← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
916: What Most People Get Wrong About Their Digital Product Offers
00:38:42
This episode is your guide to creating offers that sell and position your business for long-term growth.
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So yes, you want to listen to your audience. What are they struggling with right now? But when you come up with those possible solutions, I want you to ask, does this fix the real problem in a tangible, meaningful way? Or is it a band aid? Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host, Abigail Pumphrey, and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way, one that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy. Looking for a way to make a difference with your morning coffee? Grab a bag of talitha coffee@bossproject.com Coffee Every purchase helps support survivors of human trafficking. Make every cup count@bossproject.com Coffee before you go through the process of developing this offer or getting to the point that you are actually trying to sell your offer, I want to make sure you run your digital product through this test. Because this is the thing that I see the majority of people get wrong and really ultimately struggle with selling their digital product because it fails this test. This particular episode was inspired by a student who had posted their digital product offer for feedback in our community. And while I absolutely loved the things they were attempting to solve for their clients, the ultimate end result that they wanted to drive home for them, and their willingness to show up for their audience, I saw an issue that was going to not only make it incredibly hard to sell their offer, but also for it to set themselves up for future sales. Now I'm going to run through the test first because the test is really simple and if it fails the test, then I'm going to talk about how you go back and look at revising this potential offer. Now, my goal and hope is that you catch this at an early enough stage that you haven't spent a ton of time on developing your sales page or attempting to sell this product before you run into this issue. However, if you have this existing offer out in the world already and it fails this test, rather than revising that existing offer, I would suggest this as an opportunity to create something new. And I'LL get into that in a little bit. So the test is only one question. How quickly does your offer help your client solve their problem? How quickly does your offer help your client solve their problem? If your response is not in minutes, hours, or maybe a few days, we need to halt. We need to halt and stop all production, all forms of moving forward because this is going to prevent you from reaching your ultimate goal. Now, I want to be clear. I am not opposed to developing offers that have a longer timeline for transformation. That's not the issue. The issue lies in where this falls in your offer lineup. If you have a transformation that takes weeks or maybe a handful of months, that might need to be something that's more of a signature offer, that's either a mid tier or even high end price point. But when we're talking about digital products, more likely than not we are talking about entry point digital offers. And the point of an entry point digital offer is it allows us to raise awareness about our business. Bring someone in who's likely cold, get them a quick transformation to win their trust, showcase how you teach the kinds of ways you can show up for them and set them up for success so that they are ready and primed for the next thing it is that you offer. Now, if you have an existing offer and it failed the test, then the question I want you to ask yourself is, is, are you solving too big of a problem or do you need to solve a smaller problem before you arrive to this place altogether? Because if you've picked something out that is ultimately going to take a long time for someone to see that transformation, it's going to prevent the sales process from working the way that it was intended. And you getting someone that quick win is the thing that's going to be necessary for you to effectively continue to move them through your funnel. Now if that existing offer like is already developed, you've already built the thing, then you might consider increasing the price point and moving that to a more signature place. That might still mean that you want to make additional changes, add or make something more robust. All of that can be true. But I want to identify, is there a piece of that existing offer that you can break out? Because often there is one little gold nugget that is likely the very first thing you have someone do that happens really quickly. And when people do that thing, light bulbs go off, people have aha moments, they're like, oh my gosh. They're immediately filled with this emotion that is really positive because you laid it out for them in a way that was really easy for them to understand and they were able to see something new very clearly. But if you haven't developed the bigger thing yet and you're still in that idea creation phase, I don't want you to get caught up in this. I think there is such an opportunity here. You have already been thinking bigger and that's such a huge asset. You see the bigger picture for your clients. You understand that it's going to take solving more than one issue for them to get the ultimate transformation that they're after. You want to serve your clients, you want to see them do well, you want to see them be successful, and that just means you care. So my goal is to help you really make sure that all of that intent gets communicated really clearly and really quickly so that you can have this serve the point in your overall sales process that is going to be the most effective for you. Getting paid to grow your audience. You getting paid to build your list full of qualified leads. Now where this usually goes wrong is people understand the complexity of their clients lives and the kinds of things they're going through. And because they care, they are attempting to overhaul someone's entire business or entire life, or an entire area of their business, or an entire area of their life with a single course or toolkit. And it's not as laser focused as it needs to be over complicating it while in an effort to help them more holistically solve the issue, it's diluting its effectiveness, which can feel really counterintuitive because your goal is only to help them on the front end before they even purchase something. The biggest thing it's doing is creating hesitation. If it's clear on the sales page that they are not going to have some sort of immediate result, they're going to hesitate because of the time and investment of that time. They want something to fall into pace quickly. And if they see this as something they really have to lean