#135 - Digital Product Blueprint Step 6: Launch, Learn & Improve

You built it. Now it's time to put it in front of real humans.

In the final step of the Digital Product Blueprint, we're talking about how to launch your digital product without turning it into an exhausting three-week production.

Because the first launch isn't the final verdict on your product.

It's your very first data point. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  Why your announcement is only the beginning of your launch 
•  How to promote the same product repeatedly without saying the same thing over and over 
•  Why repetition creates recognition 
•  How to gather useful feedback and powerful testimonials 
•  What to improve before creating Version Two 
•  How to turn your digital product into an evergreen asset that's woven throughout your business 
•  How to use Handraiser Content to find people actively experiencing the problem your product solves 
•  How to nurture your new audience toward your paid offers 
•  How to define success without expecting your first product to go viral 

We'll also talk about why your launch is one of the best forms of market research available to you, and why one person's opinion is a preference, while repeated patterns are data. 

Your final assignment?

Publish. Learn. Improve.

LINKS IN THIS EPISODE:

📖 Get the FREE Digital Product Blueprint Workbook: DOWNLOAD NOW

🎧 Start with Step 1 of the Digital Product Blueprint: 🎧 EPISODE 130 

✨ Get hands-on support with Blueprint VIP:  JOIN VIP 

💬 Explore the Messaging & Revenue Reset: LEARN MORE

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Transcript

All right, rockstar. You built it and now it's time to put it in front of real humans. At some point, our preparation becomes procrastination in a very professional looking outfit, right? So we can always keep editing our landing pages and rewriting our emails and, obsessing over Canva graphics, and you can convince yourself that you just need a little more time before you put your digital product out into the world, but eventually you have to publish the damn thing. So today we've reached step six of the digital product blueprint, and it's all about launching. And I don't mean some giant exhausting three-week launch with 47 emails and a countdown timer. I'm talking about putting version one out in front of real humans. So today we're gonna talk about how to announce it, how to keep promoting it without saying the same thing over and over again, how to find people who are actively experiencing the problem that you solve and that this digital product is gonna help, and how to use their feedback to make version two even better. And I want you to remember this as we head into today's episode, your first launch of a product is not the verdict on your product, right? It's just the very first data point. So let's finish this thing. Hey there. Welcome to the Mindset to Market podcast, your go-to space for practical tools and solutions to the everyday challenges of being a creative and soulful entrepreneur living in a material world. I'm your host, Deborah Smith, a holistic business coach and marketing strategist with 17 years of experience. I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and learn daily marketing practices that balance personal wellness with financial growth and impact. I'm here to offer you support with creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect, messy action so you can experience daily breakthroughs as you grow. If you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur building an online business, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. All right, y'all. If this is your first time ever listening to the Mindset to Market podcast, welcome. You happened to land on the sixth episode of a six-episode series called the Digital Product Blueprint Series. And if you're interested in learning step by step how to create a high-converting lead magnet that becomes part of your client attraction system, then I recommend you go back to episode 130 of this podcast, and that is step one, and you can follow along from there. And for those of you who have been here since the beginning and you've been listening to all these episodes, I just wanna recognize how much we've already done together. Congratulations. We made it to the final step. So let's just review. In step one, we chose the right digital product for your business. In step two, we designed the transformation that it's gonna provide for people. In step three, we actually built version one, put all the bells and whistles together. In step four, we connected the product to a larger client attraction system, including the forms and the emails and the delivery. And then in step five, we talked about positioning and messaging so the right person can recognize, "Oh, this is exactly what I've been looking for. This was for me." And now there's only one thing left to do, is put it in front of people. So if you're following along with the workbook, then the goals for week six are very simple. We're gonna publish, learn, and improve. And I highly recommend that you get a copy of the Digital Product Blueprint if you have not done so already. That link is in my show notes. It's free, and it's just a checklist, but it's gonna keep you on track. The people who download the checklist are much more likely to finish and launch their product and much more likely to attract new clients who are gonna be knocking on their door to come work with them Okay, let's get right into the work this week. We're gonna go right through the check boxes on your blueprint. So number one is to post the announcement about your digital product. So we're gonna post an announcement letting people know that this thing exists. Last week I asked you to prepare your messaging and start sharing version one with a few warm audience members. So now it's time to do that, but for the public, right? So we're gonna put this out there on social media, we're gonna pin it places where people find your content, and send out the email that you drafted and publish some of those posts that you drafted. We're gonna put the link in your bio to your landing page or the form where people can get it, and we're gonna tell people what you made. And remember everything we talked about in step five. We're not gonna lead with, "You guys come grab my new workbook." Your audience isn't waking up and hoping that