Make sure you’re not just reviewing “emails” as a whole, but review each as individual sequences. Each sequence will have different industry averages and will show you much more data about where to improve.

The Launch Debrief Formula: How to Make Your Next Launch More Profitable

Launching a course is a huge achievement, but if you’re not taking time to review and refine your process, you’re leaving easy money on the table. That’s where a launch debrief comes in. Whether your last launch exceeded expectations or fell flat, an effective debrief helps you understand what worked, what didn’t, and how to optimize for your next launch.

In today’s post, I’m sharing my 3-step process for running a launch debrief—so you can improve your next launch and make it more profitable.

And if you want a detailed breakdown of:

• The exact numbers you should be tracking

• Conversion benchmarks to measure against

• A structured Google Doc template to follow

I created a Launch Debrief Workbook for you! 🎉

You can grab it here or via the link in the show notes. It’s a 6-page Google Doc that you can get through in an hour or two, depending on how detailed you go.

📝 Make a copy and use it after every launch—or even if your last launch was a while ago and you’re planning to relaunch, I recommend going through this before you launch again.

Why Launch Debriefing Should be a Non-Negotiable

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of course creators either don’t debrief their launches at all or they collect a few metrics but don’t know how to do it in a way that helps them improve. If you’re just collecting numbers and storing them in a Google sheet with the hopes of beating them next time, this doesn’t show you the areas where you could be improving or what is already working well.

Literally everything I talk about comes back to working smarter, not harder, because you’d much rather be “out there” living your best nomad lifestyle or going on adventures rather than sitting behind your laptop. When you take the time to do a debrief, it means you aren’t reinventing the wheel with every launch. You’re just focused on improving the areas that will have the most impact to your sales results and leaving the rest alone. 

Another reason debriefing is so important is because there have been so many people I’ve worked with in the past who’ll tell me they had… and in their words, “a failed launch” but then we start looking at the data and numbers and when we compare their results to conversion benchmarks, they actually did better than industry standards. 

Or on the other end of the spectrum, someone could say they hit their launch goals and that their launch went well, but again, when we dive into the numbers what we have uncovered is they have leaks in parts of their funnel and they’re leaving easy money on the table. 

So do so many course creators skip the debrief?

I think for a few reasons:

1. They don’t know how to do it.

2. They’re burnt out after the launch and just want to move on.

3. They’re scared to look at the numbers because they’re emotionally tied to the outcome.

4. They assume it’s unnecessary—if the launch went well, why dig into it? If it didn’t, they just try again next time.

But here’s the problem with that:

You let your emotions determine your launch results and your emotions don’t tell the full story. When you don’t know what worked, you don’t know what to repeat. And when you don’t know what underperformed, you have no idea what to fix.

Client Story: How a Launch Debrief Changed Everything

Recently, I did a debrief with a client who felt like her launch was a flop. She messaged me asking what’s a plan B for when your launch doesn’t go as planned. She threw out a bunch of ideas about completely changing her strategy, scraping the resources she’d already created and using the next launch to start from scratch.

I was like woah… hang on. Before we change out and scrap everything you just worked months on creating. Lets actually dig into what happened during the last launch. Let’s look at why you didn’t get the results you were looking for.

So we jumped on a call and went through the process I’m about to share with you. And here’s what we found:

• Her only traffic source – which was a FB ad account got deactivated in the beginning stages of her pre-launch. 

• She ran out of time to get her sales page designed because she was too busy with other tasks.

• Only one person showed up to her live webinar.

• Her email open rates were great at 40 to 45%

• Despite the lack of traffic, her webinar landing page converted at 20 percent to a cold ad audience.

• The webinar replay had a bunch of views, which she didn’t realize anyone had watched.

• We identified there was no post-webinar sales sequence to get people to buy after the class—a huge missed sales opportunity.

Can you see how instead of saying, “Oh I had a failed launch” by identifying specific data points you can completely change the view of your launch? This is what I mean by removing emotion.

One of the Best Parts of Running a Launch Debrief Is It Helps You Step Into Your Role as the CEO.