into, they're going to back away slowly. Now, it's not saying that it won't sell. In fact, I think a lot of people get the wrong picture because it does sell, because it does convert, especially to your warmer audience because they likely already have some trust in you. They've already seen the kind of work that you do for other things. And maybe they even see this as a big deal like you are offering this massive transformation for such a low price. I've got to get in now before she figures out or he figures out or they figure out that this is like completely undervaluing the transformation. And because it sells, people get confused about why it stops working. Like it will work for two weeks or 30 days or 60 days sometimes, depending on how big your audience is, it might even work for six months or a year before you start running into issues. So the question ends up being, okay, I hear you, I understand what you're saying, but how do I dial it in? And I think a huge part of this that you have to be really mindful of is that if your goal is to solve something in minutes, hours, or maybe a few days, you have to do most of the work for them. And I think people get confused here because they're like, my entire goal is to not be in such a heavy service based business. I want people to serve themselves and to take my knowledge and to run with it. And I hear you, but how can you make it so easy where they can essentially plug and play? And this is honestly really where I like templates. Now. I think a lot of people get the wrong inclination because they'll look at something like my offer lineup and be like, well, that product is something that takes longer. Or this product does all of these things. Why can't I do that too? And what I think you might be missing is that's likely not an entry point offer in my ecosystem. It might exist in my ecosystem and it might serve a purpose in that ecosystem, but it's likely not an actual entry point. My best entry points are ones in which I can provide instant results. And what I mean by that is, quite literally, they get inside the offer. They are able to all but copy, paste, and be able to run with it and have it be helpful. So, for example, something like my offer, your digital VA, my ChatGPT prompt vault, it's a great example because while that's robust and it showcases a lot of different types of prompts and different prompt engineering, ultimately when someone buys that product, my goal is not to explain everything about AI or how to train AI or how to fully leverage this to scale your business or whatever. All it is is you get in. I very, on the surface level, explain how to utilize a prompt. My goal is to use this as a reference tool, almost like a dictionary of sorts, where you're like, I want to make more content, or I want to write an email, or I want to whatever the task is. Then you simply just go to that area of the prompt vault, literally hit the copy button, paste it in ChatGPT and fill in the blanks. Like there's little brackets that have content that you have to Fill in. Someone could do this in 15 seconds once they're inside the product and immediately solve a problem for them, Immediately see results and realize, oh, my gosh, like, if she's willing to just, like, give this to me freely, I can only imagine what else is possible with more of a time investment. Often my simplest tools, my simplest templates are the ones that offer the most results, the ones that offer the most specific results. Like a very popular template in the last six months has been my sales page. Like copywriting template. It goes over the main components of a sales page for a digital product. It includes, like, the psychology that you're supposed to go through, and Mad Lib style walks you through how to write it. It has been downloaded so many times, and it's because it's simple. It's because it has a singular purpose. Now, I think where people get a little caught is they're like, okay. They go to the other end of the spectrum and they're like, okay, quick transformation. Essentially do it for them. Make this easy. Create some kind of template that they can just run with. Awesome. Got it. Gonna do it. But they go to the point that the transformation that they're providing is so specific to a kind of person that it's not broadly enough attracting their ideal audience. I realize this is a tough balance to strike. Like, how do you holistically attract the right kind of audience while making the offer specific enough to the transformation? I'm not saying this is an easy answer. I think a lot of this comes down to experimentation. You're not always going to hit the nail on the head the first time. But that's the beauty of pre sales. That's the beauty of being able to build a digital product in this way. You can hypothesize what you think will work, and if it doesn't sell, then you don't build it and you move on. And that's okay if it sells a few times. This is an opportunity for you to decide if it's worth it. Like if it only sells three times in that initial launch, is it worth you developing it or do you want to offer something in its place or offer a refund? That is up to you. That is not necessarily showing failure. That is simply providing you data about how people are reacting. Now, it is possible that it didn't get enough traffic that you didn't get in front of enough of the right people for it to work. But if it's also not converting, there's either something about the messaging that's off or something about the targeting for who it's bringing in. That isn't broad enough. I cannot emphasize enough how important quick wins are even in a more signature offer beyond this entry point digital product. When you build a signature offer, the first component of any signature offer should be a quick win. You need it. It has to be immediate. Now in a signature offer that is just one step of a multi step process, but you still put that quick win at the front because that quick win helps them create momentum. It helps them believe in you and believe in your process. I think some wording around this that gets a little bit hairy. I like to think of it as indoctrinating someone into your way of thinking. I know you know the feeling fear that keeps you from admitting what you really want. Self doubt, whispering who are you to really claim this? The overthinking that turns every decision into a time suck spiral. I've been there and I know how suffocating it feels. But here's what I've learned. The biggest thing holding you back isn't a strategy you haven't figured out or a resource you don't have access to. It's how you think, how you decide, and how you take action. That's why I created Mindset Reboot. This workshop series is my way of helping you break through those mental barriers once and for all. But don't wait. You won't be able to grab this for just $11 for long. Visit creativetemplateshop.com mindset to find out more.
