a single source, nothing corroborates it

Mail the list first, post publicly an hour later

Sending to subscribers before anything appears in public means the first wave of sales is already visible when the announcement lands, and the people who waited get served first. Providers can hold a broadcast in a queue, so the social post waits until the mail has actually left rather than going out on a schedule.

The method

1. 01

   Send the launch email early in the morning and follow it with the social announcement an hour or two later, so the list buys first and the public post lands on visible momentum.

2. 02

   Assume your email provider may hold the launch broadcast in a queue, and do not post to social until the email has actually gone out.

3. 03

   Spend the build-up collecting people onto a list dedicated to the unreleased product, then launch by mailing that list first thing in the morning.

What it returned

• 14

  14 sales the evening before; the 7:15am email produced 81; after the 8:45am tweet the total was 133; 225 by midday; day one closed at 403 sales and $28,000; by day three 901 sales and $61,000; the launch passed $100,000.

• 20

  The MailChimp send sat 20 minutes; the only early sales came from people refreshing the sales page, and two people complained publicly that the tweet beat the email

• 795

  A 795-person pre-launch list, emailed at 6:00 AM, produced over $1,000 in Gumroad sales within 10 minutes; the day ended past $12,500

Sources

• Adam Wathan's $100k product launchJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Tell me more about the launch. How much revenue did you do? · undated
• What I learned selling $6,000+ of my ebook today.Nathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · 2012-09-04
• Self-doubt and launch statsNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · The launch · 2013-05-28