A launch is a funnel on a deadline. Test it like one.

The client

Chip Leader Coaching trains professional poker players — a market that is small, sophisticated, and deeply skeptical of hype. They had built a new product, Bracelet Hunter, and needed a way to launch it to that audience.

The challenge

A new product with no launch history means no baseline, a hard deadline, and one chance at a first impression. The launch mechanism had to build an audience before it asked for a sale.

The approach

We agreed a virtual summit was the right vehicle: valuable enough to attract serious players, and structured enough to warm an audience for the product announcement. Then we treated every stage of it as a testable page rather than a fixed asset:

• Summit registration page — experimentation continued until the registrant conversion rate rose above 90%. More than nine of every ten visitors who landed on the page signed up.
• Launch sequence — when the summit closed, a four-day promotional email campaign announced Bracelet Hunter to the audience the summit had built.

What moved

Measured against Chip Leader Coaching’s investment in the summit, the campaign returned 1,299% ROI. The registration page’s tested conversion rate — over 90% — meant nearly none of the traffic acquired for the summit was wasted.

What this case shows

Launches fail quietly at the registration page, long before anyone sees the offer. Testing the top of the launch funnel is what makes the bottom of it look effortless.