Business

4 Benefits to Including A Workbook in Your Next Launch

Being a graphic design assistant includes many tasks – things like social media graphics, content upgrades, course materials, and so on. But my favorite thing, by far, to design are workbooks.

Workbooks can be used for content upgrades, within your course or challenge, as a paid product, and more. They open up a lot of opportunities for you to connect with your audience on another level, monetize more, and have a more authoritative and professional impact.

If you’re planning on launching something in Q3 or Q4 of this year, I highly, highly, highly recommend including a workbook component. It actually doesn’t take a lot more effort on your part and can really take your offering to the next level for a handful of reasons including the 4 I’ll cover today.

"Launching soon? You need a workbook - here's why!" (tweet that!)


MORE AUTHORITY

Including a workbook in your next launch is a fantastic way to demand more authority and showcase yourself in a way that emphasizes your legitimacy as an expert. You can in turn charge a higher price point, because you are offering more for your consumer (and alternative ways to digest information, so you are pleasing more consumers).

Something that people forget, especially online, is that we (as customers) crave a real, tangible take away from something we purchase. Yes, we want to learn whatever skill or idea you are teaching, but we want to be able to take that and create or make or grow in some way because of it. A workbook is already something tangible that a consumer can take away from point of purchase, so you’re already moving in the right direction. With that, you are giving a tool to your consumer that allows that to move even closer to implementing whatever it is that you are teaching or showcasing, because now they have the opportunity to answer questions, take notes, brainstorm, etc. (versus just listening to a course and not actually implementing, trying, or doing anything with the information).


MORE ORGANIC SOCIAL SHARES

Something really awesome that can (and should) happen when you bring a workbook into your next launch is organic social sharing. What I mean by that is, say I’m taking your challenge or course and I printed off the workbook to go along with it. If it’s something that I enjoy doing, is well designed, fun, or pertinent to my overall business (which it would obviously be, or I wouldn’t be wasting my time!), then chances are I will take a fun photo of me filling out some of the information to share on social media.

If you want to get serious about this idea, you can have a prompt within your workbook or some sort of small incentive to share (maybe one random winner or something from everyone who shares using #WhateverYourHashtag is). This gets people talking about your offering, sharing it with their audience, and driving traffic and excitement back to you/your offering. Fo’ free!


MORE OPPORTUNITY TO DELIGHT

I touched on this earlier, but along with giving you more authority, workbooks within launches can also give you more of a chance to delight your customers. There can be added bonuses, opportunities for follow-up purchases/products (with coupons or discount codes), and more within a workbook. You want to think of it as an extension of the course or challenge that takes whatever you’re teaching and showcases it in a tweaked way, prompting people to answer questions about whatever it is you’re teaching about.

A really important point to acknowledge is that we are all not the same types of learners. So while you are offering a video course, maybe I need to be able to read key points and write things down to really digest and comprehend. A workbook helps cater to all types of students so that no matter how you are giving the information, everyone can learn.

Another fun element is to include a really beautiful quote or inspirational page so that people can take that and put it on their inspiration board, or put it somewhere to keep them motivated. I love including pages like these, or even ones with areas for people to fill in their goals from the course or challenge, so that they can constantly see it. This is especially helpful if you have a longer course, because it will help keep people motivated to actually finish the course.


MORE TO SHARE (FOR FREE TOO)

Within any launch you end up sharing a good bit of your content for free, through blog posts or webinars, etc. Creating a workbook opens up more opportunities to share for free, which in turn can help turn more people into paying customers (or at least into your funnel).

Your workbook might end up being 30 pages long when all is said and done, but you can pull a worksheet or section from it that feels relevant to whatever you are speaking about on a webinar or in a blog post and have that be an opt-in. Or, if you create the workbook with enough information that it can stand alone, you could always sell the workbook for a discounted price down the road.

If you’re planning a launch later this year, I urge you to consider how a workbook can help that launch be even more successful and beneficial for your customers.



The Often Overlooked (But Essential) Component of Any Launch

Working as a design assistant for creative entrepreneurs entails many unique projects. I’m grateful that my days are varied and the work is always interesting. There are some weekly tasks – blog post related graphics, mostly, but a lot of my work ends up relating to launches.

