Why Your Digital Product Is not Promoting — and Tips on how to Repair That [Expert Insights]

You’ve created a digital product, put it up in your web site and introduced it to your viewers. However regardless of the onerous work you poured into bringing your on-line course, book, or different digital product to life, it’s not promoting. 

Once you’re on this scenario, it’s tempting to surrender. To throw your arms within the air and declare, “no one needs my product — it was all a waste of time.” That’s the simpler choice. 

However you created your digital product for a purpose. Maybe you needed so as to add a brand new earnings stream to your online business so you might cease buying and selling time for cash. Or perhaps you needed to create a brand new method for folks to work with you at a extra reasonably priced value level than your providers. 

Because the host of Imperfect Motion podcast, which is a part of the Hubspot Podcast Community, I often have listeners write in, asking me why I feel no one is shopping for their digital product. And in my work as a digital product launch strategist, I’ve helped dozens of purchasers flip round merchandise that weren’t promoting. More often than not, they’ve been just some tweaks away from a extremely worthwhile product.

I’ve additionally been on this sticky scenario a couple of instances myself. I’ve had some large digital product wins — promoting $20,000 price of a $20 Canva template, over $1 million price of a $197 information, and $400,000 price of a $2,000 course. However earlier than every of those success tales got here many errors and classes. Utilizing the identical methods I’m sharing on this article, I’ve rescued my very own merchandise that weren’t promoting and turned them round.

Whether or not you’ve created a low-ticket digital product or one within the 1000’s of {dollars}, these are the commonest the explanation why it isn’t promoting — and the right way to repair that. 

5 Causes Your Digital Product Is not Promoting [+ Solutions]

Purpose #1: Your viewers doesn’t see the worth in your product.

5 years in the past, I constructed a digital product that flopped. My viewers saved asking me questions on advertising and marketing their companies on Instagram, so I created an internet course about Instagram advertising and marketing. Determined to make it probably the most priceless course doable, I stuffed it filled with content material and data. I knew it was priceless, however hardly anybody purchased it. 

That’s as a result of I conflated worth with the quantity of content material contained in the course. I believed the extra data I squeezed into my course, the extra my viewers would need it. I believed {that a} complete course on the whole lot somebody may probably learn about Instagram advertising and marketing can be perceived as priceless. It wasn’t. 

If you understand your product is bursting with worth, however you retain listening to “I can’t afford it,” or “I don’t want it,” likelihood is your viewers doesn’t see the identical worth you do. Often, that’s as a result of your viewers doesn’t need to know extra issues — there’s already a lot free content material on the web. They don’t need to waste their time consuming much more content material. As a substitute, the worth to your clients lies in how shortly and simply you may assist them resolve an issue or obtain a metamorphosis. 

Tips on how to repair it: 

1. Establish the end result of your digital product — that’s, the issue your clients will resolve, or the transformation they are going to obtain.
2. Tweak your advertising and marketing and messaging so it positions your product because the car to realize this final result, moderately than being a “complete” information.

For those who’re struggling to point out the worth in your digital product, the under podcast episodes will assist: 

Purpose #2: It’s not the correct supply in your viewers. 

As a podcaster, I saved getting requested, “Steph, how do I launch a podcast?”. After strolling a number of mates by means of the method, I made a decision to show it right into a digital product. I believed a bunch program format would work greatest as I may assist a number of college students on the similar time. However once I launched it to my electronic mail listing, solely two folks signed up. 

Confused, I surveyed my viewers to search out out why they didn’t purchase. The solutions have been clear: They didn’t need to launch a podcast in a bunch program format. They couldn’t decide to attending stay calls. They needed to launch their present in fewer than eight weeks, or they needed to work by means of it in their very own time, over the following six months. 

In case your product isn’t promoting, it could possibly be that your assumptions about what your clients need have been improper. The excellent news is that after you discover out the place you went improper, a couple of tweaks to your product can result in a great deal of gross sales. I took my viewers’s suggestions on board, turned the group program define right into a self-paced information, and launched it once more. A yr later, that product has offered greater than 3,800 copies.

