From Sign-Up to Show-Up: Launch Success Tips
Part 2: Secrets of a $300K Launch Series
I was only on the second 1k run (of 8) and I thought, “I’m done. I can’t finish this.”
A few days ago, I competed in my first HYROX fitness race in Chicago. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and I’ve had brain surgery).
Although I started planning my exit strategy early on, eventually I settled into the race, adjusted, and snapped to.
I’ve done hard things before. I knew I had to quit my downward mental spiral and start acting like I was on my way to crossing the finish line.
No one said this was going to be easy.
I know from nearly 8 years of running my own online business how crucial it is to decide ahead of time what kind of attitude and energy you’re bringing to any big event. You then have to show up with that same attitude and energy, regardless of how things are going, throughout.
So whether you’re currently in a launch or planning your next — tap into this mindset adjustment and decide how you’re going to show up before it starts (and regardless of how it goes).
For the next few weeks, we’re breaking down my latest $308K launch step-by-step by learning exactly what I did to run a launch like that. (If you haven’t yet, read the Launch Series Intro about how the online business world is changing, and Part 1 of the Series first).
Today, we’re talking about:
inviting your audience to your “marketing centerpiece” — whether that’s a webinar, live class, challenge, video series, or otherwise
making sure they show up to it (which is key to making sales), and
my top webinar tips
Let’s dive in!
(PS. This may be too long to read in an email. If you don’t have it already, I highly suggest downloading the free Substack app so you can read the full post, leave a comment, and join my free community chat!) ⤵️
1 - Sign Up
So if you read Part 1 of the series, you know that we started by picking your marketing centerpiece type and date. That’s the centerpiece date that everything will flow from and towards.
Then, we started teasing your audience that something was coming — maybe even giving them some key details about it ahead of time.
Now, it’s time to get people to actually sign up for your thing.
Warm Channels
First, what would you consider to be your warm marketing channels? Those are whether the people who likely already know you, what you do, and maybe who have even considered your offer hang out. It’s probably where you’re most active and where you reach the most people. Bonus points if it’s where your people are the most engaged with you.
For me, my warm marketing channels are my email list, podcast, and Instagram (and hopefully soon-to-be Substack!)
To invite people to your live event, you should spend the majority of your time inviting people to sign up for your marketing centerpiece, ie a webinar, throughout your warm marketing channels.
I run (paid) ads to both my warm audience and a cold audience (people who don’t follow, subscribe, etc. yet) during this time.
I still think email marketing is king — so I spend a lot of the invite time emailing my list to get them to sign up for my free thing. I like to send ~5 invite emails over the course of 8-10 days. As people sign up, you withdraw them from the “invite” sequence, and shift them over the “show up” sequence (which we’ll talk about below).
On social, I show up every single day in Instagram stories, post a reel nearly everyday, and get really engaged in my DMs. I’ve been using ManyChat for about a year now, and I really love how that’s letting us automate the sign up process.
I’m no Many Chat expert and I’m definitely still learning, but I’m finding a lot of success with adding personal touches like voice memo follow-ups to ask if people have sign up yet. The fact that it’s all automated is mind-blowing.
Cold Traffic
Of course, if it’s within your budget, you could also run paid ads to get people to sign up for your free event. However, keep in mind that if you can’t easily get warm leads to sign up for your thing, paid ads to cold traffic won’t do the heavy lifting for you.
In my experience, ads are the cherry on top of an already-working marketing strategy.
Otherwise, I try to use my organic Instagram posts, podcasts, or whatever other content I’m producing that week reach the right people through optimization. I use keywords in my titles and captions to attract people searching for what I help them with.
Content Strategy
In terms of creating content on your social platforms and other nurturing marketing channels, I tend to focus on content that speaks to:
Dispelling confusion (ie., myths, rumors, common mistruths or misunderstandings) and providing clarity
Overwhelm and how my free thing will help stop it
Feeling lost or alone/unsupported, and how my free thing will help them feel supported and clear
Their true desires and how my free thing is part of what will help get them there
Their current pain points and how my free thing will help resolve it (therefore bringing them closer to their true desires above)
In general, a really helpful marketing strategy is to help center your client/reader as the hero of the story you’re telling. Often I see creators center themselves as the hero (or even just the subject) without turning it around to their ideal client. It’s 100% OK to share a relevant personal story or anecdote, but there has to be a point where you transition it back to them.
No matter what your content style is, you want to remember to position the reader as the protagonist. They are capable, determined, and able to make a change — if only they had your thing.
When In Doubt, PAS
When I can’t figure out where to start with a post, I always come back to the copywriting acronym PAS: problem, agitate, solution.
Positioning your writing from the reader’s perspective, you could tell a story or write out a common problem scenario your ideal client faces. From there, you further “agitate” the problem by going even deeper with your example. If you feel like you hit a little too close to home, you probably went far enough.
Finally, you position your free thing as the solution to their problem — because it’s the thing that’s going to help them go from this being a problem to knowing what to do about it.
Common Mistakes
Don’t talk too directly about the marketing centerpiece itself. Sometimes, creators will say, “sign up for my free class!” or “take my free challenge!” which doesn’t really give people a reason why they should sign up.
Remember: people want to know, what’s in it for me?
They don’t want your free webinar or your checklist.
They want solutions to their problems.
They want answers.
They want relief, more time, less stress, more energy, less anxiety, more money, a better job or relationship — the list goes on.