Like you, clients of mine may be launching a new funnel, a new group program, a new course, etc. When you think about a launch I’m sure the first few things that run through your mind are… creating content, making funnels, webinars, other PR efforts, etc. Something that you probably don’t consider right away are all the visual components of a launch – and trust me, there are a ton!

"Don't forget the visual components of every launch!" (tweet that!)

In my experience, there are a few main categories every launch (whether it be a course, a new service, a product, etc.) absolutely needs. There are definitely more that would help make a launch even more successful, but these 4 are the top necessities.


A SUB-BRAND OR IDENTITY

Similar to your main business, a course or challenge or whatever it is that you are launching could use a sub-brand or identity as a base for all the other visual components. Maybe your business, in general, is targeting young moms with kids under 5, but your course is even more specifically for young moms with kids under 5 who want to use all natural and organic things in their home. You want to pull away from your main branding, even slightly, to make that distinction clear. Maybe you’ll adapt your color palette slightly, or use one of your tertiary colors more throughout the launch, etc.

A lot of the projects I work on go ahead and create their own logo or mark for a launch, that way everything within this new program (or course or whatever) can use that.

Basically a sub-brand or identity can be intensely different or just a tweak, but either way it needs to be considered and intentional. What you should not do is just pick random colors and fonts and stylistic direction with no thought behind it.


LANDING PAGE OR SALES PAGE GRAPHICS

We all know how important copy can be on your landing page or sales page for your new offering. Similarly, we also know how much people don’t love reading huge novels on a website, scrolling for hours, and being lost and confused about what they actually are supposed to be doing.

Not only can a designer work with your sales or landing page to make it flow well, have obvious hierarchy, and easy to understand “BUY NOW” cues – they can also add some custom graphics that help break up chunks of text and add an air of authority and professionalism.

Take a second and envision a great sales page (maybe one that got you to actually buy). Was it just hoards and hoards of text? Or were there icons to break down each section visually, maybe a fun border or pattern used throughout, and other visual cues to help you navigate around?

For me, a well-designed and impactful sales or landing page says, “I’m legit. This is legit. This is worth your money.” On the other hand, a sales or landing page that is clunky, stuffy, and wordy makes me think that whatever it is I am purchasing will also be clunky, stuffy, and wordy (and that’s not how I want to learn, work, etc.).

So while I agree that great copy is essential for these types of pages, I have to argue that it being visually appealing will make people actually read the copy and be impacted.

"Having a well designed sales or landing page can make or break your launch" (tweet that!)


SOCIAL MEDIA GRAPHICS + SHARING GRAPHICS

Once you’ve decided to launch something you definitely have to take the time to promote it, right? Social media graphics are key here, and even better, creating graphics that your purchasers/students/clients can share on your behalf is a fantastic way to get the word out.

Every single launch I’ve worked on has had a huge number of social media graphics – sized for every platform, designed/worded to sound like they are coming from the content creator, the user, and the guest experts (so everyone can share!), and using the ‘tweaked’ (or brand new) identity.

If you’re doing the whole online business thing, I know you know the value of social media – so I won’t write about that. But I will say that having beautiful visuals related to your launch to share on social media (and have others share) is going to impact your bottom line.

Similar to a sales or landing page, you want them to be well designed, intentional, easy to understand, etc. Clunky and unappealing graphics will do you more harm than good – you want to come across as high end, professional, and polished (so people will be more willing to spend their money).


A WORKBOOK/PDF/DOWNLOAD

If your launch doesn’t include some sort of downloadable PDF/Workbook – it should! What a key way to get more subscribers, charge more (because people are getting more), and/or showcase that you are top-shelf quality because you have all the bases covered.

Creating workbooks is hands down my favorite thing to do. It’s such a great way to further your content and engage people more – and having something that is well designed will definitely help.

Just think, if you had a beautiful worksheet that went along with your challenge (or whatever) and people actually printed it out, posted it on social media, and used your hashtag… free advertising! You can even put the direction or idea to do that within your workbook or worksheet! Ask people to share it and do a small giveaway as an incentive. This is how things can go viral, okay!

Having some sort workbook or PDF is also great for advertising within all those social media graphics you are going to have as well. Instead of just saying, “get the XYZ solution” you can show the workbook and show how someone is going to get it. That resonates so much stronger with your audience (which means a better launch for you).