Why my first digital product failed

And we're doing something different today. I'm actually doing this live session from Hong Kong. I wanted to do something different, so I'm doing this from Victoria Harbour. And the reason why I'm doing something different is because I want to make sure that we try new things and that we take risks. I don't have a script. I don't really have a clear guideline of what I'm going to say, but I do have a message that I want to share with you today, which is about how to create and grow your digital business. And how to help you with your digital products. Earlier this year, I talked about the keyword for your year, and I'd like you to think of what is the keyword that you want for your year. And for me, at the beginning of the year, I decided that the word was going to be sustainability. The reason why is because it's so easy when we are creators and solopreneurs and creative entrepreneurs to burn out. And in my case, I'm a mom. I have 2 young children. I have a dog. I love exercising, as you can see, and so it's difficult to do everything without burning out. And so I'm trying to do or have more impact without necessarily doing more. So that's why I'm doing this today, and I encourage you to try new things, even if it can be a little bit intimidating. So before we talk about digital products, I just wanted to share with you a fun fact. I don't know if you've been to Hong Kong, but this tall building that you see here is IFC. IFC is the iconic flagship building in the financial district. And I actually worked there many years ago when Apple hired me as a manager when they were launching and they were opening the business in Hong Kong. So that was really a very special moment in my previous life, in my previous corporate career. But today we're talking about something different. We're talking about sustainability for writers and creators and specifically how we can launch and sell digital products. It can be digital guides, templates, worksheets, anything that basically you're going to deploy digitally. And the reason why I think it's so important is because very often we're just thinking on the transactional aspect of creating more and sending one more newsletter. And what happens afterwards is that we have created a lot of content, but it doesn't have a lot of longevity. And so we are always with the foot on the accelerator. And it's really difficult to create something sustainable. My experience is that whenever you have digital products, you're able to create a digital library that creates passive income, which is part of the goal of what we are doing, right? Part of our ambition as creative entrepreneurs is to be able to create this business that is running in the background, even when you're not necessarily working on it. Digital products, I've been talking a lot about it this month because it is my topic this month. And if you go to my publication, you will see that I have a series of 4 different posts where I talked about the sales, the marketing, how to create a lead magnet and so on. Today I wanted to talk about something many people ask me and it's why are my digital products not selling? So many people tell me, hey Veronica, I launched a product. I think it's really good, but it's not selling. And so I'm gonna speak from my experience because I have launched, especially when I started, quite a few digital products that didn't sell. So I'm not just talking theory, I'm talking here from mistakes and my personal experience. So let's get started with the most basic. Number 1 is launching a digital product without an engaged prebuilt audience. I didn't say a large audience, right? I said an engaged audience. Because what happens very often is that you might have a small audience that is not very engaged. And so when you're going to launch your digital products, you see that there's not a lot of conversions. And that makes a lot of sense. To give you some numbers, and you can check it out, this is an approximation. When you're looking at conversion from your overall subscriber base or your email base to customers for digital products, It tends to be about 1 to 5%. That's quite tiny, right? And in my case, honestly, I would kill to have that 5%. It's probably closer to a 2 to 3%. So it's important that you do your math there to understand what are some realistic numbers. And so that's what I mean by having an engaged audience. Now, it's not all bad news, and if you have a small audience, I don't want you to feel disappointed, but instead, I'd like you to think strategically on what can you do to engage that audience. And there are so many things that you can do. In my case, I use the chat. It's very active. Yesterday I had an open day of collaboration where people put their page. You can also make sure that you do things like webinars or you can have masterminds. So it's not necessarily about creating more and having this huge audience, but making sure that the people who are in your room are in the right room. The beautiful thing about it, even though it takes longer, is that once you do have that engaged audience, it's not only a community that is going to be interested in that particular digital product that you're thinking today, it's actually the same people who are probably going to buy your courses. They're probably going to participate in your cohorts. That has definitely been my experience. They are the same people who are going to become your paid subscribers. And so look at it as really an investment, a more long-term investment. It's not going to happen overnight. It took me 3 years to get to where I am today with a bit over 10,000 subscribers. And I really mean the point of having an engaged community. In fact, last week I just deleted 500 subscribers because they were not active. They hadn't opened an email in the last 6 months. I don't want to have an empty shell. I don't want to have an audience. I really want to build a community. So I hope that this encourages you to think about building that community first and then serving them the food, right? Serving them the amazing dish, the amazing product that you're going to create. So that's number 1, launching without a prebuilt engaged audience. Number 2 is not validating a product. I don't know how many of you have done this of launching a product without asking You think that something is great. You might have a problem for yourself that you want to solve, but you don't really ask people in your community. And so as a result, when you launch that product, you realize that a lot of people like it and might put hearts and they encourage you, but no one actually buys it. I made that mistake as well. And honestly, validating a product is free. So there are many ways that you can do this. First, if you're on Substack, when you're launching your post, when you're publishing it, You can add a poll, you can use the chat. Does this idea resonate with you? Would you be willing to buy a course on anti-procrastination, which is my next course, by the way? So if you can put it in the chat, if you'll be interested in that, that would be a really good example of doing a validation in the moment. And another way that works very well is pick 10 people. It doesn't have to be 20, but pick 10 people and have a one-to-one validation. Like, hey, do you think this is a good idea? This price, do you think it makes sense for you? Is it too expensive? Is it too low? What do you think is missing here? So get input from 10 people who you think are potential customers and hear from them, because honestly, there's nothing more demoralizing, and I've been there, than launching something and then no one wants it. My mom has a restaurant. I always talk about it. And imagine if you're cooking this beautiful meal and then you