Look Inside the 30-Day Launch Formula

www.brandexcitement.com | 1-888-YOU-BRAND | 285 West Side Ave Jersey City, NJ 07305

Client Testimonials & Recent Praise

I'm so very proud that we chose to work with Brand Excitement this year. Brand Excitement helped us to create an identity in the social media atmosphere by redesigning our Twitter page and revised our website, making it more reflective of the work that we do while attracting more supporters and donors to our website. If you're looking for a creative and professional organization that will help you boost your brand's visibility, I definitely recommend you working with them.

-Julye Williams, Educator Global Adventure Academy

Brand Excitement prepared my new website for my wedding/event planning company. She was so helpful during the whole process of revamping my website. She understood me and was very responsive in getting back to me with items I had questions about. She set me up with some tools to help me get business and helps her clients out a great deal.

-Emily Lester Cahnmann, Event Planner EM Event Management

I own an academy in Seattle, Washington and I was very fortunate to find Beatrice Johnston and her fabulous business Brand Excitement. I was trying to do things on my own and I found out I was doing them wrong. I needed to up-level my website and materials. Beatrice seamlessly took my ideas and was able to come up with something that was "spot on" perfect for my academy. I'm very excited! She's able to give a brand that fits with your company and where you'd like it to go.

Becky Blake, Autism Expert Creating Super Kids

www.brandexcitement.com | 1-888-YOU-BRAND | 285 West Side Ave Jersey City, NJ 07305 Page 6

Table of Contents

Pre-Launch Guide Page

• Overview of the launch process ................................ 8 • What to expect .......................................................... 9 • Goat Setting .............................................................. 9 • Primary Goals............................................................ 10 • Secondary Goals....................................................... 10 • Kickoff Event ............................................................. 12 • Live Events................................................................ 12 • Online Events ............................................................ 13 • Budgeting .................................................................. 15 • Pre-launch Checklist ................................................. 19

Active Campaign

• Announce The Launch .............................................. 22 • The Press Release.................................................... 23 • The Launch Event ..................................................... 24 • Your Content Calendar.............................................. 26 • The 30-day Twitter/LinkedIn Plan.............................. 26 • The 30-day Facebook Plan ....................................... 28 • Advertising................................................................. 31 • Facebook Advertising................................................ 32 • Postcards ................................................................. 36 • Flyers......................................................................... 40 • Acceleration............................................................... 43 • Top Business directories ........................................... 44 • Influencer Interview .................................................. 46 • Community Causes ................................................... 47

Post Launch Report

• Celebration ................................................................ 50 • Results Analysis ........................................................ 51 • Follow up Program .................................................... 53


Pre-Launch Guide


Overview of the Launch Process Before we begin let’s cover the assumptions. This guide assumes that you have already handled the basic setup of your business. Things like market analysis for your target client or customer, incorporating or establishing your entity, getting a tax ID number from the IRS, setting up your bookkeeping and business plan, business insurance, licenses, permits and accounting systems. If those things have not been put in place for your business please do not continue with this guide. Set it aside, visit your local country registrar or www.SBA.gov and handle your setup properly. This guide also assumes that you have a brand in place. Things like your naming, messaging, platform, signals, the brand experience, basic marketing and management systems are too robust to cover in this 30-day Launch Formula. You can hire a design agency to develop the brand for you or build it yourself using Brand Excitement’s Bankable Branding Toolkit. If your business setup and your brand are in place, you’re ready to proceed. This prelaunch guide will set the stage for the successful launch of your business! In this phase we will outline what you need to have in place BEFORE you launch so that you’re not scrambling and putting out fires once the big day arrives. Most people launch their business by simply hanging up a shingle and declaring that they’re open for service. That’s ineffective. To really make yourself known you need to broadcast your business to the masses – online and offline. Setting a launch plan in action gives you a solid foundation to establish yourself, and supports rapid growth. It positions you to attract great business opportunities and assists you in taking advantage of the marketplace in full. This plan in full will take the guesswork out of what you need to

do to properly launch = expose your business at the onset. With a proper launch you’ll be able to generate revenue for your new business faster than you would otherwise, and you’ll know the process of releasing every new product or service you introduce through you business on an ongoing basis. The best part about this system is… 90% of the work is already done for you. What you should say, how you should say it, and when you should say it, as well as what you should do, how you should do it, and when you should do it, are all outlined in specific detail for your 30-day plan.


Let’s rate your brand materials

During your brand development you likely created a lot of materials that will represent the brand. Let’s evaluate them one by one.

