Stop trying to reverse-engineer viral launches
Recently a client ask me to look at viral Instagram creator Jessica Carter who just had a phenomenal launch and she wanted me to analyse what she did so we can could try and do the same thing in her business. So now my Instagram feed is FULL of creators sharing their viral launch results and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.
My feelings aside, I did do a deep dive into Jessica's launch and I thought you might also find want to see the breakdown and my honest opinion on why I think she went viral...
My honest opinion - her launch strategy was nothing spectacular or new.
She used Instragram as her marketing engine to build a waitlist and then she ran a open/close launch for a $57 offer. If you've launched digital offers before you have probably run almost this exact same strategy in some format.
But here's why I think it went 'viral'...
She had 3 key ingredients:
- 1. A relatable, authentic content strategy
- 2. an irresistible offer that her audience told her they wanted
- 3. a sales deadline to create urgency and FOMO
In a little more detail here's my thoughts:
- She jumped on the Jessi Jean Yapping trend when everyone else was doing it, so it was already a hugely trending topic. She identified that there was a gap in the market and her audience kept asking her for more tips on editing her reels. She was able to create a product speaking to a hyper specific problem to a targeted audience at the exact right time.
- She created A LOT of content. She was posting daily, sometimes twice a day about a topic that was already going viral thanks to Jessi Jean which gave her content a lot of eyeballs.
- It wasn't just any old content, her content is very likeable, relatable and authentic. In a business environment when most content is AI generated this is a breath of fresh air.
- She used a deadline as part her selling strategy so people had FOMO if they didn't jump in while doors were open.
If you are willing to go all in on posting multiple times a day on IG then you too could create the same viral results too. But for most of us we don't have hours and hours to spend creating content and posting multiple times a day.
And My opinion is that in 12 months time these viral creators will be long forgotten. You and I on the other hand, may have grown our empire a little slower then these people but in 5 years time our empire will still be standing and our profit doesn't depend on whether we feel like posting 3 times a day on Instagram today.
Here's the problem with doing trying to reverse engineer these viral launches.... From the outside we are only seeing part of the story. We cannot see what went into producing all that content, if they run ads, were they hired a team to help with messaging and content creation, how many hours they spent putting it all together, how many things they launched that flopped.
And even if you do follow the exact same steps as someone else who had a 7-figure launch using the same scripts, the same emails and content, it still doesn't mean you'll have that 7-figure launch. Trust me, I have tried many times. I invested 5 figures into a coaching program with an industry expert to try and scale a group program. I followed everything she told me too but still only just scrapped together with a few thousand dollars profit from the launch. Other members in the same program followed the same strategy and ended up with a 6-figure launch.
I have been in the industry for over 6 years and I've seen a lot of online creators come and go. But the clients I'm working with now have multi 6 figure businesses and are here for the long term. They've been in business for over 5 years, some over a decade and you know what they aren't doing? Looking at what everyone is doing around them.
They are staying in their own lane, have honed in what they know their ideal clients need and are solving a real problem they have. Without the need for following every trend that comes through. They have identified what works for them, their ideal clients and they built their empire around that one thing. The vehicle and launch mechanics may have evolved from when they started as they've grown but their overall mission and values have remained the same.
Now I'm not a marketing expert and I can't help you refine your messaging or craft a viral content strategy so maybe I'm doing myself out of a few jobs by sharing this but it's not often things get me so firey that I had to share. If however you need support building your systems, and operations to support scaling to multi 6-figures, reviewing your data from your latest launch or tech support building out your online program then I'm your gal!
If any of this is landing because you're in that spot where you're sick of watching everyone else's launches and just want to build the thing that's actually yours, slower and properly, that's exactly what I can support you with. Click here to book a very casual chat about your business goals and how we can work together.