somebody made them a brand new workbook, right? Instead, we're gonna lead with the problem that your digital product solves, and we're gonna lead with the struggle that they're experiencing which is making them want that solution. So remember, we're gonna lead with what's relevant for them right now, gets them a quick win, and points them to a bigger possibility for their life. So that's the announcement that you're going to post. And then I need you to understand something that I think trips up a lot of entrepreneurs, which is that the announcement is not the launch. It's just one teeny tiny part of the launch. It's the beginning of the launch. So one post is not a launch, and I hear this all the time. "Oh, I already posted about it. I, I don't wanna bother people." Okay, but one post is not gonna cut it. Think about your own behavior online. How many posts do you miss every single day? How many emails do you intend to open and read, but then you just never do it? How many times do you see something interesting, but you're standing in the grocery store, or you're waiting for the train, or you're supposed to be doing something else, or your kid is crying? People need repetition. We genuinely need seven to 10 points of contact with your thought leadership, your digital product before we start to even notice it. So-- And repetition does not mean copying and pasting the same sales post every single morning for two weeks. It means talking about the same solution, but through different lenses, different iterations of the message, , walking through different doorways. So you can talk about the problem, tell the story that made you create the product. You could teach something related to it. You could share a behind-the-scenes moment. You can answer common questions, share testimonials, talk about mistakes that you yourself have made that led to knowing about this product and knowing how-- why it's so important. You could make the direct invitation. Same product, lots of different conversations. But repetition, that's what creates recognition for our audience members, and we really need it, especially in today's quite inundated and quite saturated online space. And let's be honest, a lot of what people are encountering is-- are ads, marketing ads from, bigger companies. And then also a lot of what people are encountering is, stressful stuff, right? There's a lot of political unrest. There's all kinds of stuff happening on the internet that's not about your subject of expertise. So repetition is gonna be really important here. Now, especially with an evergreen product, your goal isn't to talk about it intensely for three days and then never mention it again. Your goal is to start weaving it subtly into the ecosystem of your business, and we're gonna come back to that later. But for right now, I just want you to be crystal clear. Once you post about it, that's just the very very beginning. So checkbox number two is gonna be to celebrate your accomplishment. And this is really important, and I really don't want you to skip this. Entrepreneurs are so good at finishing something and then immediately going, "Okay, what's next?" Or even worse, "Okay, here's the seven things that I don't like about what I just did." Like we are so self-critical. We are so quick to just, fill our pile, plate back up with 10 more to-dos. So I don't want you to skip celebrating the fact that you've published a brand new digital product. Six weeks ago, this may have been an idea sitting in your notes app. It's something that you've been saying you were gonna do or that you wanted to create for months, maybe even years. And now another human being can actually experience it. So that matters. So mark it. Tell somebody. Screenshot the landing page. Go out to dinner. Buy yourself flowers. Go jump in the ocean or a lake if that's what you love. That's what I love. Whatever celebration looks good for you, you finished something important and that's a huge win, so congratulations. I want you to celebrate The next thing that we're going to do is gather testimonials and feedback from people. So as soon as you have a batch of people who are using your new product, your job changes. Now you're gonna become curious, and we stop guessing, and we start collecting data. We start listening. So your launch is market research, right? What do people do with it once they get it? What are they clicking? What are they responding to? What questions are they asking you? Where do they get confused? What parts do they love? What language are they using to describe the problem that they're having? And the way you're gonna find out is to genuinely reach out and ask them, "Hey, I saw you downloaded this digital product. I'm so curious how it's going for you." You could do this via email or DMs. And don't just ask, "Hey, did you like it?" That doesn't give you much good feedback. You wanna ask good questions to them. So what were you struggling with before you went through this? What became clearer or easier for you afterwards? What was the most useful part for you? What would you tell somebody else who was thinking about trying it? You could make a form to get feedback from people. And then pay attention because you're collecting data, and you're looking to collect two different types of things here. One is feedback, and the other is testimonials. So feedback is gonna help you improve the product and make any fixes that need to happen where people might be getting stuck or maybe they're a little confused. Whereas testimonials are gonna help other people understand why they might want it. So if I was collecting feedback about the Digital Product Blueprint series, which is a great evergreen digital asset and somebody said to me, "Oh, I've been sitting on this idea for six months. And after doing step one, I finally chose what I'm gonna build." Well, that's not just nice feedback. That's actually marketing language that I can use. And so with their permission, I would save that, and I would credit them, and I would use it, right? So you're gonna let your customers help future customers understand what's possible by using their words. So testimonials are really important in this process. Okay, next checkbox is to make one improvement and based on real users, right? And so I put one there for a reason because I don't want you to get three pieces of feedback and then decide you need to just dive in and rebuild the entire