Transcript

Sigrun:
You are listening to the Sigrun Show, episode number 393. In this episode, I talked to Hildur Jonsdottir about how she achieves 10 to 18% conversion rate in her launches. Welcome to the Sigrun Show. I’m your host Sigrun, creator of SOMBA the MBA program for online entrepreneurs. With each episode, I’ll share with you inspiring case studies and interviews to help you achieve your dreams and turn your passion into profits. Thank you for spending time with me today. Building an online business takes time. I share with you proven strategies to help you get there faster. You’ll also learn how to master your mindset, up level your marketing and succeed with masterminds.
Today, I speak with Hildur Jonsdottir who is in my VIP mastermind program. She is a health counselor and helps people with auto immune diseases and chronic illnesses find a way to healthier and happier lives. Through her online courses, she guides people to take the necessary steps towards better wellbeing and help. Her online business has been a wild success. And in this episode, she shares how she achieves 10 to 18% conversion rate in her launches.
Before we dive in, I want to remind you of the upcoming launch workshop. I have tried all the possible launch methods in the book to create the launch method I use today. And I have consistently achieved multiple six figure launches over the past three years. I’ve been teaching my launch method to my clients, and it’s the reason why they’re so successful in their online businesses. And now I want to teach this method to you. You can join the workshop by going to the show notes. There is a link for you to sign up and also in the show notes at sigrun.com/393, you will find the links to a Hildur Jonsdottir.
I am so excited to be here with Hildur Jonsdottir and talk about her amazing launch success. Welcome on the show, Hildur good.
Hildur:
Thank you, Sigrun. Great to be here with you.
Sigrun:
So, Hildur, you have been launching several times. How often have you launched?
Hildur:
I’ve been doing this for two years now since I joined SOMBA with you, and I’ve probably, wow, every two, three months I’ve been launching. So I’ve been doing quite a few.
Sigrun:
Quite a few, but still only two years ago, you didn’t really know how to launch and now you are having amazing launch success and that’s what we want to talk about and we want to inspire our listeners and viewers to learn from your experience. So before we dive into your launch experience, what courses are you selling through launches?
Hildur:
Well, I’m a health counselor and I’m helping people with auto immune diseases and chronic diseases to improve their health. I have kind of a sequence. People start with, my program is called Hildur’s Health Mastery. It starts with a foundation course. Then people go on to advanced program and then they have a support system in the end.
Sigrun:
Yeah, so it’s basically like a starter signature course and some sort of a membership in the end.
Hildur:
Yes, exactly.
Sigrun:
Okay, so you have done several launches. So let’s talk about what are your launch secrets? I know you have very high conversion rates and you have a lot of sales on your webinars. You also have a lot of repeat sales from your foundation course to your advanced course. Let’s start with typically when you go into a launch, what is your favorite launch method?
Hildur:
Well, I have basically just done one and that is, I launched through webinars. I am so spoiled with my high conversions that I haven’t really needed to work properly, like two proper launches, because the only way I’ve, for example, built my list is through webinars signups. I’ve never done a freebie which I’m doing for the first time right now. So my regular sequence is that I start just to advertise my webinars two weeks prior. Then I have two webinars. I have one, and then I have an encore one. And three days later after the second one, I start my course.
Sigrun:
So three days only.
Hildur:
Yes, so it is basically, yeah, usually I have a webinar on a Saturday for example, then again on a Thursday night, and then … no, my course starts on Monday, so it’s four days.
Sigrun:
Okay, so you still open cart on a Saturday and you started a week later. So your open cart is essentially still a whole week.
Hildur:
Yes, a little over a whole week.
Sigrun:
Yes. But you do an extra webinar where you are introducing your course on a Thursday to grab those people who missed the other one or sign up later.
Hildur:
Yes, exactly. I usually don’t give out recordings. I want to have people live. But sometimes I sent out recordings after the second one.
Sigrun:
Okay. That’s an important point that I’ve also made with a lot of people who have not seen maybe great success within webinar launches is that they have announced a replay and that is going to not have people show up live. So you do your webinars. You have used different methods. You’re based in Iceland and sometimes you were able to get some press coverage or even go on the radio. So what have you done to get media attention when you need it?
Hildur:
Well, I have amazing success stories with my course participants and also just my own story is quite amazing. So that is something that the media jumps on, when you have with health success, that is something that people are always interested in. An employee of mine has just put out basically press releases and followed up through usually personal messages through Facebook. If she finds a person that works on certain programs, then she just sends a personal message. “I sent you an email last week. Did you have a chance to read it? And it would be great because I know that you would have fun talking about this topic,” or something like that. So I go very personal when I follow up.
