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

Whenever you’re on this scenario, it’s tempting to surrender. To throw your arms within the air and declare, “no person desires my product — it was all a waste of time.” That’s the better possibility. 

However you created your digital product for a purpose. Maybe you wished so as to add a brand new earnings stream to your small business so you possibly can cease buying and selling time for cash. Or perhaps you wished to create a brand new means for folks to work with you at a extra reasonably priced worth level than your providers. 

Because the host of Imperfect Motion podcast, which is a part of the Hubspot Podcast Community, I repeatedly have listeners write in, asking me why I feel 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 only a few tweaks away from a extremely worthwhile product.

I’ve additionally been on this sticky scenario a couple of occasions myself. I’ve had some big digital product wins — promoting $20,000 value of a $20 Canva template, over $1 million value of a $197 information, and $400,000 value 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 most typical the explanation why it isn’t promoting — and how one can 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 their companies on Instagram, so I created a web based course about Instagram advertising. Determined to make it probably the most useful course attainable, I stuffed it stuffed with content material and data. I knew it was useful, 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 info I squeezed into my course, the extra my viewers would need it. I believed {that a} complete course on every little thing somebody may probably find out about Instagram advertising could be perceived as useful. 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,” chances are high 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 an alternative, the worth to your prospects lies in how rapidly and simply you’ll be able to assist them resolve an issue or obtain a metamorphosis. 

Methods to repair it: 

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

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

Purpose #2: It’s not the proper provide on your viewers. 

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

Confused, I surveyed my viewers to search out out why they didn’t purchase. The solutions had been clear: They didn’t need 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 by it in their very own time, over the subsequent six months. 

In case your product isn’t promoting, it may very well be that your assumptions about what your prospects need had been incorrect. The excellent news is that after you discover out the place you went incorrect, 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 12 months later, that product has bought greater than 3,800 copies.

Methods 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 study 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’s essential 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 trying to find the explanation why your digital product gained’t work for them. They could imagine that their scenario is exclusive, and they also’ll have objections as to why your answer gained’t work. Or they won’t belief that you could ship the end result they need. 

Getting your viewers to know you, such as you, and belief you sufficient to purchase from you’ll be able to take some time. Content material advertising 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 good friend, 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. 

Methods to repair it: 

1. Acquire and share social proof out of your prospects and purchasers. Make sure that it’s not simply concerning the final result they achieved, but in addition tells the story of the place they had 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. Hearken to episode 529 of Imperfect Motion to learn to write 1,000,000 greenback gross sales web page.
3. Begin repeatedly 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 constantly in a single place. In episode 559 of Imperfect Motion, I coach a pupil by the method of figuring out what content material matters can be only for her digital product launch.

Purpose #4: They don’t find out about it.

One in every of my on-line programs was constantly getting fewer gross sales than any of my different merchandise, and I couldn’t work out why. Once I surveyed my e 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’re going to come,” doesn’t apply to digital merchandise. You may have probably the most useful 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 is likely to be since you don’t have sufficient folks in your viewers but, or it is likely to be that you simply’re not selling it sufficient on-line. 

Methods to repair it: 

1. Evaluation 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. Might you interview previous prospects about their expertise? Might 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 damaging feelings. Shopping for your digital product probably brings up damaging emotions in your potential prospects, 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 attainable.

Apart from the ache of spending cash, your digital product probably evokes different damaging emotions. A exercise information requires them to set their alarm a complete 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. 

Methods to repair it:

1. In case your product is available for purchase at any time, take into account whether or not the “doorways open” and “doorways closed” mannequin may work for your small business, the place you launch it a couple of occasions per 12 months slightly than permitting purchases at any time. 
2. Alternatively, take into account different limited-time incentives, equivalent to bonuses, to assist make your prospect’s resolution simpler.  

I’m a giant proponent of the dwell launch mannequin as a technique to encourage your prospects to purchase now, slightly than put it off. These are some podcast episodes that can assist you higher perceive how that might give you the results you want: 

By creating your digital product and placing it out into the world, you’ve already conquered the arduous half. Now you start the enjoyable half: Understanding why it’s not promoting, making adjustments, and measuring the affect of these adjustments. You may have to work by 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.