Before we jump into the 3-step debrief formula, I want you to shift your mindset.

Step Into Your CEO Role

Hear me out for a sec, but imagine if you didn’t run your own business. That you were hired to work with another entrepreneur on their next launch.

You’d do everything you could to help them have the best launch possible and then at the end, emotion-free (because it’s not your business), you’d be able to help them diagnose how it went. You’d probably go in full of logic and look for data points to help them improve on the next one.

That’s how I want you to view your own launch. Look at them as an experiment. Because every time you launch, you’ll gain more clarity about your offer, the strategy and your client needs.

I know removing emotion from a launch is easier said than done, especially when it’s your sole income source, so if you have trouble doing this, it could be really helpful to work with a coach or have someone help you see how far you've come and have a cheerleader in your corner. 

Celebrate Your Wins!

You should celebrate that you’ve launched your offer! That’s HUGE and often goes unrecognized when it’s so commonplace in our industry. But think about everyone you know who doesn’t run their own business or even you before you started yours. To create a launch something entirely of your own! Girl! I’m cheering you on. I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this book before – The Gap and The Gain, but if you struggle with recognizing your achievements and only looking ahead at how far you still have to go rather than where you’ve come from, this is SUCH a good book and highly recommend. It really changed a lot of my mindset reading this. 

The 3-Step Launch Debrief Formula

Now let’s break down the exact process I use with my clients to ensure their next launch is more profitable than the last.

Step 1: Collect Data & Gather Your Numbers

In the workbook, there’s a detailed breakdown and sections to record all of your data, so depending on your learning style, maybe you’d like to pause the podcast and go and download it now.

Ok, welcome back if you did pause. At a high level, here’s what you should be tracking:

• Audience size and engaged leads

• Pre-launch metrics like email opens, hype event signups and social media engagement

• Sales and conversions (how many buyers, where they came from, total revenue)

• Email marketing performance (email open rates and click-through rates of each of your sequences)

• Mindset and experience (numbers are great, but there are a lot of intangible reflections that can make a big difference to how you launch when you also track how you felt about the launch, what was stressful, what you enjoyed doing etc)

👉 Pro Tip: A good data point to look out for is to see if there’s a pattern for where your buyers originally entered your world. This ties back to episode 6 where we spoke about auditing the quality of your list —if you see a pattern like most buyers came from a podcast guest feature or a specific freebie, that’s a good plan to put a heavier focus on that for list growth next time.

Step 2: Identify Gaps & Optimize for Bigger Profits

Now that you have the numbers, it’s time to analyze the data and find opportunities for growth.

This is more than just seeing what didn't go well, it’s also about identifying and celebrating where you did a great job and what went well. 

You’ll want to look at all of the numbers from above, from your landing pages, to the show-up sequence click-through rates, to the conversions from your live event. 

Compare Your Numbers To:

Industry Benchmarks – Are your conversion rates above, below, or on par with the standard?
Past Launches – What improved? What declined?
Your Goals – Did you hit your targets? If not, where did the gaps appear?

Make sure you’re not just reviewing “emails” as a whole, but are breaking each sequence down into their averages. Because different sequences will have different baseline numbers.

Use the “Good, Average, Needs Work” Scale

In the workbook, you’ll see that I’ve broken each area into a “Good, Average, Needs Work” Scale. 

✅ Good – Keep doing what’s working.
⚠️ Average – Room for optimization.
❌ Needs Work – These are priority areas for improvement.

Looking at the scale and benchmarks, highlight which category you fall into for each.

Then you be able to assess exactly where you did well, what needs improvement or what is a lower priority. If you have a lot of red, “need improvement” this indicates there are likely a lot of macro or big issues with your strategy, messaging, offer or audience. 

If there are a lot of average results, there is still room for improvement, but this is when you start getting into the “micro” improvements. For example, rather than a new strategy or giant messaging overhaul, you could look at A/B testing different subject lines or headings, Tweaking Call-to-Action (CTA) Placement, adjusting the live event pitch etc.