product. Version one is supposed to teach you, and so maybe people don't understand one instruction, then go clarify it. Maybe everybody gets stuck in the same section, add an example. Maybe the workbook is a little bit too long and you notice that people are not finishing it, or maybe somebody outright tells you, "I only did the first half because it's just too long." Go ahead and shorten it. Maybe nobody opens email three. You have to try another subject line. So you're gonna make one meaningful improvement based on something that actually happened based on the feedback, and I would encourage you just to look for patterns, right? So one person's preference is just a preference, but 10 people getting confused at the exact same place, that's actual data. So this is why I keep saying version one earns you a version two because the first time you launch something, that's, again, that's not the verdict. This is not the final, piece of your journey. It's the very first data point. So I want you to regard the initial launch of your digital product as a way to do market research, collect data, and learn about your ideal customers and your audience. Okay, so the next checkbox on your list says decide how you'll continue promoting it. Because we're not gonna put all of that work into creating something just so you can launch it once and then forget that it exists, right? And raise your hand if you're guilty of creating something and then launching it once and then deciding that it was a failure because nobody got it within the first 20 minutes. So we're not doing that with this digital asset. Instead, I want you to start installing it into your business in all the various locations where people might encounter it. So can it go in your podcast show notes? Can you post it as a pop-up on your website or maybe in the header, like a hello bar on your website? Can you place it right in the footer of your welcome sequence your emails? How about a pinned Instagram post or your bio? Weave it right into your bio on Instagram or LinkedIn. You can put it in any relevant blog post that you already have. You can add it to your email signature, put it in your YouTube description, mention it when you're interviewed on someone else's podcast. You can share it when you're speaking publicly or virtually or teaching something. And here's one of my favorite ways to continually promote a digital product. You can create hand-raiser content. So I love hand raiser content 'cause it does lightning-fast work, especially in places where there's short forum conversations happening, like on Threads. And what you are gonna do is instead of constantly saying, "Hey, download my thing. Download my thing," you're gonna start conversations with people about the problem that your thing solves. So let's say you're a marketing strategist like me who helps service providers get more clients . You might post something that says, "Hey, service providers, which feels harder for you right now? Creating consistent social content or knowing how to position what you're selling?" And then let people answer you. They've just raised their hands and told you what they're struggling with. Now you can respond and say, "Hey, I understand, and actually I created something specifically to help with this. Want me to send it over to you?" And so that's really different from dropping links on strangers because they're showing intent if they say yes. So you're responding to a need that they identified themselves, and you're in more of a conversation. And you can do this with polls , in Instagram. You could do this with questions that you post in your Facebook pages. You could set up a ManyChat automation if you don't have currently have your own system to automate these things. And so Start conversations around the problem, and then you have your link ready. And because one of the coolest things that starts happening when you have a library of useful digital assets is that you can almost prescribe them. So if you hear somebody say, "Hey, I've been trying really hard to create a digital product forever, and I can't figure out where to start," well, then I get to say, "Oh, I have a whole six-episode series in my podcast designed just for that." And then I can just send them the link. So we wanna have this digital asset in our back pocket, positioned already throughout your ecosystem, integrated into your business, but then also ready to serve up whenever somebody identifies that they have the problem that your digital product solves. So you're gonna create something useful enough that you can literally prescribe it as the solution to their problem. All right. Checkbox number six is nurture your new audience. So that brings us really to the final step. And we talked about this back in the third episode when we talked about building and the welcome series. And the idea of nurturing your new audience is to slowly reveal to them the pathway that walks to your paid offers. So remember, we didn't build this thing just to collect downloads. We are opening up a pathway for new audience members and new connections to slowly get to know you and attract them into your world so that they can see you as the solution to their bigger problem when they're ready to solve it. And not everybody who downloads your product is gonna be ready to work with you right away. So that's totally fine. That's actually quite normal. But now they know you, right? They've experienced your ideas, and hopefully you've helped them get a result. So now is time to continue that relationship. So you're gonna email them, right? We're gonna set up that welcome series and send them anywhere from three to five nurturing emails that flow in a sequence that go in order. Tells them stories, teaches them a few more ways they can get a solution. Share examples of how other people you've worked with have gotten the result that they're looking for. Share client results and testimonials, right? Ask questions. You can have a dialogue and email with these people. This is really just you continuing to help them understand what's possible, right? The bigger picture. And why does solving their bigger picture problem matter for their life, for their business, for whatever problem you're helping them with? And so in your nurturing content, you're just gonna help them get through using the current digital product and then help them understand what's the next step they can take. What's the