Why Your Digital Product Is not Promoting — and 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, e-book, or different digital product to life, it’s not promoting. 

If you’re on this state of affairs, it’s tempting to surrender. To throw your arms within the air and declare, “no person 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 wished so as to add a brand new earnings stream to your online business so you would cease buying and selling time for cash. Or perhaps you wished to create a brand new manner for folks to work with you at a extra reasonably priced worth level than your companies. 

Because the host of Imperfect Motion podcast, which is a part of the Hubspot Podcast Community, I frequently have listeners write in, asking me why I believe no person 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 state of affairs a number of occasions myself. I’ve had some enormous 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 hundreds of {dollars}, these are the most typical the explanation why it isn’t promoting — and 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 stored asking me questions on advertising and marketing their companies on Instagram, so I created a web-based course about Instagram advertising and marketing. Determined to make it essentially the most invaluable course doable, I stuffed it stuffed with content material and data. I knew it was invaluable, 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 assumed the extra data I squeezed into my course, the extra my viewers would need it. I assumed {that a} complete course on every thing somebody may probably learn about Instagram advertising and marketing could be perceived as invaluable. It wasn’t. 

If you already know 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 wish to know extra issues — there’s already a lot free content material on the web. They don’t wish to waste their time consuming much more content material. As a substitute, the worth to your clients lies in how rapidly and simply you may assist them resolve an issue or obtain a change. 

repair it: 

1. Determine 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 automobile to realize this final result, moderately than being a “complete” information.

Should you’re struggling to point out the worth in your digital product, the under podcast episodes will assist: 

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

As a podcaster, I stored getting requested, “Steph, how do I launch a podcast?”. After strolling a number of buddies via the method, I made a decision to show it right into a digital product. I assumed a gaggle program format would work greatest as I may assist a number of college students on the similar time. However after I launched it to my e mail record, 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 wish to launch a podcast in a gaggle program format. They couldn’t decide to attending dwell calls. They wished to launch their present in fewer than eight weeks, or they wished to work via it in their very own time, over the subsequent six months. 

In case your product isn’t promoting, it could possibly be that your assumptions about what your clients need have been fallacious. The excellent news is that after you discover out the place you went fallacious, a number 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 bought greater than 3,800 copies.

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 related suggestions, it’s an indication that it’s essential to both tweak your product, or change the way in which 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 trying to find the explanation why your digital product gained’t work for them. They might imagine that their state of affairs is exclusive, and they also’ll have objections as to why your resolution gained’t work. Or they may not belief that you would be able to 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 buddy, 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. 

repair it: 

1. Accumulate and share social proof out of your clients and purchasers. Be sure that it’s not simply concerning the final result they achieved, but additionally 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 learn to write one million greenback gross sales web page.
3. Begin frequently 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 displaying up persistently in a single place. In episode 559 of Imperfect Motion, I coach a pupil via 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.

Considered 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 e mail record, 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 would have essentially the most invaluable course with good 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 is perhaps since you don’t have sufficient folks in your viewers but, or it is perhaps that you just’re not selling it sufficient on-line. 

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 artistic 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 destructive feelings. Shopping for your digital product possible brings up destructive emotions in your potential clients, too. Spending cash on one thing — irrespective of how a lot they need it — may really feel painful, and they also’ll delay the ache for so long as doable.

Other than the ache of spending cash, your digital product possible evokes different destructive emotions. A exercise information requires them to set their alarm an entire hour earlier and rise up whereas it’s nonetheless darkish exterior. My information for beginning a podcast may 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. 

repair it:

1. In case your product is available for purchase 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 number of occasions per yr moderately than permitting purchases at any time. 
2. Alternatively, contemplate different limited-time incentives, akin to bonuses, to assist make your prospect’s determination simpler.  

I’m a giant proponent of the dwell launch mannequin as a solution 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 might 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 modifications, and measuring the influence of these modifications. You may must work via 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 profitable method.