Some businesses start with the basics while others start fully immersed. Here we breakout three levels of brand materials that you may have in your business. You’ll need Level 1 materials to launch, but may have more. Let’s rate them and make sure they’re launch ready

RATING (1=poor, 10=excellent)

Level 1: Incubator Signals Most Needed (1) Name (2) Logo (3) Business Card (4) Stationary (5) Website (6) Social Networking

Level 2: Developing Signals Most Needed (1) Brochures (2) Newsletters (3) Speeches/Presentations (4) Media Kit (5) Videos

Level 3: Established Signals Most Needed (1) Online ads (2) Print ads (3) Signage for Operations

Tradeshows/Events

(4) Commercials (5) Experiences & Environment

List Additional Signals below

Do you have any launch materials that won’t make a stellar first impression? If so, revise them until they do. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and looks matter!


30-Day Active Campaign


Active Campaign Starting your business is a big deal. It may mean you go from working 40 hours/week to working twice as hard. There’s a big learning curve when you dive in as a business owner so in this program we’ve made sure to consider the cost and time involved in running an effective launch campaign so that your road to success is smooth sailing.

We haven’t listed anything in our program that is going to waste your time

and attention, because doing the business you’re in is just as important as getting exposure for the business you’re in.

Great detail is provided for each of the elements of launching your brand, but we’ve also left room for adjustment, creativity and omission. Your launch should be fun, but you will want it to give you a return on your investment and we promise that it will!

There are three core elements to your launch:

• The pre-launch activity

• The active campaign

• The post-launch wrap up.

You’ve already reviewed what you need to before you launch and in this section we cover the active launch.

The Active campaign takes a three-step approach. Some will overlap, but you can also do them in sequence to monitor and manage the process depending on your goals and how much time you’d like to take.

The Three Steps are

1) Announce the launch

2) Advertise the business

3) Accelerate the exposure

Our recommendation is that you choose at least one element from each of the core elements of the launch: Announce, Advertise and Accelerate if you truly desire to see immediate results and conversions when you launch your business.

Customize this plan to make it your own. There are obvious differences between the service-based business owner and the product-based business owner. Add you own unique language, personality and value system to the content and development tools listed here and you’ll be sure to execute a plan for success.


Execute the 30-Day Facebook Plan (cont’d) Days 21 - 30

21 Quote Brian Tracy once said “Give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing every step forward is toward achieving something bigger & better. “ – I think I can vouch for that!

22 Mention/connection There are so many ways to connect with us, but we want to make sure we connect with YOU. If we’re not following you on twitter be sure to put your twitter handle below and we’ll make sure to follow you

23 Poll What do you want to see us cover in our articles this week? Any Q&A? Keep it clean, we don’t want to cause a riot just yet. We’re just getting this thing going…

24 Core value It takes values to change the world and be a leader. One of our core values is [value here] - [the description of the value and how you use it here]

25 Quote A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love. ~ Max Muller | Max was a wise man. I think he was thinking of someone just like you!

26 Tip Have you seen our video of the top 10 [your topic] tips: http://www.youtube.com/link

27 Resource Do you have a hard time [put a big issue or problem here]? We’ve come up with a solution for that. Find out what it is at http://www.yoursite.com/link

28 Fact/statistic Guess what, over half a million businesses are started in the U.S. each year. That means half a million passion filled risk takers… and I’m one of them. Feels good.

29 Warning Often people are misled to believe that [issue or rumor here]. Be aware if you do this. Always get the facts before you make a move in either direction.

30 Question Can you believe how time flies? It was only 30 days ago that we launched and look at us now. The best is yet to come! http://www.yoursite.com/link


Advertise The Business


Advertise the business The number of people who launch their business without running a single ad campaign or spending a dollar is staggering. Are there businesses that haven’t spent $1 on advertising?

Yes, there are.

They are rare.

As rare as finding a needle in a haystack. But yet, many business owners quote fictitious statistics and naively believe they can have success without investing in their expertise.

Why not set a realistic budget and invest in marketing something that’s been proven to work time after time for decades?

When you’re a small business launching on the scene the best way to advertise using banner ads without breaking the bank is using social media. There are other ways to advertise online, and they are robust, so for ease of use and cost effectiveness we’ll focus on using Facebook.

Facebook Advertising

Why Facebook? With Facebook you can set a budget to spend as little as $5 per day while targeting exactly who you want to pinpoint by age, marital status, education level, location and interests.

Facebook’s demographic community is a reliable source for trending your ideal client, and at a glance you can see if there are enough prospective clients with the lifestyle and needs that you are marketing. Be sure to use a business page, and not a personal page, and you’ll be set.