serve it to people and they tell you, I'm not hungry, or I don't eat meat. So think about that, right? Think about validating and making sure that before you start cooking, before the chef goes into the kitchen, you actually know what your guests want. So number 2 is validation. So we've covered 2 now, not having a prebuilt audience, and the second one that we just talked about is not validating. Now there's a third one that again, I think when we're starting, we all tend to fall for it and it's going too cheap. And by the way, I'm gonna do a little pause because it's just such a beautiful harbor. I want to make sure you get the opportunity to see it all. So that's Kowloon on the other side, and here is Hong Kong Island. So the third one is going too cheap. And honestly, I believe that this has more to do with the mindset than with strategy. How many of you have launched your first product either for free or an ebook for $1.99 or a course that was just $9. Do the math. It's actually really hard to do something scalable and sustainable if you're gonna play the volumes game. You can totally do it, but not with a small audience. Just do the numbers. It just doesn't work. $9 product, you're gonna need 100 people, 100 people to make $900. I, many of my products don't even sell to 100 people. And so very often we go too low because we have these, uh, mental limitations. We think that maybe We're not an expert enough, or we don't have enough experience. If you're gonna have something that is very cheap, then use it more as a lead magnet, for example, that then opens the appetite for something bigger. So for example, and I'm just gonna make this one up, I'm now building my course, The Anti-Procrastinator. So that's gonna be a more expensive course, maybe around $128 is what I have in mind. I could have something that is very cheap, like for a $9 quiz. For you to find out your procrastinator type, that might be $9. And then what I might do is I might give it to you for free, even though it has a price. I would actually set a price and then give you a discount because the perception of getting something that has value for free is very different from saying, hey, I'm giving you something that has no price, therefore that has no value. So my point here is while there is no number, you can be very strategic. With the price point that you set. Something that I found very interesting is that anything that is below $20 is a very good formula for unprofitability unless you already have a large built-in audience. So my tip here about price is really do the numbers because it's not a surprise. I shared before, if you're gonna have a conversion of around 1 to 5%, And you have an audience of around 1,000, there go your numbers. So don't be afraid to charge higher. Every time I've increased my prices for whatever it was, founding membership, for my courses, for even my keynote as a public speaker, I was mortified. And guess what? It's still sold. You're just gonna be more targeted in the people that you're going to attract. So that's the number one, making sure that don't go too cheap, and you build that confidence, you build that strength to say, hey, my product, my service has value. So it's time to evict that imposter. And the final one is no sales or marketing. I don't know if you've done this, but when I started, I would launch a product, mention it perhaps in a note, put it on a Substack post, maybe mentioning on LinkedIn and hope that it would attract clients or students. And then guess what? It didn't. I always go back to the marketing rule of 7 because it does work. And it is true that people have to see you, your brand, your product 7 times, at least, probably more to build that trust before they are ready to purchase your product or to become your student. And now the challenge here that I really struggle with is then how do you keep a balance between selling and making sure that people are aware, but without overselling? Because you don't want to be that person who is bombarding your community with a sale. And there are a few things that you can do, and this is more tactical, but I'd like you to think about it and then you make your own strategy. There is evergreen digital touchpoints that you can leverage. For example, your welcome email. In your welcome email, I talk about my story. I mention what The Lemon Tree is all about. And then at the bottom, if I'm going to launch something or if I just published a book, for example, I might put it in my welcome email. In fact, I have a lead magnet in my welcome email so that people have an incentive to subscribe. So that's a very subtle, non-invasive way of letting people know what you're selling, what is your offer. So that's one. There's another one that not many people know about is on your homepage on Substack, you can actually have a link. You can add links to your book. It can be to your website. It can be to your coaching package, whatever it is. So that's another way. It's very small. It's very subtle again, but it is another digital touchpoint. And then from there, you can think of other things like the header when you're sending your publication. So that is not for about selling. So this, when it comes to more evergreen digital touchpoints. And then there are other things that you can do. And if you want more details, I have explained it in the different posts. So you can go to my publication to get more details, but things like having a lead magnet. It's much easier for someone to say yes to a lead magnet that anyways you're going to give them for free. To give you an example, for my Substack course that I launched last year, My lead magnet was a short tutorial showing people how to create a functional homepage that looks nice, feels nice, and is user-friendly for your readers. So you can think of that very actionable lead magnet that is going to let people know, hey, this is a good restaurant. I like this appetizer. I'm ready to go for the main course. So that can be one strategy. And the other one that I think works really well is having an email marketing sequence. To do that, you probably want to do it outside Substack. In my case, I do it on Gumroad. That's where I have all my digital products. And instead of just bombarding people with 5 emails about a countdown and now I have a 25% and so on, the ideal series is more educational. So you can have one post where you're sharing a tip related to your topic. Another one can be perhaps a success story. Another one could be how you implement what you're learning yourself. So if I'm selling a course about public speaking, then I might share my story on how I became a public speaker. And that's a way of building trust and building credibility. So that's the last one. I'm going to wrap up the session here. I'm going to do a final tour here of Hong Kong. So what we covered today is really how to create a sustainable business by investing in not not only creating digital products, but also launching them with a strategy. I shared what I did and I would not do again. So the 4 tips that I recommended, so make sure that you have a prebuilt engaged, engaged audience is key. Making sure that you validate your product. So ask, do you want to eat spaghetti before you start cooking the spaghetti? Number 3 that we talked about is the price and make sure that you don't go low. because your mind is telling you that you're not worth it. That's really about the mindset. And the last one is have a sales and marketing strategy that is not pushy, that is not aggressive or invasive, but that is very much thinking about not how you can sell, but how you can help and serve your community. So with this, I hope it gives you a bit of motivation. I hope it gives you a few ideas. Thank you very much and bye-bye from Hong Kong. Bye.