next problem that they're gonna encounter, and how can you help them also solve that? That's the larger customer journey that we've been building throughout this entire blueprint series. So that's basically your six steps for this week. But before we move on, I just wanna talk about success. How do you measure success with a digital product? I want to help you define success for your version one, right? Before you go ahead and start judging it or decide that it was a flop if you set a goal to measure your success by, it's gonna help you understand better whether or not you are making progress. So maybe success for you is just 25 qualified subscribers. That would be amazing. Think about that. That's 25 people who you can now start a conversation with who might become clients. Maybe your goal is to have this new digital product lead to five new buyers. Maybe it's just having three conversations with new people, setting up calls and chatting with them. Maybe it's 10 people completing your resource and then giving you useful feedback that you can use in your social media and promotional materials. So I want you to set a goal. Your first digital product does not have to go viral in order for it to be successful. You get to decide what success looks like. And to do that, you need real people interacting with it. So that's how you learn, and that's how it gets better. That's how we get to that version two. So I just wanna take another moment for a full circle recognition of all that we've done together. Six episodes ago, I asked you to choose one thing. Maybe it was an idea that you've been thinking about forever. Maybe it was buried in your notes app. Maybe you weren't even sure what you were gonna make, but you know that you need a strategic digital asset, and maybe you didn't even know what format it would be in. And then if you've been walking through these steps with me, you made a decision and chose a product. You designed a transformation. You built a very rough version one. You set up the connective tissue to a client attraction system so that this whole thing flows and is automated, so that it can work without you being online all the time. You figured out messaging that positions this to be what your audience actually needs and makes them understand how and why they need it right now. And now in this step, you're gonna launch it. So you didn't just learn how to create a digital product, you built yourself an asset. This is what makes it an asset, because it can rinse and repeat and bring you data and bring you clients. And everything that I've been teaching you throughout these six episodes I've also been doing right alongside you with this series, right? So The Digital Product Blueprint itself started as just an idea that I had. And I chose it, I decided it's gonna be a podcast, right? I designed the transformation, which is really breaking down the strategic aspect of this work, right? So this is more than just, "Here's a template. Fill it out." I'm teaching you strategy in these sessions. So that's the transformation that I'm designing is 'cause you're gonna go from not understanding how It will convert to really clearly understanding how it's gonna convert. Then I built it. I recorded all the episodes. I connected this to an evergreen ecosystem, so you can download the blueprint and you will automatically get sent all of these episodes. And then I launched it. I launched version one live on my podcast, and you're experiencing it right now. And just like your product, this is gonna evolve. I'm gonna get feedback. I will learn from your questions. I'm gonna see what resonates and what doesn't. I'm gonna notice where things are dropping off, and then I will make improvements and refine it and continue to make it better, because that's how this works. So- I just want you to know that, you know, I never teach anything that I'm not also practicing or have already and had success with. And so I'm really grateful that you've been on this journey with me, and I cannot wait to see how your product works for you. Now, if you've completed the process, or even if you're somewhere in the middle of it and you're still moving forward, and you realize that you can do this, but you would love an experienced strategist to look at what you've created and to help you get to the finish line, that's what the Digital Product Blueprint VIP sessions are for. We look at your product, your positioning, your customer journey. I will help you with messaging and emails and all of the pieces of the entire ecosystem, how it connects to the bigger picture, and how it connects to your paid work. And if what you've discovered through this process is that the bigger issue is actually your overall offer system, your offer suite, the messaging or sales strategy, then that is better suited for the kind of work that I do inside my Messaging and Revenue Reset, which is a much larger ecosystem audit. So both of those offers will remain open and just according to my availability, and the links are in the show notes. And they're both designed to help you turn your great idea into an asset that actually supports your business, grows it, and helps you scale your income. That's the goal here. So your final assignment, my friend, is so simple. Publish learn things, and then improve. And keep talking about what you've created. Find creative ways to weave this into your ecosystem. Keep listening to the people you've created it for. And don't wait until you know exactly how everything's gonna turn out. Just ship it, because you won't know until you send it out there. So version one earns you a version two, and the first launch is just a first data point. So that is it. We did it. Thank you so much for building alongside me throughout this series. It's been so much fun to create this. If you know somebody who would benefit from these episodes, please share it with them. I would love to support anyone you know who might benefit. And if you have enjoyed this series and listening to this podcast, please do me a favor and wherever you're listening to this podcast, give it a rating and leave a review. It means the world to me, and it truly helps me to reach more listeners. It's one of the best ways for me to share this work. So with that being said, I'll see you next time. I can't wait to see the work that you've created, and you're a rock star for making it this far. Until we meet again, may you be vibrant