The length of time and amount of money to spend on Facebook is up to you. Start with 3-5 days, observe your results, and then decide whether to test different text and images, continue advertising or stop

Since brands vary greatly in personality, price point, services and more it’s important to do a few “mini campaigns or testers” before allocating large sums of money towards a more robust campaign (actually, that’s true of any

marketing). Our suggestion when you place your ad on Facebook is that you run at least 2 campaigns at a time to the same target audience, changing only one variable, such as the photo or description, to determine which your target audience responds to best.

We’ll give you a snapshot of the process on the following pages. To delve deeper or see what more you can do, visit Facebook’s help center at http://facebook.com/help/promote.

Let’s start with explaining the difference between Promoted Posts, Sponsored Stories and Ads

1) Promoted Posts: Promoted posts are an easy and affordable way to get seen. Since you’re paying, Facebook ranks your content higher in the News Feed of those connected to you, improving your odds of the content being seen by those connected to you. The cost varies depending on where you live, but typically it starts at $5 and up for 3 days. How to do it:

1) Create a content post on your page’s timeline

2) Click Promote/Boost at the bottom of your post

3) Set your budget. When you set your budget Facebook will show you an estimate of how many potential people your ad will reach over the span of your ad run. The more you spend, the greater the reach.

4) Save your selection


The sequence:

Your postcard campaign needs a sequence. Ultimately, the best campaigns are those that are an ongoing part of an annual marketing plan (12-months) but for our initial brand launch this sequence spans 30 days.

#1 – announcement and offer to get a resource/participate in event /call for an appointment

#2 – 13 days later / It’s not too late to get involved

Helpful hints: offer an incentive, use action words, quotes and reviews

#3 – 9 days later

Thank you for your support and encouragement.


Accelerate Your Exposure


Kickstart the review process by sending an email to clients that have already done business with you. It’s a simple process. Here’s a template you can send by email:

Subject line: [Jane Doe] Can I ask a favor?

Hi {friend}, I’ve listed my business with a few local directories online and want others to quickly understand first hand what they can expect in doing business with [company name].

Can you take a moment and hop over to one or two of the site below and leave a review?

• Site 1

• Site 2

• Site 3

Once you post your review just send us a note (a link, for instance) to let us know. You can email them to us at [email address]. Thanks for considering this, and if you prefer not to at this time, no worries.


Congratulations on completing the active campaign and NOT letting this program sit idle on your to-do list. This “implementation” phase of the 30-Day Launch Formula took your business visibility from understated to outstanding. We know that the plan is robust, but rest assure that you do not need to do “every element” of the program in order to see substantial results.

Now that the campaign is over track your results and analyze your success in the Post Launch Report on the following pages. Doing so will give you great leverage for your follow-up and ongoing marketing efforts.


Post-Launch Report


Congratulations on Completing Your Launch! You did it! What an accomplishment. What a milestone. You deserve an applause! You’ve now put your business on the map. You’re on the radar. You did the darn thing. Let it soak in for a bit. How does it feel? The post launch report is where we take all of the effort, drive and determination you put forth and we record it so that you can move forward in your business marketing with educated decisions. Unless you’re an alien, chances are the launch didn’t go “exactly” as planned, and that’s ok. Plans are meant to guide us, not squelch us, and being human means nothing will ever be perfect. I hope you can live with that… because you’ve just catapulted your business into the top tier. Yours is one that plans and executes growth strategy. Again, CONGRATULATIONS! Circle your happy thoughts here and feel free to add your own:


Take a look at your prelaunch guide and your active campaign activity and let’s record what you did and the results you achieved... Did you have a launch event? What was the turnout?

Yes

No

Online Offline

What were your primary goals? How did it go? 1. 2. 3. What were your secondary goals? How did it go? 1. 2. 3. What else is worth noting? (include press, attendance, recognition, etc)


About Beatrice Johnston For over 15 years Beatrice Johnston has been creating and supporting the brand experience. As the director of Brand Excitement she designs marketing materials, websites, blogs and social media messaging that increases visibility, opportunities and prosperity for service based businesses.

As a brand developer she has unique experience as a Project Manager, Graphic Designer and Producer. Prior to starting Brand Excitement she worked for several financial brands including American Express and JP Morgan Chase, and as a model she's worked for the top brands in the industry such as Revlon, Avon, Cosmopolitan and Essence. She has coupled this unique insight to help her clients build a profitable brand that is an authentic extension of their passion and expertise.

She has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Inc. Magazine Online, Fox News and many regional newspapers and radio shows. She has a special expertise in recognizing growing trends and opportunities in the marketplace and generously shares this knowledge and guidance with her clients and audience participants.

Beatrice has been a key speaker for Monster.com and NYU and several business organizations on education, social media and branding. Her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois and a Professional Certificate in Journalism from New York University further attest to her dedication and unique insight in serving this market.

Look Inside the 30-Day Launch Formula

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