Sigrun:
I think this is a great idea for some people have not tried it, press release and follow up. And you can do this in any country. I know it’s maybe a little bit easier in Iceland where everybody knows everybody. But still, I would also try it in some other countries and see, especially if you live in a smaller village or community, you might have great success with this method. So you have gotten people to notice you more through this media. You don’t do it for every launch though.
Hildur:
No, no, no, no. I’ve done it for two launches in these two years.
Sigrun:
Yeah, so maybe once a year.
Hildur:
Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah, that makes sense because the media is not going to want to interview again and again, multiple times.
Hildur:
No, no, no, no, no.
Sigrun:
Okay, so when you do your webinars, what is kind of your goal for signups?
Hildur:
Well, I try to, my minimum conversion usually is around 10% from a total launch list.
Sigrun:
Yeah, but how many people do you actually want to get to sign up for a webinar?
Hildur:
Well, last time in March, my goal was a thousand and I had never gotten more than 500, and I reached that. I’m still working just in Iceland, but I’m opening up for English markets in October. So Iceland is very small, but still my goal now is 2000. I’m not sure. I’m launching now in September. I’m not sure if the market is too small to get there, but that is my aim now.
Sigrun:
Yeah. But you went from 500 to a thousand signups and someone who had not launched at all two years ago, I think that’s amazing.
Hildur:
Okay, good to hear.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Yeah. And let’s see, let’s hope the market is big enough for you getting 2000 next time. Okay, so people sign up for the webinar. What do you do with them? Do they join a free Facebook group? Do you nurture them through email? What do you do with them before the actual webinar?
Hildur:
Yeah, I do send them an email once a week just to remind them and tell them just like have an interesting, some tiny story in there to keep them interested. I have an open group or like closed group that’s open for everyone that are interested in my work. And I use always the same group. So that is just building up over time. And I do my every launch through there. So even people that joined there like a year ago and haven’t bought my program, they are always reminded through there that I’m doing a launch. I’m still getting people, even though they’ve been there for quite awhile, all of a sudden it’s the right time for them and they jump in.
Sigrun:
Yeah. And they might not even sign up for the webinar, but they get woken up through the activity in the free Facebook group.
Hildur:
Exactly.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Okay, so what is your typical show up rate then for the webinar?
Hildur:
It’s 40 to 50%.
Sigrun:
40 to 50%, that’s amazing. Typically attendance is like 20 to 30%. So what do you think is the reason you get such a good show up rate to your webinar?
Hildur:
I think it’s more the excitement about my program rather than that I’m keeping them warm before the webinar. Because people that have heard about the program are very excited to hear more. So I think my subject really helps there.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Typically when we do a webinar you are still teaching something, but you feel it is actually the draw is not necessarily the teaching part is actually they want to hear about the program.
Hildur:
Yeah and actually my webinar, like you say, some people change themes and teach different things. My webinars have always been the same and I call them an introduction course to my program. So people know that they are coming in there to know more about how my program works. So I’m very open with that and I basically just go deep, what I do on the webinar. And that is why I think I have a great success is that I go into giving people trust in me and the program and I’m giving them, through the webinar, a hope that they can also really improve their own health. So easily go very deep in how the program works so they understand kind of even scientifically what I am building my program on. And that helps them to get this trust and hope which a lot of my clients have lost completely because they’ve been challenged with chronic diseases for a very long time.
Sigrun:
We need to talk about that even though you’ve only been launching for two years and these courses and this business model you have today has only existed since we started to work together, you were doing this one-on-one for years before, so you had built a reputation. How long were you doing consulting or even blogging about this subject?
Hildur:
I wasn’t really working as a, I’ve been working as a counselor in different fields, so not on this. I just put together this program 2015/16. Prior to that, I was doing different things as a counselor. So my reputation for this, hasn’t been building up more than like three years or so. So I was clearly new when I started SOMBA.
Sigrun:
Yeah, yeah, fairly new. But now since you’re launching it so often, you say every three months or so, people are hearing about it more and more. And I think it’s super smart, the naming of your webinar. There’s no beating around the bush here. You’re not hiding the fact that you are introducing a program on the webinar and I think it’s a smart idea. I don’t think that’s going to work for everyone and it’s challenging when you have a brand new program. And I do think it’s also challenging when you have a high competition in a field, for instance, like business coaching or marketing coaching, it is a different animal. But I think for you, it has been the perfect choice and repeating it again and again, people just know exactly what they’re getting from you.
Hildur:
Yeah. And actually the competition here in our small market in Iceland is quite big because there are a lot of people, but of course you always have to build and be very strong on where is your uniqueness? Like what makes you different? And I’m very focused on that to kind of take myself out of the, so people are not comparing myself to the other ones that are on the market. I’m constantly telling them how different I am.
Sigrun:
Yeah.