When you catch yourself sharing, “sign up for my free webinar!” back up and ask, “why should they come to my free webinar?”
If your answer is: “because they will learn x, y, and z…”
Then ask yourself, “why is learning x, y, and z helpful to them? What will that do for them? How does that impact their life, day-to-day, financial situation, etc. in a positive way?”
Start there.
MY EXAMPLE:
Problem: an online entrepreneur doesn’t know what they don’t know about the legal stuff for protecting their online business
Agitate: They’re so worried they’ll say or do something wrong, that it’s leaving them paralyzed in their business. They keep their business small and hidden out of fear that they’re doing something wrong legally, which isn’t exactly helping it grow.
Solution: my free legal training “5 Steps to Legally Protect & Grow Your Online Business” so you get a step-by-step plan from a lawyer, know exactly what you need to do to protect your online business legally, and can confidently promote your business.
2 - Show Up
Now that you’ve gotten all these great people to show up for your marketing centerpiece, we want to make sure they actually show up (or, depending on what you choose to do, use/open/engage with it).
With a live event like a webinar or a challenge, this is typically done through a series of what we call ‘show up emails.’
Show up emails go out to everyone who already signed up for your thing. It’s a way not only to remind them, but also to hype them up and remind them why they actually signed up for this in the first place so that they show up for it.
People get hit with ads and freebies for all sorts of things. They’re really excited about it in the moment, but by the time your event actually rolls around, they might have lost some of the enthusiasm about it.
That’s why we need to hype them up. Here are a few things you can integrate into your show up emails:
Reminders
I don’t know about you, but if something’s not on my calendar, I won’t be there.
One thing that worked really well for us during this launch was using calendar reminders. People could click and add an event reminder from my email. Highly recommend!
Commitment
Another thing working really well for us right now is getting some sort of micro commitment from our audience after they’ve signed up.
We’ve done this by asking them to hit “reply” and say “I’m in!” or to confirm that they’re coming. We’ve also done it by asking them on a scale from 1-10 what their level of enthusiasm is about coming.
On a deeper level, I’ve encouraged them to commit to themselves that they’re going to do what they said they wanted to do. In my business, that’s legally protect their own businesses. So I ask them to commit to showing up for the version of themselves who said they were ready to finally get the legal pieces in place.
I also aim to create community commitment. Encourage your readers to commit as a group to making a change or implementing whatever you help them with. Make it feel more like they’re part of a movement or a community event than a webinar that they’re attending by themselves.
Engagement
I highly recommend building in some initial engagement into your show up email sequence. It’s a great way to start establishing a connection with your audience.
Ask them what’s 1 thing you could answer for them, what they’re looking forward to most, or what the #1 problem is that they’re struggling with around your topic.
Keep the calls to action in each of these emails direct and short. Only use one call to action per show up email — if the goal is commitment, get that. If the goal is to get them to reply, focus on that.
3 - Webinars
Do I think webinars still work? I’m proof they do!
Do I think everyone loves webinars and you shouldn’t have any other freebies? Of course not!
But sometimes, and especially depending on what you sell, you need a webinar (or something like it) to properly educate, nurture, and convert your audience to buyers.
As someone who teaches online entrepreneurs how to legally protect their businesses, webinars get the job done.
Given how the online business industry has changed, I try to keep my webinar a little tighter than I used to.
Consumers are savvier than ever. They know the basic shtick — introduce yourself, tell us about a bunch of problems, teach a tiny bit, and then pitch your product.
I try to do things a little bit differently (even though those are all definitely elements to a good webinar, mine included).
Over the past year, I’ve shortened my intro, integrated more engagement in the chat (when the webinar is live), and asked the audience reflective questions.
I also tell people upfront that I’ll share about my paid product at the end, which I think is key. I don’t try to hide the fact that I sell something. But I’m also upfront about the fact that they’re going to learn a lot before we get there.
Some other webinar “tricks” that worked well for this launch:
Having people submit their questions to the Q&A box in Zoom, and not taking the questions until the end (which encourages them to stay)
Stopping a few times to ask if they’re paying attention or encouraging them to hang with me
Using a few of the people’s names in the chat and personally engaging or responding to what they say in real time
Offering “on webinar only” specials or discounts
Offering “on webinar only” prizes or gift cards (ie., most engaged in the chat, a random person who stayed until the end, etc.)
There’s SO much to a good webinar that I could write an entire book about it. Oh wait, I did!
My debut book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy: A Practical, No-BS Guide to Successful Online Entrepreneurship (Hachette/GCP, April 15, 2025) — now available for pre-order wherever books are sold — will teach you how to:
build an email list full of engaged future-buyers
create and sell your first $1 million digital product, and
navigate the challenges of online entrepreneurship
As a thanks for pre-ordering, you’ll get immediate access to my new course, The Ultimate Email List Growth Toolkit, and a seat inside my virtual No-BS Book Club happening this May, where we’ll implement everything you learned in the book over 4 live 90-minute coaching sessions.
Up Next
Next week, we’ll talk all about my sales strategy! I’ll share what I do at the end of a webinar to get ready-to-go leads to purchase, how I get social media followers to buy, and some of my best sales tips for converting your warm leads.
What launch questions do you have for me? Tell me in the comments!
(If you don’t already, now’s a good time to get the Substack app or join us on Substack on your browser. That way you can leave comments, join my chat, and more!)
xo,
Sam
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