Raise your hand if you know what a launch sequence is.

A handful of you…OK.

Let’s back up a minute and get the rest of you up to speed.

3 years ago I was in charge of the youth group at our church. That group of teenagers was notorious for not…you know…showing up to stuff.

When I took over we had a total of 12 kids. However, the average attendance was 6 people on a Sunday and a fraction of that for our mid-week meet-up. Even worse, 2 of the main leaders in that group were seniors who had graduated and were leaving for college.

By the end of my time as the youth group leader, the average attendance was 11 kids on Sunday and 7 at mid-week.

A 50% increase.

How did we do it?

It started out rough. My first Sunday morning, 2 people showed up.

Ugh.

Preparing for 2 to 4 hours and then having 2 people show up sucked. I needed butts in seats.

So, I did two things:

1. Gave them a reason to show up
2. Reminded them to show up

After talking with a few of the kids, a common theme emerged. They were bored. They didn’t look forward to getting together and definitely didn’t make it a priority.

So I invented a new program. Something to be excited about.

We started a weekly TV show.

Think Saturday Night Live but for church. It was a HUGE hit with the kids. The show was terrible and most of the members of the church hated it, but it got the kids engaged. However, I kept having attendance problems. Sentiment was up but attendance was sluggish.

Sunday morning is a terrible time to ask a bunch of 14- to 18-year-olds to wake up early and sit still for 3 hours. They had lives, friends, football games and band practices.

The last thing on their mind on a Saturday night and Sunday morning was waking up early…

…and that is where #2 came in.

I had to remind them.

To do that I set up three alarms on my phone:

Thursday @ 8 pm
Saturday @ 3 pm
Sunday @ 8 am

My alarm would go off and I’d shoot a text to the entire group with this message:

 

These three text messages changed everything. The first Sunday I sent those out, one of the kids–one that never came at all–was there before me waiting for me to unlock the door!

Every single kid showed up that first Sunday. After that, we averaged over 75% attendance.

Sooo….

Why did this work?

It’s simple:

I reminded them.

***

So, what does all of this have to do with your business?

Take a look at this:

Just like the sequence of text messages I sent to those kids every week, these are the email messages sent by Derek Halpern, Nathan Barry and Trey Smith when they launched their latest product.

This is called a launch sequence.

When you launch a product you need to remind your readers about three important things:

1. That you have a product they need to buy

2. What they will get when they buy it

3. Why they trust you in the first place

A well-planned launch sequence can transform your business.

When Nathan Barry launched his very first book, App Design Handbook, he had an e-mail list of 852 people. By having a product his audience wanted and a properly executed launch sequence he was able to sell over $25,000 in the first week.

Insane, right?

So, here’s the deal…

Behind the scenes at Videofruit HQ I’ve been working on a new product. One part of it is all about the launch sequences.

And soon I’m going to open up that product for you.

So, for the rest of this week and next week, you’re going to get a free crash course taught by some of the brightest marketing minds I know.

Friday, you’ll be hearing from Nathan Barry about his recent launch that did over $15,000 in revenue (to a very small portion of his list).

Tuesday, I’m going to share an interview with Mattan about a brand new product that the guys at One Month Rails just launched.

Wednesday, you’ll be hearing from Brandon Carter, the head of marketing for Ramit Sethi. He’ll be sharing a very interesting spin on re-launching that their team put together for Ramit Sethi.

Towards the end of next week I’ll share the details of my new product and show you how to get involved with it.

Question: Have you ever bought a product after going through someone’s launch sequence? If so, what was the part that drew you in? Share it in the comments section.