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What is the purpose of a “prelaunch” phase? 

Simply put, it’s building awareness, understanding, and ultimately – desire – for your offer before it’s live. (Sometimes before it’s completely created!) 

When you spend time doing this, you’ll increase your sales and often sell out before you even reach the end of your launch period. 

So, what does strong communication with your audience look like during the prelaunch phase? 

Here are five content ideas that are worth implementing the next time you develop a prelaunch strategy.

1- Pinpoint an offer-related following 

You’ll want to zero in on the members of your current audience who are most interested in your upcoming offer. The moment you enter prelaunch, start tracking a list of people who engage with your offer-related content. 

One way to do it: Ask your audience to help you co-create an aspect of your offer. Consider holding a contest to help name your product or program.

2- Build rapport and trust. 

Share connection building content. This is content that’s honest, and that shows a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your product or service in action. Avoid the temptation to share tons of information – instead, show the real person behind your new offer!

One way to do it: Share a case study featuring someone’s (or your own) transformation after using your product or experiencing your program. 

3- Train your audience to tune in.

You don’t want to go from crickets to constantly popping up in social media or emails during launch week. This will confuse your audience and worse – it will feel like a barrage of inauthentic sales calls.

One way to do it: Ramp up your pace of emails to mimic the quantity and frequency of your launch email series. If you normally send one a week, send two a week for a few weeks before your launch. Share content that is valuable (interesting and helpful) and on the same topic as your offer.

4- Get your target audience ready to buy.

What do they need to know about the features/ format of your course? 

What do they need to know about themselves? 

What do they need to know about the topic?

One way to do it: If your offer is a hybrid group coaching/ course-type program and your audience is made up of DIYers, you might need to create some content comparing the benefits of participating in group coaching as opposed to simply consuming a self-paced course. 

5- Overcome potential objections

It’s important to forecast common objections so you can address them through your prelaunch content before they become a barrier for your audience. 

One way to do it: Say an objection might be that your audience is unsure about the return on investment… Your prelaunch content can include lots of statistics about the typical results related to your offer.

Now that you have a few ideas for what you should say during prelaunch,you should know that there are a few things to avoid saying too…

⇒ Nothing about prelaunch content should be salesy. Save the hard sell for launch time.

⇒ Your prelaunch content isn’t about getting into the nitty-gritty details of your offer. 

⇒ Prelaunch content shouldn’t be about teasing. Audiences are often repelled by the feeling that they’re being toyed with. Save the “guess what’s coming” messages for your hype phase (the very short period of time just before the cart opens.)

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For more guidance, check out this blog post to learn how to create content that paves a path straight to the offer you want to sell.