Tips on how to repair it:

1. Ship your viewers a non-buyer survey to search out out why they aren’t shopping for your digital product. You’ll be amazed at what you be taught from the query, “Why didn’t you purchase?”
2. If a number of folks provide you with comparable suggestions, it’s an indication that it is advisable both tweak your product, or change the best way you’ve positioned it. 

Purpose #3: They don’t belief that it’ll work for them.

When your viewers is studying your gross sales web page, they’re subconsciously looking for the explanation why your digital product gained’t work for them. They might imagine that their scenario is exclusive, and they also’ll have objections as to why your resolution gained’t work. Or they may not belief that you may ship the end result they need. 

Getting your viewers to know you, such as you, and belief you adequate to purchase from you may take some time. Content material advertising and marketing is the important thing to this. I’ve had strangers come as much as me and inform me they really feel like I’m their pal, as a result of they’ve listened to my podcast a lot. And sharing social proof (like testimonials and case research) helps to construct belief and overcome objections about why it gained’t work for them. 

Tips on how to repair it: 

1. Accumulate and share social proof out of your clients and purchasers. Make sure that it’s not simply in regards to the final result they achieved, but in addition tells the story of the place they have been earlier than they purchased your digital product. 
2. Consider all the explanations a possible purchaser would suppose that it gained’t work for them. Present them why it will work for them with real-life examples in your gross sales web page. Take heed to episode 529 of Imperfect Motion to discover ways to write one million greenback gross sales web page.
3. Begin often sharing content material on-line. It doesn’t matter whether or not you begin a podcast or a TikTok account, so long as you’re exhibiting up persistently in a single place. In episode 559 of Imperfect Motion, I coach a pupil by means of the method of figuring out what content material matters might be only for her digital product launch.

Purpose #4: They don’t learn about it.

Certainly one of my on-line programs was persistently getting fewer gross sales than any of my different merchandise, and I couldn’t determine why. Once I surveyed my electronic mail listing, I used to be shocked. Greater than 75% of my subscribers didn’t even know the course existed. No marvel they weren’t shopping for it! 

“Construct it and they’ll come,” doesn’t apply to digital merchandise. You may have probably the most priceless course with excellent messaging and highly effective social proof, and nonetheless not hit your gross sales targets since you’re merely not getting it in entrance of sufficient folks. It could be since you don’t have sufficient folks in your viewers but, or it could be that you just’re not selling it sufficient on-line. 

Tips on how to repair it: 

1. Assessment your web site analytics. How many individuals are visiting your digital product gross sales web page? 
2. Decide to selling your product extra, and get inventive with it. May you interview previous clients about their expertise? May you give your viewers 24 hours to check drive the primary module? 

Purpose #5: There’s no purpose why they need to purchase it proper now.

A human tendency is to procrastinate issues that evoke unfavourable feelings. Shopping for your digital product possible brings up unfavourable emotions in your potential clients, too. Spending cash on one thing — regardless of how a lot they need it — would possibly really feel painful, and they also’ll delay the ache for so long as doable.

Except for the ache of spending cash, your digital product possible evokes different unfavourable emotions. A exercise information requires them to set their alarm a complete hour earlier and stand up whereas it’s nonetheless darkish outdoors. My information for beginning a podcast would possibly convey up a buyer’s worry of being judged. So somebody will postpone shopping for it till the explanations to behave proper now outweigh the explanations to not. 

Tips on how to repair it:

1. In case your product is that can be purchased at any time, contemplate whether or not the “doorways open” and “doorways closed” mannequin may work for your online business, the place you launch it a couple of instances per yr moderately than permitting purchases at any time. 
2. Alternatively, contemplate different limited-time incentives, similar to bonuses, to assist make your prospect’s choice simpler.  

I’m a giant proponent of the stay launch mannequin as a method to encourage your prospects to purchase now, moderately than put it off. These are some podcast episodes that will help you higher perceive how that would be just right for you: 

By creating your digital product and placing it out into the world, you’ve already conquered the onerous half. Now you start the enjoyable half: Understanding why it’s not promoting, making adjustments, and measuring the affect of these adjustments. You would possibly must work by means of greater than one of many above methods earlier than you see measurable outcomes. 

Consider it as an experiment the place every tweak you make brings you one step nearer to the successful system.