Hildur:
This is what you can do wherever you are, of course.
Sigrun:
There is no competition if you make it into no competition. Okay, so you have about 40 50% show up on the webinar. Last time you had a thousand people signed up. So that’s quite a number that shows up to a webinar. We’re talking about four or 500 people. Do you manage this all on your own or do you have some help?
Hildur:
I do have help. I’m constantly building now my team. I started with just one VA and C has followed me most of the time. But now I have people working for me as contractors and I have total four persons working with me, so I do have help.
Sigrun:
Yeah. That sounds good, when you have that type of a number on your webinar.
Hildur:
Yeah.
Sigrun:
So you do this introduction to your course. Do you have some sort of an offer, like a fast action bonus if they join you right away?
Hildur:
Yeah. So in the beginning of the webinar, I tell people also to make it clear that in the end, I will tell them how they can work with me ongoing. So they know that there’s something coming about my program and some offer. And then I always invite or offer them on early bird, like 24 hour discount. So that has been my routine, but I have not used any bonuses so far. So this is just the only offer that I make. And then it’s the open cart. Then of course, I’m very busy during open cart, especially in the Facebook group.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Yeah. So you have a discount on your first webinar. Do you repeat that discount on the second webinar or not?
Hildur:
No, I did that in the beginning, but I have stopped because I feel that there is no difference. People that come to the second webinar, they are basically okay, I have to …
Sigrun:
You have to decide now. It starts in three days.
Hildur:
Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it’s no need to bring it back. And also sounds a little bit unfair. It’s not really a early bird bonus if you’re not an early bird anymore. So how are your sales distributed. In a typical webinar launch with a week open cart like you have, we see about 30% joining an open cart day, 30% close cart, 30% or 40% in the middle. How is your split?
Hildur:
It’s about 70% on the webinar.
Sigrun:
70% on Saturday.
Hildur:
No, the first 24 hours.
Sigrun:
24 hours. Okay. Yeah. So you have the early bird bonus, 24 hours and 70% join. Now that means that you can probably raise your price.
Hildur:
That’s the question. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. It probably means that people are super ready, super excited and the price is not an issue. They’re so excited about it. So typically when I see that happening, it means that you can tweak your prices, probably raise them a bit.
Hildur:
Right.
Sigrun:
And, or the cart open can be a lot shorter. There’s no need to have open cart for a whole week when you see most people buy within 24 hours. So you could save yourself the time and energy for that. So something to think about for the next time.
Hildur:
Yeah, I like the idea with the price, but the length is to be able to include the second webinar. So that is …
Sigrun:
Of course, yeah. Yeah, I often do or when I do a webinar launch, I do the encore quicker. I announce it immediately after the early bird or the fast action bonus has gone away. And then I do it maybe the day after, so I don’t wait so long. So that’s also something to consider.
Hildur:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do run ads also for the encore one.
Sigrun:
For the second one. Yeah, okay. So you are active in the Facebook group. You’re probably also sending out regular emails during that open cart period. And you just mentioned you run ads for the second webinar so you kind of get a scoop of maybe some new leads. What are you doing exactly in the Facebook group during that open cart week?
Hildur:
I’ve done random things, but basically my pattern hasn’t changed. I do 70% of the sales of the attendees that do buy from each webinar. And it’s the same for the encore one. And then basically 30% are buying the last day or the last two days or so. So I don’t sell a lot during open cart besides the webinars.
Sigrun:
No, but what are you doing exactly in the Facebook group? Are you bringing testimonials or quotes? Are you going live? What are the activities you’re doing in the free group?
Hildur:
Yeah, I do both. I have a lot of testimonials to work with. So we put in one a day. I interview people that have worked with me and they share their success stories and then I’ve done once in every open cart I do a Q and A as well.
Sigrun:
Yeah. Yeah. That is a very good idea, the Q and A. Do you do that really close to closed cart or when is the Q and A? When does it happen?
Hildur:
Yeah, usually it is. If I do on Thursday, the encore one, I usually do the Q and A on Saturday and that’s like two days before closed cart.
Sigrun:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And are you inviting people to come and share their success stories or is it always you posting?
Hildur:
I ask in my programs if people are willing to come on and do an interview with me. So I do that also in the presale, like before the webinar. In the month before, I start to take interviews with people and share that in the Facebook group. I do at least one during the week. And then we have quotes just like testimonials that we post ourselves.
