Launch Strategy for Educators (How to Build an Audience Between Launches)
Something that a lot of educators experience is their first launch goes really well. They're able to create a lot of traction really quickly. Maybe it goes a little better than they expected.
And then the second time they go to launch? It's crickets.
I wanna break down why that happens a lot of the time, and also some of the things that you can do to mitigate that. I'm gonna talk about the two most common causes and how we can work through that.
What You'll Learn…
Why your first launch succeeded but your second one failed
The two types of audience growth every educator needs
How to build sustainable course launch momentum
Specific strategies to grow and activate your audience
Why some students buy immediately while others need time
Why Your First Course Launch Went Well (But the Second One Didn't)
Off the hop, I want to talk about the most common thing that happens here.
Often before you are building your first digital course, you will have built a bit of an audience. Sometimes educators will start off in the creator space. They'll start sharing their knowledge, and before they know it, they've built more of an audience of hairstylists or beauty pros or creatives (whatever your niche is) than clients.
There comes an inflection point where they're thinking, okay, I need to start getting into the space of helping these people because I built this audience.
Another thing that can happen is sometimes you'll just get so good at what you do that people start approaching you. People start asking you about it. Maybe you just got so damn good at balayage that people would not stop asking you about it. You grew your business as a brand photographer and you got so sought after that people were asking you to educate on how you did it.
Maybe you developed a skill as an entrepreneur that you were actually more passionate about than the main thing you started your business to do. Anyone who is familiar with my story will know that I first got into marketing to market myself as a hairstylist. Then I went independent and I got even more into that. And then I got so obsessed with marketing that I completely retrained and shifted my entire career.
Whatever it is, the first phase looks different for everyone. But in my experience, it looks pretty similar in the second phase.
What Happens After That First Successful Launch
The inevitable realization that while you're a master at the thing you teach, packaging it up and selling it is not always the most intuitive process.
What can happen a lot of the time is you've built the audience and you'll launch. People are so excited about it. You have your diehards who just wanna learn from you. They're invested in you. They're invested in your community. And so when you launch that program for the first time, they're all in. They're really excited about it.
What can happen in that is that we skip a fundamental phase because we're able to bypass it. The messaging, the branding, the marketing systems, all of those pieces that we didn't necessarily have to worry about in the beginning.
And that is awesome because that is what gets a lot of us off the ground. You're not having to learn all of those different things because you are able to capitalize on that momentum and that reputation you've built off the jump and really connect.
That is a really important phase because what can happen then is we get to working with people and we learn so much more about them and how we can help them.
The Two Reasons Your Second Launch Failed
That second launch can feel a little bit more tricky for one of two reasons.
Number one: We potentially skipped out on all of the things I just mentioned because we had a really warm audience. We had people who were buying despite any discrepancies in messaging, not because of it.
Number two: There wasn't enough audience building going on in between. All of the people who were interested the first time already got in. They were already bought in. And so the rest of the people, either you haven't built enough trust with them in between, you haven't figured out the messaging, or you haven't built out any more of an audience than the first time you launched.
That brings me to the two things we really need to focus on as educators in order to keep growing and build a sustainable education business.
The Two Types of Audience Growth Every Course Creator Needs
Number one: Audience expansion
Number two: Audience activation
A lot of people are good at one or the other, or they're maybe not really super solid on either and it was a little bit of a lucky strike in the first launch.
But the good news is these are things that we can learn. We can get strategic about them.
I actually introduced this topic when we were in Italy in October with our Escape to Elevate members. At the end of the retreat, one of the comments that one of the attendees said was "I feel like this is the conversation that brings everything we learned here together." It's also a lesson that I got a lot of feedback on in my Sought After Educator program.
So in this post, I'm going to show you the difference between audience growth and audience activation, and how you can make sure that you're incorporating both into your strategy.
What Is Audience Expansion vs. Audience Activation?
When it comes to growing your community, there are two pieces: audience expansion and audience activation.
If it feels like your content is resonating but not moving your people forward, this could be why.
Expansion brings new people and new eyes into your world so that your audience keeps growing.
Activation deepens the connection with the people who are already a part of your world. That whole process is building trust, creating demand for your education, and making it so that people are a lot more likely to take the next step with you.
When both of those two things are working together, opportunities flow consistently.
How to Grow Your Audience with Expansion Strategies
Audience expansion is getting new eyes on your business.
Searchable Content and SEO
The focus here are things like:
Searchable content
YouTube videos
Blog posts
SEO topics
SEO friendly content ideas
This is going to make it so that people are able to find you.
Hot Takes and Thought Leadership
Another way to get new eyes is through hot takes or truths that your industry needs to hear. Think thought leadership content.
If you are someone who has come from that creator background, how can you leverage what works for you? How can you leverage the things that you know are gonna get more eyes on your business in a more strategic way?
This is something that I do with all of my students inside of Sought After Educator. Really break down what is already working for your business and how can we leverage that more strategically. What are the assets that you have that we can really build on?