However, in saying this, if you have areas in the red, these places aren’t a priority and don’t require you to spend extra time here. The main focus will be to work on the categories in the “need work” column.

Here’s What the Data Could Show:

Issue: High masterclass sign-ups but low live attendance

In step 3, I’ll show you how I run through a problem-brainstorming process. But essentially this could mean that your show-up sequence needs work.

Issue: Low Sales Conversion After the masterclass

Maybe you had a great live show up for your masterclass but converted at below industry standard? This could indicate your masterclass was too heavily focused on teaching or the pitch or offer positioning wasn’t strong enough. Or like my client example from earlier. She didn’t have a follow-up sales sequence. So as soon as her webinar was over, she didn’t reconnect with people and tell them about her offer or why they should buy her offer.

Step 3: Optimize for Your Next Launch

Now that you know what needs improving, here’s how to take action.

✅ Double Down On: What worked well—scale those strategies.
⚠️ Optimize: Your biggest weak spots (2-3 key areas).
❌ Eliminate: Low-impact tasks that don’t move the needle.

The Problem-Solving Brainstorming Process

Let’s say your webinar registration rate was great (30%), but live attendance was low (8%). Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and brainstorm possible reasons:

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Was it the showup email sequence?

   1. Did you have one? 

   2. How many emails did you send?

      1. Did you send emails like they were a sales sequence for the webinar? Or did you only send reminder emails? 

   3. What were the open and CTRs of each email?

   4. Does the email content match the invites and registration page that made people excited to sign up?

Maybe the show up sequence looks good, but right now, we’re just brainstorming. So what else could have caused a lack of live attendance?

2. Maybe it was due to the day or time did you run the webinar

   1. Was this the best time for your audience based on their location and schedule?

      1. Could you consider running at two different times for better attendance?

   2. What was the delay between sending invites and the live event?

   3. Did you offer a calendar invite to add the event to their schedule?

   4. Could you offer a reminder via SMS, WhatsApp, or a Messenger bot?

   5. Is there a gap between the last email and the live event?

      1. Consider sending a “1-hour” and “happening now” reminder.

   6. Did you show up in stories or social media right before going live?

Maybe the messaging and copy wasn’t effective:

7. Did you include clear instructions and call information?

8. Are you solving a problem or showing a clear benefit for attending? 

9. Did you include ethical urgency or scarcity to attend the call live?

   1. Eg. Live attendees get access to exclusive bonuses.

   2. Eg. Live attendees get entered to win X.

10. Did you show authority and social proof?

    1. Testimonials or social proof in reminder emails build anticipation and credibility.

Or were there tech issues and people couldn’t get into the call?

3. Did your webinar tech create barriers to attendance?

   1. Was the registration process smooth and mobile-friendly?

   2. Did attendees have issues logging in (wrong links, delayed confirmations, spam folder issues)?

This is the brainstorming process I go through with clients for each area that needs improvement. Then I’d start investing. Another great ideas is once you have a few ideas yourself, you could pop them into ChatGPT or your preferred AI and tell them the problem you found with your launch and the reasons you’ve found that might be the problem. Then ask your AI assistanmt to tell you if there are any other potential issues that you may have missed.

And that’s it! Your launch debrief formula.

Recap of the Action Steps for Your Launch Debrief

✔ Schedule your debrief in your calendar—it should be a non-negotiable part of your launch.
✔ Use my free Launch Debrief Workbook here to structure your review.
✔ Gather and analyze your numbers to track what worked and what didn’t.
✔ Identify gaps and compare them to industry benchmarks.
✔ Optimize for your next launch by focusing on high-impact improvements.

By making launch debriefing a habit, you’ll consistently improve your sales, work smarter (not harder), and create more profitable launches every time. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Copy to Freedom: The Podcast. Subscribe for more lighthearted, inspirational, and actionable chats about business, marketing, and reclaiming your freedom.

Connect with Erin:

Website: https://erinmorris.co/

Instagram: @LaunchWithErin