16: Determining the Content and Topics of your Challenge Launch

Learn how to determine the topics for your challenge launch... the ideal content that creates awareness, belief, and connection so participants are ready to take that next step and buy your offer.

Resources and Links

NEW RESOURCE: Click here to get my FREE Challenge Launch Checklist!

Then CLICK HERE to jump into my Challenge Launch Bootcamp to learn how to launch your offers with a challenge.

Ready to simplify your life and streamline your business? Join The Digital Clutter Cure. 

Tools mentioned in this episode:

Kajabi / Learn Kajabi

Canva / Learn Canva

Jasper

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Transcript:

If you've been listening to our podcast, you know that I've shared a lot of details on why a challenge launch can be so beneficial for your business. But maybe you're wondering what content to include in your challenge. Well, we just wrapped up a bootcamp and on day four I shared how to determine your challenge content. So, today's episode is a small portion of our fourth day of our bootcamp, and I just thought it would be so valuable for our podcast listeners. This is my formula for determining not only the right content to share, but the right amount of content to share, to ensure that you increase your conversion rate of cold leads to customers, clients, and students in your programs. 

To learn more on how to implement challenge launches, to build a thriving online business, go to lydiamartin.biz/launch.

Today is all about what I probably think is the biggest question people have about launching with a challenge. And that is what do I share in the challenge? Right. This is probably your biggest question of why you're stuck. Because in your mind, you're thinking I'm holding this free challenge. Aren't I going to, like, give away everything in these three to five days, and then they're not going to want my offer. There is a formula to this, and I have learned it after seven challenge launches. And guess how I learned it? By doing it wrong for a few times. Right. How many of you love to teach, you love to give content, you love to serve and give value, and you do tend to go a little overboard on what you give away.

So, I want you to know that it's super important to gain what I'm going to share with you today, to understand this concept. And I came up with this great way to remember it. It's A-B-C-D-E. Don't you love when that happens. So, to determine the topics for your challenge, you need to remember the goals of your challenge. Okay. Why are we doing a challenge launch? We are doing it first and foremost for Awareness. We're expanding our reach and finding, generating new leads that we want to make aware of what we do, who we serve, what we offer. Okay. So, awareness, we need to create also in our audience. All right. Does everybody understand what I mean by this?

We need to have an experience with our bootcamp or challenge members that gets them aware of what they need to know or understand about themselves, about their life, about their challenge, about whatever is going on, in order to say, with a hand held high, yes, I need that. Does everybody understand what I mean? I'm going to try to give you an example since we're all in this bootcamp together. Why did I choose some of my challenge topics? What was challenge topic one? It is what is a challenge launch and why do I want to do one? If I had not spent time making you all aware of what a challenge even is and why it's even important, would you have been as excited, okay, to continue on in the bootcamp? Don't you agree that an offer is not going to be desirable unless it's something I've actually identified that I want, that I need. Right.

So, Awareness is number one goal. Number two is belief. A challenge gives you an opportunity to help your audience increase belief, not only in you, but belief in themselves. All right. So, you need to take time in your challenge to help them overcome limiting beliefs or any mindset blocks that they are having about the process or formula that you teach. We have talked a lot about mindset this week. Haven't we? We've talked about the importance of taking massive imperfect action, that we don't want to suffer from imposter syndrome, okay, because we are the expert in what we know. We've talked about progress over perfection. These are all mindset blocks that I know I had, that I bet you had, that we need to get past so we are not held back by fear, fear of failure, fear of what others think or fear that we can't do it.

So, this is the sort of thing that you need to have happen inside your challenge. And so that helps you develop the content. Some people's entire challenge is based on mindset. Because it's not skills that they teach. It's helping people overcome their limiting beliefs. It is the core of what they do. All right. But we all have to do this in some form or fashion. Even if you are a dog trainer and you teach people how to train their dogs, you have to get them to overcome the belief that the only people that can get their dog to obey is a professional. Okay. Does everybody understand the difference? All right.

Number three is Connection. The content you share should be building relationships, meaning that Know, Like, Trust factor and credibility, where they see you as the expert. So, you want to try to think of things that wow. Okay. Was there anything I shared this week that just wowed you, that blew your socks off. I love the mind blown emoji because we all don't know what we don't know. And I love when I participate in a challenge and somebody shares a tip, a tool, a mindset that I'm like, whoa, that was amazing. That was worth the price of admission. Even if admission was free. It was worth the admission of my time. Okay.

So, you have to have those wow factors. It doesn't mean you give everything away, but you need to still be sharing quality content that wows your audience, but most important also makes you relatable to your audience. If you present content in a way where it's like, here's me, here's all that I know, aren't I grand and special. No one is going to want to move forward with you because they see you as this way up here person and they're like, oh, I'm never going to be able to do what they do. Okay.

So, I hope this is helping. Let's move on to D and E. Letter D is Desire. What can you be sharing in your topics that keeps them coming back for more? All right. It's not about quantity of content and this is where everyone gets stuck. In fact, some of you have asked me how long should my videos, my lives, or my pre-recorded videos, be in a challenge. You have seen me do about forty-five minutes. The first day was over an hour. Today will most likely be an hour. I want you to know that for the majority of you, twenty minutes is what you're shooting for. In my challenge that I do for The Digital Clutter Cure, my goal is always twenty to thirty minutes. Usually, the first and last day go over a little bit, because there's some logistical things to share. Last day you're sharing your offer, that goes a little longer. You have Q&A, but honestly, depending on your offer, you should be talking for twenty to thirty minutes.

