Why Your Digital Product Isn’t Selling — and How to Fix 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 laborious 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 state of affairs, it’s tempting to surrender. To throw your arms within the air and declare, “no one desires my product — it was all a waste of time.” That’s the better choice. 

However you created your digital product for a cause. Maybe you wished so as to add a brand new revenue stream to your online business so you may 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 inexpensive value level than your providers. 

Because the host of Imperfect Action podcast, which is a part of the Hubspot Podcast Network, I usually 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 shoppers 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 big 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 commonest explanation why it isn’t promoting — and learn how to repair that. 

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

Motive #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 an internet course about Instagram advertising and marketing. Determined to make it essentially the most precious course potential, I stuffed it stuffed with content material and knowledge. I knew it was precious, 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 all the pieces somebody may probably learn about Instagram advertising and marketing can be perceived as precious. It wasn’t. 

If you recognize 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. Normally, 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 prospects lies in how shortly and simply you’ll be able to assist them resolve an issue or obtain a metamorphosis. 

repair it: 

1. Establish the 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 marketing and messaging so it positions your product because the automobile to realize this final result, quite than being a “complete” information.

If you happen to’re struggling to point out the worth in your digital product, the beneath podcast episodes will assist: 

Motive #2: It’s not the best supply to your viewers. 

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

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

In case your product isn’t promoting, it might be that your assumptions about what your prospects need have been unsuitable. The excellent news is that when you discover out the place you went unsuitable, 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 offered greater than 3,800 copies.

repair it:

1. Ship your viewers a non-buyer survey to seek 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 offer you related suggestions, it’s an indication that it’s good to both tweak your product, or change the way in which you’ve positioned it. 

Motive #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 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 won’t belief you could ship the 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 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. 

repair it: 

1. Gather and share social proof out of your prospects and shoppers. Make 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 assume 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. Listen to episode 529 of Imperfect Action to discover ways to write one million greenback gross sales web page.
3. Begin usually 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 constantly in a single place. In episode 559 of Imperfect Action, I coach a pupil by way of the method of figuring out what content material matters will probably be only for her digital product launch.

Motive #4: They don’t learn about it.

One among my on-line programs was constantly getting fewer gross sales than any of my different merchandise, and I couldn’t work out why. After I surveyed my electronic mail record, I used to be shocked. Greater than 75% of my subscribers didn’t even know the course existed. No surprise they weren’t shopping for it! 

“Construct it and they’re going to come,” doesn’t apply to digital merchandise. You might have essentially the most precious 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 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. Overview 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? 

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

A human tendency is to procrastinate issues that evoke negative emotions. Shopping for your digital product doubtless brings up damaging emotions in your potential prospects, 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 potential.

Other than the ache of spending cash, your digital product doubtless 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 would possibly deliver 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, take into account 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 quite than permitting purchases at any time. 
2. Alternatively, take into account different limited-time incentives, comparable to bonuses, to assist make your prospect’s determination simpler.  

I’m an enormous proponent of the stay launch mannequin as a method to encourage your prospects to purchase now, quite 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 laborious 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 have to work by way 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 profitable system.