How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 3: Technology
- How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 4: Content and Pricing
- How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 5: Triggers
With your basic understanding of triggers now in place from part five of this series, lets take a look at how you implement a prelaunch and then a launch for your membership site.
During prelaunch and launch you use the marketing channels and relationships you have established to build buzz about the content you are about to release (or really, the offer you are about to make), using the technology you set up to deliver the content and communicate with potential customers.
If you did your hard work leading up to this stage much of what you are about to do will be reasonably routine, it’s almost “paint by numbers” easy, but I doubt there is ever any launch that goes according to plan, mine certainly didn’t, so you must prepare for the unexpected and be ready to react to any situation that is thrown at you.
Launch Vs. Prelaunch – What is the Difference?
There is not much difference in terms of the overall strategy for your prelaunch vs. your launch, which is to build buzz and convince people to join your membership site, however what you communicate to people and what you are attempting to achieve during each phase is subtly different.
I consider the “prelaunch” everything you do leading up to the launch day and “launch” being the actual day you release your membership site (you take on paying members) and the days following it. Your prelaunch is designed to pre-sell your membership site, where your launch is designed to sell it. That may sound very similar, but the psychology is slightly different.