Sigrun:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What we’ve also done in our launches more and more in the past, probably two years, is to just let people know that they can come into our free group and share their stories. And it always takes the first two, three to get it going. But we’ve had launches where the group goes crazy. We have our clients come in because it feels like, “Oh my friend so and so shared already. I’m going to share my success story, too”. And I specifically talk about like, “Imagine this was you before you joined the program and you’re on the fence of joining. What would you say to yourself?” And basically it’s like giving forward. You’re giving advice to another person, but you’re basically talking to yourself, which I think is also a great idea. Also allowing people to do a Facebook live. Depends of course, maybe that’s not fitting your audience, but for my audience definitely it makes sense to say, “Hey, just go live on your own. I don’t need to interview you. You can just share your story on your own.”
Hildur:
Yeah, it is just because I’m working with such a sensitive topic, so I want to kind of steer this a little bit more myself. That’s why I do it.
Sigrun:
Makes absolute sense for your health topic. Okay, so you have about 70% on the first webinar, 30% sales on the second, not necessarily in so much sales through emails. And then you have your Q and A before cart close. But your overall conversion from the launch list, you said just when we started the interview, it was about 10%. Has that been higher? What do you say when it’s higher? What do you think when it’s higher? What has happened?
Hildur:
Well, actually, it’s very difficult for me to say. I’ve been having conversion 10 to 18%. and I did a very small launch I thought, last May, just two months after I did the last big launch. And it seemed that people were just waiting that hadn’t been able to attend in March or whatever and I had amazing conversion. I didn’t do any PR. It was a very short time before the runway towards the launch and I got way more than I expected. So for me, it is very difficult to kind of see exactly maybe because I’m still doing a lot of launches, but now I will reduce it and I will just do basically two launches a year, even one, and we’ll have it automated. So it’s going to change now.
Sigrun:
But I think a lot of people have been seeing a spike in launches during Coronavirus and lockdown, which has been this urge of people wanting to go online and do online courses. And it doesn’t matter if it’s health or business or marketing or personal development, there has been a surge. So I think that has been maybe one of the reasons why you feel this pressure. It’s almost like you could launch one more time extra than you do normally if Corona hadn’t happened. That’s what I’m seeing in my business and with many of my clients.
Hildur:
Yeah. That could very well be. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. So last launch, you said a thousand signups, a 50% show up rate, so many people are buying. What is the resulting revenue?
Hildur:
For that one, it was little less, probably 35,000.
Sigrun:
$35,000. How many spots?
Hildur:
126.
Sigrun:
126. So what’s the price? That’s the foundation course, right, that you launched?
Hildur:
The four week program, yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. And the price is in dollars?
Hildur:
249, I think, a little less than 300.
Sigrun:
Okay. So 299 or so and 120 spots.
Hildur:
Yeah.
Sigrun:
Fabulous, fabulous. So how do you feel when you’re going into a launch? Do you feel excited? Do you feel ease or stress or what’s going on? You’ve been launching so often you kind of know what to expect, even if there’s always some unknown every time. But how do you feel?
Hildur:
Well, it is becoming, I feel a little too easy. So now I’m focusing on how to improve it and do it even better. It is basically, I always love launching. I love doing the webinars. I love being with people and get my message out. And now I’m focusing on, I know I can do this even better. So now I’m building my first freebie. I’m doing more in the runway. And so I’m focusing on building more excitement up for the whole six weeks before. So that is what I’m doing now and it feels great.
Sigrun:
That feels great. That sounds great. That’s exactly what we are doing behind the scenes with our clients right now. We’re helping them build a runway because the longer the runway, the bigger the launch and Hildur, you might even see higher conversions than you’ve seen before. That would be amazing.
Hildur:
That would be exciting. We’ll see how to compare it. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. We’ll see. Now the next time you launch or let’s say is Icelandic market, but then you’re going into the English market. Then you can probably feel a little bit again the challenge and the excitement.
Hildur:
Yeah. It’s going to be very interesting to see the difference because then I’m going into a completely new market, completely unknown again. So it’s going to be interesting to compare also. Because Iceland is small market, it’s easy to get the message out here, like how it will be if it’s really some magic that I have for webinars, or if it’s some reason for that I’m working in a small market. So it’s going to be great to compare this.
Sigrun:
Yeah. I am sure that you are so experienced in launching, it doesn’t matter which language it is, but it’s good to get some excitement in because I think we should never get too comfortable. We need a bit of a challenge and creativity to keep the excitement for our own business.
Hildur:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Well, thank you for joining, Hildur. It’s been a pleasure and thank you for sharing your launch wisdom with our audience. Thank you so much.
Hildur:
Thank you for having me.
Sigrun:
I would love to see you at my launch workshop because I want to share my launch methods with you. Go to the shownotes@sigrun.com/393, where you can sign up for the launch workshop. And there, you will also find all the links to Hildur Jonsdottir. Thank you for listening to the Sigrun Show. Did you enjoy this episode? Let me know that you listened by tagging me in your Insta story or Instagram post using my handle @sigruncom and the hashtag SigrunShow. See you in the next episode.