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Now, I realize that can sound a little bit culty. We're not running a cult here. We're simply reminding ourselves that we have philosophies, we have methodologies, we have processes, things that have helped us be successful. People want access to that. But you do have to have a way that allows people to see the vision, that allows people to see what's possible. And that only happens when you offer quick results, because people buy outcomes, not effort. Buyers want immediate value. They don't want to work harder. That's why they're looking to buy something. They just want results. That's why those templates and done for you resources perform so well, because they minimize the heavy lifting. Like, say, for example, you are in the financial industry and specifically interested in financial literacy. You would be really inclined to create an entire program around financial literacy. You want to see people be successful. You want them to realize all of the ways finances impact their lives or potentially their businesses or both. And you want to give them a broad overview of everything they need to know. And I love that you care that much. But something like a budget planner, as simple as it sounds for the right person, is going to do the heavy lifting they're looking for. If they only have to fill in numbers and they don't have to learn all of these new skills, or they don't have to invest for the next 20 years, or they don't have to pay down thousands of dollars in debt, but they simply have to plug and play, and it gives them a roadmap that they can use for this week or this month. And it helps them better communicate either with themselves, because they can kind of see what's necessary for their whole life to work, or even providing it as a tool to better communicate with a partner or spouse. Now, this is not me sitting here and saying, if you're in the financial literacy space, a budget planner is the only entry point digital product you can do. No, honestly, it's probably the most obvious. I don't actually think that's necessarily the thing that's going to, like, radically revolutionize your business. I still want you thinking out of the box. I still want you thinking beyond what the industry defaults to. How can you show up in a way that's authentic to you? What is your unique spin? What is your quick win that showcases a lot of value. And the irony is, more often than not, you've probably already done this in some capacity. I think the best entry point, digital products are likely things you've already demonstrated that People have already got transformations from and maybe you just never sold it. Like, I have a client who has a lead magnet that is so high value. I have been for the last 60 days or more trying to convince her that that simply needs to be her digital offer and her lead magnet around the same topic needs to be a little simpler. And I've seen a lot of resistance from her because she wants to provide the value and I love that. But when you provide the value and someone pays for it, it absolutely increases the value it holds for them on the other side. Like if they get something for free versus they pay for it, they are going to have more intent behind following through on the thing they paid for. So just by the act of swiping their credit card, which I realize is literally not what you even do on the Internet, you type it in, probably your browser remembered your password for or your numbers for you. But them simply going through that act and pressing by gives them more leverage, more willingness, more interest in the follow through. Now, this would have been years ago at this point, so I am not even a good representation of what this looks like anymore. But years ago when I figured this out, it essentially meant I stopped spending so much time and energy on developing high value lead magnets. It's not that I never put one out there, it's not that I never did something to bring in leads. That's not true. But the majority of my time and effort was spent on selling this entry point digital product. Because when someone paid even a small amount, they have validated themselves on so many levels that they are way more likely to buy again. And that was more important to the long term growth and sustainability of my business than just growing leads for the sake of growing leads. Now, I think another trap that people fall into when they're thinking about these quick wins is they fail to solve real problems and they end up band aiding issues. And honestly, the band aid kind of concept is probably why you've been resistant to doing this in the first place. Those band aids, as you know, they address the surface level issues. They don't solve a deep rooted problem. So for example, something like a generic content calendar, say you're like a social media expert, you know all the things about it and you're like, okay, I need to provide an instant result. I'm going to give someone a content calendar. This is going to help someone address someone who struggles with creating content, but it doesn't address the issue. They came to you because they struggle with the development of the content. The content calendar isn't going to help the blinking cursor problem. It's not going to fix anything. A real solution would be around one piece of the content creation puzzle. So even an entry point digital product can still be a mini course. But what if you just teach someone how you batch create 30 days of content in one afternoon? What if you walk them through your exact process? You know, if you're helping them, like leverage AI in the process, what are the exact prompts you use? How do you brainstorm? How can you make this so easy for them to implement? So, yes, you want to listen to your audience. What are they struggling with right now? But when you come up with those possible solutions, I want you to ask, does this fix the real problem in a tangible, meaningful way, or is it a bandaid? Because if it's a band aid, then the reason you don't like it is the reason it's probably not going to work. And again, it's not that it won't sell. You very likely can sell a content calendar if you're someone who's a social media expert. Because people want to be like you, people want to be successful, and they're like, well, if she uses this tool and she's this successful, then this will help. But if it doesn't get them the transformation, okay, sure, it's sold, but now they're stuck and they're not any further along in the process than they were before they bought it. So instead of earning trust, now there's distrust and disconnect. And maybe they still follow you and maybe they still listen, but they're going to hesitate a lot harder on a bigger purchase. I do think some people assume, though, that like 100% of the people who buy have to get the transformation. And I have the unfortunate news that that's, I wouldn't say never going to happen because you can have a small enough audience that everyone would do it. But you will reach a point in your business where you will scale beyond the point in which everyone will utilize the things they purchase from you. That is hard, that is frustrating, that makes you question the validity of the work that you are doing. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't keep going. Not everyone is meant to get the transformation. Some people, simply by committing to making the purchase, they got the value they needed. Which I know sounds absolutely wild, but, like, I've done the same thing. Like earlier this year, I had a friend who was putting out content and she was saying things I already knew, she was saying things I already knew. And I Was like, girl is on fire. Girl is on top of it. She is saying all the things I know to be true and I'm just not feeling it right now. And me buying from her was more about me wanting her good mood and good attitude to rub off on me than it had anything to do with the content on the other side. Because aside from like one 10 minute nugget of this entire program, was already things I was doing or was already things I knew or were already things I had been implementing in my own way. But simply by the act of purchasing, I got what I needed from her and I continued to do so. So rather than fight this, I think it's easier to run your ideas through this filter after you've brainstormed, not before. Like, the act of brainstorming needs to be without judgment, without filtering. And so I want you to write down the problems that your clients experience. What are the things they're going through? What are the things they're struggling with? What are the potential solutions you have? Big, small and different. Everything you write down could be potential products one day, they could be products you offer now, they could be products you offer in the future, they could be part of an offer in the future. They could be the bigger in transformation. That needs to be broken down. None of that matters at the beginning. You just need to write down all the possibilities, put down all the things you could do without judgment, and then run back through it and star the ones that you could do quickly, immediately, in seconds, in minutes, in maybe a couple of hours, in max, a couple of days. Now if you look at that list and you're like, all of them take a longer period of time. Okay, this isn't about scrapping the list. It's like, what are the five things that are inside of it? What are the 10 pieces that are inside of it? What is the first step towards this other thing? And how do we make sure that step is significant enough or important enough to our end client that it's worth investment for them? The unfortunate reality is the majority of people will struggle here. People will stop before they've even put it out into the world because they get so caught up on this. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be the right idea. I simply want you to simplify that solution so someone can implement it quickly and easily where you're basically doing it for them. I want you to test it, I want you to ask for feedback. I want you to put it out there. And when I say test it, you know, occasionally I'll ask a handful of questions before I start selling it, but I get to sales quite quickly. I might talk to some peers or post in a community and ask for feedback before I'm like fully ready to put it out there. But more often than not, I need to see if people are willing to put money where their mouth is. Because you can get a lot of people to say yes to something that they quote unquote would do that. If you put a checkout button in association with the follow through is going to be a lot less. And you need to know what the follow through looks like when a real checkout page is in place. I don't want you to get discouraged by this step. I want you to be empowered by this step. Do you know how fun it is to give people instant transformations when your clients are commenting in your community? Oh my God, this just happened. Oh my gosh, I was able to do this in a few hours. Or oh my gosh, I did this over the weekend. I thought it would take me months to get here. Or this happened so much quicker than I imagined. That is fuel. That is so exciting. And all of that feedback can be used for you to further sell this product, for you to market your offer, for you to be able to put it in front of more people and say, see? See how easy it is? This is what's possible for you. This is the kind of stuff I walk people through inside digital product jumpstart. It's the kinds of things I help people get off the fence with in my one day launch challenge. But this is something that you have to take the first step on, brainstorm out your ideas, narrow down what's possible in a short amount of time and test it by getting a sales page in front of your ideal clients. I can't wait to see what happens when you start getting more immediate results. It is so much fun. It is so I can't even express to you how good it feels to get that level of feedback, to get those kinds of notes from your clients. It is so empowering. I'm excited. I can't wait to see what's possible for you. Send me your ideas. Go send me a DM over on Instagram. Tell me how someone is going to quickly get that result and who your ideal client is. I'd love to hear from you. Head to Boss project on Instagram. My personal profile is Abigail says. I would love to know what it is that you are going to change for your ideal clients and how you're going to do it quickly, concisely and get them that quick win. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode. Send it to a friend who needs to hear it. Post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me at Abigail says and bossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from Boss Project. I'd love if you join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.