“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

You’ve likely been on the receiving end of an annoying and spammy launch or two. You know the type, where we’re bombarded by emails laden with manipulation, using all the tricks in the book to get us to BUY NOW. Countdown timers, time related bonuses, language that plays on our fear of missing out, to name just a few of the tactics many online businesses employ to leave us feeling anxious and reaching for our credit card.

If you’ve ever felt stressed by someone else’s launch or anxious because you feel torn about whether or not you really need what’s being sold, then for sure you’ve been on the receiving end of some sort of launch manipulation.

Early on in my business, I noticed not only how stressed I felt by other people’s launches but also how uncomfortable I felt about running my own. I followed the mainstream advice about launching and it felt unnatural and icky to me. Did I make sales? Sure but I didn’t feel good doing it. Since then I’ve learned that it’s not only possible to feel good about launching but for it to feel good for your audience too.

A few years ago after experimenting in my own business and watching how some of my more ethical business mentors were launching, I came up with the concept of Loving Launches, which I’ve since taught to countless clients and mastermind participants. The main idea behind this approach is that your launches can feel loving to those on the receiving end of your launch materials and can therefore also feel good for you to execute.

I’d like to share with you 3 easy and practical ways to make your launches more loving.

1. Separate out your content and your sales copy

This is a big one and warrants some explanation.

Often what we see online is a manipulative blend of content (designed to appear useful) and the sales pitch (woven into the content). See below for an example of a launch email you could quite easily receive:

Subject: How to execute more loving launches

Email body: A load of description of the problem, much like the 3 paragraphs preceding point 1 of this email. But instead of actually giving you any information on how to conduct loving launches, it would instead segue into a sales pitch about a workshop or program where you could get this information.

See how the subject line draws you in because it looks like you are going to get some useful and practical information?

And then to really get you hooked, it digs into your pain points? But instead of giving you any practical advice to alleviate that pain, it simply points you to a sales page where you can buy or enrol in something that will alleviate that pain. The solution, it turns out, sits behind a paywall. 

To put it simply, this sucks. I really dislike this practice. Primarily because it’s manipulative and dishonest but also because it wastes our time. As someone who is busy, when I open an email expecting to get something of value and instead get sold to, I feel totally duped. It damages my relationship with the business and over time makes me less likely to open future emails.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I invite you to pay attention to the emails you are receiving from mailing lists you are subscribed to. Notice if you see a subject line and think “oh that sounds like it will be useful to read”, only to feel disappointed when you do read it because it made it sound like you were going to get an answer to a problem you have, but the contents of the email only hint at the solution and then invite you into some pricey program or course in which you’ll learn the answer for real. That’s what I’m talking about here.

What to do instead:

What I like to do instead is to make my content and my sales copy distinct so that someone can read my content and get value from it whether or not they choose to buy whatever it is that I may be selling at the time. Why do I do this? Because it lights me up to be of service and it develops meaningful trust over the long term between me and my audience, which is essential to future sales. If you want to read more about how I make my content more effective click here.

How does this work in practice?

Instead of combining your content and sales pitch, separate them out. So for example, when announcing your new product or service, announce it with a sales email solely dedicated to the sale of your offering, making it super clear in the subject line that, that is what you are doing. See below for an example from my own business:

When I was launching a workshop, I sent the following email announcement:

Subject line: Book Your Spot on My Upcoming Client Creation Workshop — Notice how clear it is that I am selling something? There’s no hook to draw people in, I make it clear I’m selling something before you even open the email — yet when I do this my open rate is usually a touch higher than when I’m not specifically selling something. (I’ll let you in on a secret — people want to know what you have to offer!)

If you want to see exactly what that sales email contained — click here — essentially it reads like a mini sales page because that’s what it is — a sales letter.

No manipulation here. Just a simple and transparent invitation to book a spot on my upcoming workshop. If you already know you don’t want, or can’t afford, to attend a workshop, you don’t even have to open the email.

Following this email, I did put reminders at the bottom of future e-letters, but I still kept it separate from the (hopefully) valuable content I was providing. I do this so that the email has value for the reader whether or not they are interested in what I am launching.

Another example is this blog post, I have a CTA at the bottom for my Loving Launches Workshop but I’ve hopefully given you enough value in this piece to make it worth a read, regardless of if you sign up. 

2. Allow people to opt out

This isn’t necessary for a small, say 2-week launch where you’re only going to send maybe one or two more emails than usual but if you are doing a big launch where you might be sending a larger number of sales emails over a 6–12 week period then, I would also recommend giving people the option to opt out up front

This is where you provide a link for people to click to opt out of sales emails while staying on your main mailing list.

It always surprises me that more people don’t do this because it’s a such win-win. First of all you empower your subscribers to opt-out of your sales emails if they already know that they don’t want to buy your new offering and it also minimises the amount of unsubscribes you might otherwise get from your mailing list from people who don’t want to hear about something they are not interested in.

I first saw this approach from from fellow ethical business coach, Mark Silver of Heart of Business. He always includes a link at the top of launch emails to give people the option to stay on his email list but not receive sales emails. See the image below for an example.

It’s super easy to do in the back end of your mailing service provider and really frees you up to share about your new offering with the people who want to know about it, without worrying about annoying those that aren’t interested.

3. Sell the concept not the product

This is one I learned from ethical marketer, Tad Hargrave, as I observed and analysed a number of his launches.

In traditional launches, what we usually see is a bombardment of information about what makes *this* offering so great. We’ll likely see a ton of information about the benefits and features of doing *this* program or course and countless details about how you won’t necessarily find the same information elsewhere.

In typical launches, the business owner is doing a hard sell on the product. Why you should buy it and what makes it so special and irresistible.

When you sell the concept, you share a lot of information about the subject of your offering rather than the offering itself. So if, for example, you are selling a program about embodied movement, rather than constantly talking about why your embodiment program is so great, you would instead talk about why embodiment, in general, is so great for people.

You would use your launch content to educate people about embodiment and why it’s important and share useful and practical information on how to be more embodied in your life. And you needn’t worry about it harming sales either. Many people think if they give away too much of the good stuff in their free content, that people won’t then go on to buy the course or program on offer. This has not been my experience.

Because here’s the thing. People don’t take your program or course because they want more information. They sign up to work with you because they want the personal hand-holding or accountability that comes from getting the information packaged in a certain way. If it’s a high-touch program, then they’re signing up because they want greater access to you.

This is great news because it means you can feel free to generously share useful information about your subject-area without worrying that it will harm sales of your product or service.

So there you have it, 3 ways to make your launch more loving for you and your audience. Please let me know in the comments if you found this information useful.