Some of you, you're relieved to hear this. Others of you, you're panicking. Because you're like, how can I share valuable content in twenty to thirty minutes? Well, I'm going to share some tips on that. But the key is not quantity. Do not think that if I talk longer, I'm giving more value. You need to give quality, the one nugget, the one step. You think that they're going to be impressed by all the things you know, when honestly, they're going to be overwhelmed if you teach too much. Okay. Does everybody understand this? I'm so glad we brought this up. The only reason why I am going forty-five minutes to an hour is because of all of these things, these five things. Because of the content that I'm teaching, there is so much depth that I do need a little bit more time to get these five things accomplished.

So, depending on your offer, depending on your niche and what you teach, you may be able to go live for fifteen minutes a day. Because you're going to be doing a starter course. You don't want to give away it's what's in the course. So, you're just going to teach one nugget a day, one mindset thing a day. It's just one thing that if they can implement that, it's going to make a difference. Okay. Does everybody understand? All right. I go a little bit longer. This is the longest I've ever gone in a bootcamp because I need to make sure we've done these five things. Okay.

So, number five is Education. What do you need to educate your audience about? What do they need to learn or be aware of in order to see the benefits and value of what you provide in your offer? So many online business owners when they say, "oh, I've heard about these challenges. I don't know what it is. A challenge launch." Again, we don't know what we don't know. They don't even understand all the parts and pieces and backend and all that. So, the education of what it takes and breaking it down in a doable step by step formula, that is what empowers people. And that's what I have on here too, as well, because some of you are thinking what if I pick my topics wrong? What if I share too much? What if I share too little?

I want you to remember this. It is not about perfect. The whole goal of you showing up at that challenge is it's about people. If you just show up authentically, genuinely, and you care, you've already won. Okay. I don't want you to feel like you have to be an overthinker or that if you don't pick the right topics or you don't hit these five things, it's all going to be a bust. Okay. If you just show up and care and people see that you are genuine about them having a transformation, change, or impact, they will follow with you. Okay. Does that encourage everybody?

This is really it in a nutshell. Your content of your challenge should not tell them How it should tell them What and Why. I told you what a challenge launch is, what it looks like, what it's all about and why it is so beneficial to you and your business. Do you see the difference? I outlined even what a basic challenge looks like, but did I tell you how to set up a Facebook group? Did I tell you how to get started with Kajabi? Did I tell you how to set up your email sequences? No. There's no How in the challenge. There might be a little How, okay, like how I do certain things. Like I shared that tool Jasper yesterday. I loved how some of you were having fun with that. How I, you know, get help when it comes to copy. That's a How, but most of it is the What and the Why.

So, this is a big aha for most people, and this is how you know what to put in your challenge. But this visual, I was so happy to find this image in Canva, because it explains exactly what you should do in your challenge. Are you ready? You share the steps that opens their eyes to the need and what is possible. See those four little steps. It's like literally this image was built for a four-day challenge. Okay. So, you share the steps that opens their eyes to the need and what's possible, but you must create a gap. Who knows what the gap is?

The gap is I've shown you what's possible, I've given you this getting started steps, but I can't keep here in this Facebook group giving you free content forever and ever and ever. Right. There needs to be a next step and not everyone will choose to take the next step and that's totally okay. But for those who do choose, that is where they're going to get the How. That is where they're going to get the most benefits and the greatest results. So those who are ready for that result, those who have a big pain point or a big desire, they're ready to take the leap with you into that offer because you created that gap. Okay. Ha! It makes sense.

But if I'm giving them to creating their plan, surely, I'm giving them some How. That's true. I told you how a challenge can look. Okay. You saw all those three examples. I think you would say I gave you a lot of the How. I just told you today, how to pick your challenge topics. It's still a How, but I am not basically giving you every nut and bolt for transformation from point A to Z. Okay. Does that make sense? So, I hope this visual is helpful. That is truly how you choose your challenge topics.

So, here's an example from my Declutter Your Business Bootcamp. You'll see that each day I hit home on key things that I know my ideal audience struggles with. All right. Getting started with an online system, knowing how to turn clutter into clarity, how to keep digital information organized and accessible, how to reduce mental clutter. Okay. This is just an example of how you can, you know, kind of think through how you would promote your challenge topics. Now I'm going to be transparent, I actually typically am not a hundred percent sure what my four topics will be when I launch my registration page. It is not uncommon for me to tweak what this says throughout the open registration period. Because I get more ideas or I'm like, oh, I should talk about that. So, remember what I said earlier, you can change your mind. All right.

So, don't feel like you have to be stuck or locked in. And I want to show you what we did for this challenge. This is on our challenge registration page. One thing I did love about this, I always love when this happens. See how day one is about planning, day two finalizing, day three creating, day four determining. So that can help you if you're trying to come up with titles for each day. But each day I was like, again, I went back to those A-B-C-D-E things. What are those five things that I need to make my audience aware of, that I need to teach, them that I need to help them overcome? Like this day two is a big example.

If I don't help people at least think about the offer that they sell or the offer they want to create, are they even going to be motivated to want to do a challenge? No, because there's a big piece missing of this whole thing. But that's why I got everyone thinking, what will my offer be? How many of you got excited just by thinking through the possibilities of this? Right. Then we got to your challenge title. How many people get to this point? And they're like, why don't even know what I title it? So, I guess a challenge launch isn't for me. All right. So, this is just an example of the thought process and the formula that I use to come up with my challenge topics.