Collaborations, Guest Spots, and Partnerships
Another beautiful way to build your audience and grow your community is through collaborations, guest spots, or partnerships.
You may have heard before there's a really old adage in marketing that there's three ways to grow an audience: build it, borrow it, or buy it.
Build it would be utilizing all these things we're talking about on your own channels
Borrow it is collaborations and PR, essentially borrowing other people's audiences in order to get eyes on your business
Buy it is advertising, which is another great thing to do once you have already dialed in your messaging and you know that you're converting
PR and Guest Expert Opportunities
An extension of the collaborations conversation would be PR (public relations). That would be industry publications that are relevant to your viewers, podcast interviews, anything that features you as the expert.
One of the ways that I was able to grow my business and my reputation so quickly is guesting inside of other people's programs. As an educator, if you are an expert in a specific niche (for me it was helping hairstylists grow their clienteles using Instagram), I would go into other people's groups and give guest presentations on exactly that.
One of my clients is an advertising expert, so she'll go into other people's programs and teach specifically on advertising. The beauty of that is that they have already purchased this other person's program. So when you are going in as a guest expert, there is a level of trust that is essentially transferred to you as long as you are really clear in your messaging and you have something that could help people.
That is something I think is really slept on when it comes to growing your audience.
How to Activate Your Existing Audience (Turn Followers into Students)
So how are the people already in your audience experiencing your work and what you do?
Behind the Scenes Content
Share behind the scenes or everyday life that shows who you are and how you're embodying your own work.
Belief Shifts and Unique Perspectives
Another thing would be belief shifts, or "this is how I see it differently" type of lessons.
Social Proof and Testimonials
Proof, testimonials, or client stories that build trust is another really beautiful thing to incorporate into this activation piece.
Clear Invitations
And then of course, you wanna include invitations. How are you inviting people to take the next step with you?
Once you dial this in, it becomes a really beautiful flow within your business. You're expanding your audience, and then you're bringing in that audience activation piece, and that's how you're making deeper impact. Of course, you're also creating impact with new students and new clients who are gonna talk about your business, which is then going to expand your audience and your reach even further.
Why People Don't Buy from You Immediately (And What to Do About It)
People are rarely taking action the first time they see you. Buying cycles are different for everyone. Some people take action really quickly. Some people need to build a lot more trust with you before they're ready.
I was actually talking to one of my clients who is inside Sought After Educator right now, and she has launched a new offer that's going really, really well. They don't kick off until January and she's already sold like a dozen spots, which is incredible.
She was saying that aside from her funnel (which we have done work on and is now converting beautifully), she also had someone come in who was in her low ticket offer in the summertime and who just wasn't ready to commit yet. She had gone in and actually joined her program without another launch, without anything big happening, just because she had taken in her education in the summer and she just felt ready at that time.
The thing is that people are rarely gonna take action the very first time they see you.
Can it happen? Yes. Does it happen all the time? No.
Often your community will need those repeated touch points with your message (sometimes in different ways) before they are ready to fully lean in. The goal is not to post everywhere. It's to make sure your community gets enough chances to see, understand, and trust you.
How to Build Marketing Systems That Keep You Visible
You've heard me say this before, but your marketing systems are a really important piece of ensuring that you are getting in front of people frequently. That is whether you are leaning into paid advertising or whether you are leaning into an organic system.
Use Multiple Platforms for Maximum Reach
If your main platform is social media, then you wanna make sure that you are being consistent on social media. I always recommend that you have a secondary platform.
I like to have:
A social platform (Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
A long form platform like this podcast (that can be YouTube, that can be your blog, just somewhere that you're able to really showcase the depth of knowledge and the nuance of what you do)
Email marketing (we always wanna try to be building email)
Why Email Marketing Still Works in 2025
The reason for that is because I don't care how many people say email marketing is dead. It isn't. The Black Friday campaigns you received should be an indicator of that.
One of our Escape to Elevate attendees got 45 new students mostly through email during her Black Friday promotion.
Actively growing your email list, whether you are doing that by just inviting people to join your newsletter or you have freebies or low ticket offers, is a really great way to ensure that omnipresence as well.
I love podcasts for that nurture content because again, it allows you to go deeper into that breadth of knowledge than we can on social media.
Your Action Plan: Fix Your Next Launch
The simplest answer is sometimes the right one. When you are looking at whether or not you are getting the results that you want out of your launches or your evergreen promotions or your funnels, ask yourself:
Are you getting in front of new people? (Audience expansion)
And then when you do, are you bringing those people into your world a little bit deeper so that they are able to get to know you and are a little bit more ready the next time you launch? (Audience activation)
If you have dialed in your messaging, think about audience expansion and audience activation.
If this post gave you an idea or a new perspective, send me a DM on Instagram @itsJodiebrown. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you’d like to listen in on the exact podcast episode that accompanies this blog post, you can do that here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Xo Jodie
Ps. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sought After Educator Podcast to get more insights like this delivered to your phone every week.
