Extreme product launches are focused on getting you to that first sale as quickly as possible. By figuring out what works on a business level, you can then proceed to with the business growth because you’re already proven that a business case exists (at a small scale) for your product.
Jumping out of a plane
This type of proof is much more powerful than any business plan you could write. In most types of business, making your first sale is the one thing you can do to make everything else easier or unnecessary.
Originally, I released Launch Tomorrow as an “extreme product launch” myself, by pre-testing the interest in a book on this topic.
It got great initial reviews, like:
“In my corporate consulting days [with McKinsey & Co], I used to tell my clients market research is a waste of time, because projects usually took 3 months and required a budget of $50-150K. But this stuff really changes the equation!” –Robert Grossman, Marketing Expert, Former Managing Partner, McKinsey & Co.
“I really liked the fact that you with your strategy a person can evaluate if a business idea is worth pursuing for just a few hundred dollars, rather than risk $25,000 and most likely fail.” –Scott Dudley, Direct Response Copywriter
Now it’s in prime time. It’s about using landing pages as minimum viable products. Clarify your value proposition. Validate that your customers will pay, before you start building a product.
If you’ve enjoyed this content so far, I know you’ll love Launch Tomorrow. You can pick up a copy of Launch Tomorrow over here.
You easily create a product or service which actually appeals to your chosen prospects.
You describe it in language which resonates with your audience.
You prevent wasting time on counterproductive work (which you can't know about without actually doing this first), both in your business processes and in any software you might build.
You make it much easier for people to buy what they already want (cha ching!)
Your customers immediately understand your product, which means they're more likely to buy it, get excited, and promote it afterwards
Your product's good reputation explodes naturally
You keep your whole team aligned around the customers' needs
Talk to your prospects. Intentionally don't sell them. Just learn about how they buy. How they live. What they need. That's it.
People like to buy, they hate being sold to. If you can engineer your whole sales and marketing process so that it's pleasant, engaging, and persuasive, you will have all of the above. You just need to ask. At the right time. In the right way.
About to start a greenfield project?
Have Launch Tomorrow run an in-house "riskiest assumption workshop". Remote delivery options also available. Discover where to prioritize your validation efforts, to get to market fast.
There's a whole chapter going deep into exactly how to do this in Launch Tomorrow. What questions to ask…what order to ask them in…what to listen for…and most importantly how to find people to interview.
Just keep calm, and bang your head against the wall.
About to start a greenfield project?
Have Launch Tomorrow run an in-house "riskiest assumption workshop". Remote delivery options also available. Discover where to prioritize your validation efforts, to get to market fast.
Well, that's your prospects' experience, when they hop onto a landing page that doesn't direct their next step.
Don't make them think.
It really needs to be obvious, even from 10 feet away.
Answer the questions they have, even before they know they need ask them.
What button do I press?
What am I buying exactly?
Why is this a good idea for me right now?
Relief.
A solution.
Relax, it's easy.
See, friction doesn't occur on the landing page. It occurs in the mind of the prospect.
How do they feel when they see your landing page? Because decisions are made in the emotional brain. If you make 'em think, you've pretty much lost the sale.
To get more, there's only one resource worth reaching for.
That's Launch Tomorrow. Inside, you'll get the low down on what actually matters, when putting up a landing page MVP.
Almost everyone in the world, in every field of human endeavor, is desperately searching for someone to believe in. Be that person and you can write your own ticket. Belief is today’s most overlooked yet most powerful key to boosting response to any ad, in any medium. Harness it and you unleash the core atomic power for exploding response.
Most prospects want to believe the claims you make in a landing page, yet the claims challenge their world-view and the status quo. You need proof, ideally proof that resonates emotionally, in order to get them to take action.
Proof that resonates emotionally like guitar string
A landing page, or a salesletter, is like a one-to-one conversation between you and the prospect. You put various things on the landing page, designed to instill a particular reaction in the reader’s mind.
A good landing page is written in a conversational tone. Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. In fact, you can read it out loud to ensure that the text “flows” well.
Your riskiest assumptions are probably related to your prospects and customers. Establish empathy quickly with your target prospect, figure out what's valuable, and get your innovation into the market.
like a phone call with a friend … empathize
Imagine it as a phone conversation with a friend. They call you. They bring up a problem they’re struggling with. You say something surprising. You empathize with their pain. You talk about an approach you’ve used in the past or a product you can recommend to address it, as you know it will help them out. At the end, you help them buy the product or implement a solution in their lives. Empathize with your reader in the same way you’d empathize with that friend on the other end of the line.
Direct response progenitor Eugene Schwartz puts it well:
It is the facts that the prospect believes in and accepts, and the way that he passes that acceptance along from one fact to another, that determines the ad’s development, the arrangement of your claims and your images and your proofs, so that there is a step-by-step strengthening, not only of your prospect’s desire but of his conviction that the satisfaction of that desire will come true through your product.
You are building up the emotional weight of your argument as much as you can. You want the solution to become increasingly real in the prospect’s mind.
When you are making claims about the benefits your product has, your prospect is likely to not believe a claim that you make. It’s that natural “yeah, right” knee-jerk response.
Proof counters that pushback. It’s your job, as a product creator or founder, to provide strong counter-arguments to this type of objection. In other words, your copy should explicitly address the prospect’s objections about how your solution can solve his problem. Or hers.
Well, the best type of proof is a poignant detail that knocks out a line of questioning or thinking. Direct response copy that sells is very clear.
Create an explainer video for your complicated new product.
Make sure your audience understands it, without being overwhelmed by technical details.
If you want to know what types of proof you can use, I’ve got your back. Launch Tomorrow includes 38 different types of proof you can include on your landing page.
