STEPH SMITH: THE BEST EBOOK LAUNCH STRATEGY I'VE EVER SEEN

Morning!

Most marketing growth stories are boring nowadays. It’s the same thing over and over again.

They post good content. Build a following on social. Sell something through it. And that’s about it.

There’s nothing to learn from it, you’ve heard it all before.

So this week I dug out a unique strategy you’ve probably never heard of before.

I’m about to break down how Steph Smith made $130,000+ selling 1 simple eBook.

All through 4 genius, yet pretty simple, growth hacks.

Let’s get into it…

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Breaking Down The Strategy

Everyone wants to have their products flying off the shelves and thousands of people recommending them.

Yet, most people don’t have a clue how to make it happen.

They think that if they make a good product, people will just come and buy it.

But as much as the concept sounds great… that’s not how the world works.

Great products don’t just amass thousands of customers out of nowhere and they certainly don’t have thousands of people talking about them out of nowhere.

Combine a great product with great marketing though… that’s when things start to tick.

And that’s exactly what Steph Smith did.

In July 2020, she came across an old outline she had made about writing content online. She read through it realised it was jam-packed with value and decided to set herself a challenge…

To turn it into a book in just 49 days.

Little did she know that just 10 days after launching, the eBook would have:

- Sold 1000 copies
- Generated $10,000 in revenue

But the growth didn’t stop there…

Today, Steph’s eBook ‘Doing Content Right’ has sold:

- 4616 copies
- Generated over $130,000 in revenue

Let me remind you that this eBook took Steph just 49 days to write and was not even close to her full-time job. A mere 6-figure side project.

Pretty crazy, right?

But the real question is, how in the world did she do it?

The answer: some awesome little marketing tactics.

I broke them down into 4 stages:

1) Tested The Market

Before even getting to work on creating ‘Doing Content Right’ Steph began the process by testing the market to see if there was actually any demand for the product.

She didn’t try and be clever about this, she was as straightforward as can be and literally said…

“Here’s what I’m thinking. Would you pay $10 for it?”

The responses were positive. In fact, many people pushed Steph to charge even more for the book with some saying they’d happily pay $40+ for it.

This move was super important to the book’s success for 2 reasons:

A) Confirmed that there was clearly a demand for the book - meaning it was worthwhile writing

B) It began building some hype for the book launch. At this stage, it was very minimal. But Steph’s 1000 true fans will have started to think and talk about the upcoming book.

2) Ran A Pre-Sale

When most people launch a product, they do just that… launch it… once.

Which tends to go one of two ways:

- It’s a huge success
- It’s a huge flop

But Steph noticed that even most successful launches have a big spike when they launch and then have a long tail-off.

With a pre-launch and then a “proper launch” you’re able to maintain the ‘hype’ behind the book over a much longer period.

But more importantly for Steph, the pre-launch gave her two vital tools that she would need in order to make this book a success.

A) Social proof - Steph got 425 people to pre-order her eBook before launching. This meant that when she did launch she already had a bunch of social proof behind the book which she could leverage to generate more sales.

And she did just that…

B) A feeling of FOMO - These 425 pre-sales also meant that Steph could leverage FOMO right from the off. When you have people buying the book before it’s even launched you quickly get the rest of your audience wondering why they all bought it… “It must be worth it if 425 people pre-ordered it”.

And an avalanche of sales ensues.

3) Ran A Tiered Pricing Strategy

Arguably the coolest part of Steph’s eBook marketing strategy was how she tiered pricing.

As explained pretty beautifully by Austin Rief, Steph essentially upped her prices every time 30 copies of her book were sold.

Now that was genius for a number of reasons, but for me the key 3 were:

A) Increased urgency - If you were thinking of buying the book and then you see the price jumping you quickly realise that you need to buy NOW. It’s often so hard to create that urgency when selling products, but the tiered pricing allowed Steph to do it with ease.

B) Increased revenue - To put it simply, as the price rose Steph made more money. A huge win for her (without the risk of pricing too high).

C) Perfect pricing - Through this tiered system Steph was able to find the perfect price for her book. She tracked the conversion rate at all of these price points and ended up halting the increase at $150 (where it remains today). A pretty incredible way to do things.

4) Build & Sold In Public

Last but not least, one of the key things Steph did was build & sell the book in public right from the start.

She, of course, began by literally asking the question: “Would you want this?”

And then continued to document the whole process, even all the way up to today - 3 years later.

If you scroll through Steph’s Twitter you can get a glimpse into all the different parts of her book-selling journey. Just take a look…

Okay, I think you get the point - everything was documented on her Twitter.

But this wasn’t just for the sake of getting a few likes or to look back on in years to come. It was essential if Steph wanted to continue maintaining some hype around the book.

If you look through these tweets each one is littered with social proof. She mentions:

- The 5* reviews it has
- The # of copies sold
- The number of people talking about it

Plus, she does an awesome job of giving some behind-the-scenes moments to really push that feeling of FOMO for people who are yet to buy it.

This simple pre & post-launch strategy meant that the excitement around the book didn’t just last one day, it lasted multiple years.

Which is also why the book is still being bought, talked and tweeted about to this day.

I mean damn, here I am writing a whole article about it!

But there we have it, one of the best eBook launch strategies I’ve seen to this day - and also one of the most simple to action.

I hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Until next time,

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Steph Smith’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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