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In this episode, we talk about how to sell a digital product that will be on the market a while.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Let’s dive into this week’s question!
JOCELYN: Tonight’s question is from Amber Williford and she asks:
“There’s tons of information out there about launching a product, creating scarcity, and then taking it off the market after a certain amount of time, but what will this do to those of us who have a product that will stay on the market for a while?
Do you have any tips for marketing and continually selling a product? Maybe this is similar to the playbook and lesson plans you both sell. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.”
SHANE: All right, we do a couple of things when we’re trying to sell a product. We actually leave all our products open at all times. You can go over to ElementaryLibrarian.com or CoachXO.com, you can see that you have we have our products posted at all times. We don’t take them down but there are other ways to create scarcity besides rolling out a big launch and then taking it off the market at the end of the launch. I know that’s a big popular thing that people are doing right now.
But I think a lot of that is because a lot of the internet marketing products that people promote like Learning How to use Facebook, Learning How to Use Twitter Ads or something like that, they are very instantaneous, right at the moment because the next time they sell that product, everything is going to change so they are going to make a new product anyway. So I don’t know if that strategy of launching a product actually applies outside of that kind of internet marketing niche. So if you’re doing something like we do like playbooks, lesson plans, and things like that, you probably want to leave your product up year round.
So take kind of a cue from what you see stores and things like that do. There are other ways to create scarcity like you can have a sale like out of season. What happens at the end of the summer? All of the shorts and t-shirts go on sale for a clearance sale. So you can do that if your product is seasonal. You could have a sale that says, “Hey, this is not going to be necessary for the next couple of months but I’m going to offer you a discount right now” and then you can just leave that up all year and go sell it again later.
One thing that I do is I love to really ramp up my marketing during those seasonal times. Coaches are really into playbooks in the spring. That’s when people study their defense and they decide if they are going to change things for the next year. So during the spring, even though my playbooks are constantly for sale, I never take them down.
I ramp up my marketing efforts during that time because I know coaches are going to football clinics. I know they are looking at their plays and what they want to do the next season. Then in the summertime, I ramp up my practice schedules. That’s another thing that I sell and I really push that during the summer because people are getting ready to start practice and they need that.
In January and February, football teams are getting back into the weight room so I promote heavily my weight lifting program that I have a digital product for. So you can look at things during the year and you can ramp up your marketing for certain products if they are seasonal or you can maybe just have a sale and say, “This sale ends in seven days.”
That’s going to create the scarcity that you want to create just like you would if you were doing a launch. You are going to remove the product from the market and it makes people kind of want to buy it now before they lose that discount.
JOCELYN: Yeah and so one thing that I do is I also do introductory offers and so that also creates scarcity. You can use your email list, send out an email. When you’re getting ready to launch a product, say, “I’m going to give you a special introductory offer for so many days and at the end of x days, this offer is gone.” This last product that I launched that way, I had, I think five figure days doing that with that scarcity and that introductory offer. So that’s a great way to do it.
I also have sales, just like Shane was talking about, throughout the year where I do a discount at various times and those are sort of few and far between for me. I don’t do a lot of discounts on my products but I do also host webinars from time to time and I will give a special discount just during that one hour of the webinar.
SHANE: And only for the people that show up to the webinar, they are the only ones that get it.
JOCELYN: And I do like door prizes and things like that but one thing I would say is I think a lot of people think that in internet marketing, you can make one product and sort of just ride into the sunset on that product. That doesn’t really happen. What you need to be doing all the time is asking your audience, “What else can I create for you? How else can I save you time? What other products are you looking for?” It’s really important to always be changing your products, making it better, and just always evolving, I guess.
SHANE: Even building new products to kind of lead to.
JOCELYN: Yeah and even my biggest selling product in Elementary Librarian, I just rewrote the entire product. It’s like 400+ pages and I rewrote the entire thing this past summer because that’s what my audience asked for. So don’t get complacent in your product offering but I don’t think it’s necessary, just like Shane was saying to continuously be offering a new product, taking other products off the market, and not offering it year round. I know that’s probably what a lot of the experts say but around here at Flipped Lifestyle, we’re the anti-experts.
SHANE: We don’t listen to the experts because sometimes when we listen to the experts, it doesn’t work. So don’t go launch to launch to launch. Don’t think you have to launch everything. When you have a new product, by all means, launch it but don’t think you’ve got to remove it that product from your marketplace or your store. I mean, leave it up.
I get up every day and maybe the thing I’m promoting the most right then and there is going to be my heaviest seller at that time, but all of my products and all of Jocelyn’s products, we get sales from everything all the time just because they are there.
Also remember, there are thousands of people out there, millions of people searching on the internet. They are going to find you at different times. Just because it’s not the season for something, that doesn’t mean they are not going to buy it. People love to find what they need and when they stumble across your product, that’s what they are going to buy.
So don’t worry about launching after launching after launching. Just go ahead and have a sale, have a promotion, do things like that but don’t worry about leaving your product up. Just make sure you’re continually evolving, continually making new products, and continually figuring out what your audience wants.
JOCELYN: All right. Thanks, Amber, for your question and if you want to check out the notes for today’s mini-podcast, you can go head on over to FlippedLifestyle.com/QA08 and you can see any of the links that we discussed in today’s show. Also, if you have comments or suggestions for future Q&A podcast, you can leave those in the comments section over that FlippedLifestyle.com/QA08. See you all next time.
SHANE: See you next time, bye.
One more thing guys, if you would like immediate one-on-one help from Jocelyn and myself, all you have to do is go to FlippedLifestyle.com/TalkToUs, that’s all one word. You can check out our consulting services. We do not do a lot of consulting but we do block out a few hours a week where we can get on the phone, get on Skype, get on a Google Hangout, and talk to you about your online business where you can work personally with me and Jocelyn to help you go to the next level.
If you need any help, if you need one on one attention and you just can’t wait until maybe we select you for a Flipped Podcast, all you have to do is go to FlippedLifestyle.com/TalkToUs and you can check out when our schedule is available for you to get on a consulting call.
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If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Laura Lynn says
Thank you Jocelyn & Shane! I was so happy that someone asked this question. I’ve listened to some “gurus” who tell “us” to create scarcity for our products, but also tell us we shouldn’t do sales because then people will only buy when there is a sale. That just doesn’t work for many niches. I was glad to hear how you run your sales and that they work.
Just LOVE your podcasts!!! I was so excited to hear about you guys (from Pat Flynn). You are real people who have real online businesses outside of the “how to make money online” niche. It was even better to hear that you live in Kentucky – Hi from a fan in Lexington! Now off to leave you a 5 star review in iTunes. 🙂
Shane Sams says
Thank you so much Laura! We were just in Lex the other day, love that town! We are UK alumni 🙂