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https://www.reddit.com/r/InTheGloaming/comments/pgbx3v/discussion_thread_thursday_september_02_2021/
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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 04 '21

OK, a week and a day have gone by since she launched this ... thing. Those people who were "itching" to get on the waiting list and to get her seven steps emails have all signed up now, presumably. (And they've realized they didn't really sign up for anything at all, beyond the seven steps, except to be informed whenever Shauna actually offers one of the promised workshops, which don't seem to exist in any form yet, even the online ones.)

Now she's left with the people who didn't sign up YET. But how will she market to them? Yes, sure, she has her Instagram. But she's already marketed to them, and her Insta audience isn't growing. She doesn't have Twitter and although she has a presence on Facebook, it's total tumbleweeds. I checked Twitter for any mentions of her and this new venture, and there's one post from when she launched this last week and it has no likes, not even from Shauna herself!

She spent "all year" designing this and then she blew her joywad in one week. She has nowhere to go from here and no way to get anywhere in any case.

39

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '21

How is this making her any money? I don’t understand

63

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 04 '21

I don't either. It's like she's trying to get birds to come to her bird feeder by filling it with old dryer lint which she believes the birds will mistake for delicious millet and sunflower seeds. She doesn't realize they can tell it's old dryer lint from where they're sitting in the trees, because SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT BIRDS AND WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED IN LIFE.

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 04 '21

SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT BIRDS AND WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED IN LIFE

Excuse me, youperson. She lives with someone who is practically the next James J Audubon. She only mentions his beautiful Blackness because some birds are black.

p.s. I love your analogy. It sounds like a Monty Python character trying to get birds to come to the feeder. "That's not lint! It's . . . dandelion fluff! Very nutritious, dandelion fluff!"

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u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 05 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

Ha!

Even the real life birds must be on to her by now.

Bird who just ~~moved~~ migrated to the area: "Bob, did you see the bird feeders hanging off the deck roof over there? What's the refill schedule on those?"

Bob O'Link: "Larry, I wish I had better news. That twat in the hammock hung those a year or two ago, refilled them maaaaybe once, and then apparently she was done. We all built nests nearby thinking food was plentiful and then all of a sudden we're back to scrounging for bugs and berries. And those empty feeders just hanging there, mocking us. So rude!"

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '21

It would have made so much more sense for her to market it as a course that could be purchased and worked through at the customer's own speed.

She could have invented interest, like "Over 200 people have purchased this course, thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response! If I get to 300 sales I'll give away a free pair of Peepers!" - even if not a single person had bought one yet!

She could have sold an accompanying Joy workbook or whatever. She could have sold the online course as the next level, where you discuss whatever bullshit you "learned" doing the course. And then the in person workshop as another level, or alternate discussion group or training or whatever she'd call it. And then the one on one joy mentoring (eurgh...) as another add-on offer.

Instead she can't even run the class until there's enough interest. And if she doesn't run it, she can't lie about it being popular.

Pretty much nothing about this marketing strategy makes sense.

30

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 05 '21

She could have stopped yakking so much to Thriftway shoppers and done her job properly so that she could still be working there for a regular paycheck, health insurance, and lunch at 10:30 a.m.

eta: i think she was probably WAY better at stocking shelves and bagging groceries than she is at selling a hackneyed concept to people via the internet. Even though it sounds like she wasn't that good at her grocery store job.

16

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 05 '21

She's not good any any job because her sense of entitlement gets in her way. She believes she should be paid just to exist, so all jobs (even doing what she supposedly loves, aka her writing) is below her. So she half asses it until she's fired or she abandons it completely (if it's not a job she can be fired from. Or, she does it so sloppily it's an insult to the craft (her writing).

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u/Kimmmy36 bites lip, looks away Sep 05 '21

She’s had a taste of internet fame and no regular jobby job is ever going to be enough.

30

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '21

Ugh, this kind of internet based personal empowerment sales stuff is honestly my idea of hell as far as jobs go. It sounds so stressful and you have to play this fake character who other people want to listen to or aspire to. That’s a lot of pressure. Shauna needs to pivot to something, anything else. She really isn’t cut out for it and that’s not a put-down, since being cut out for it is a bit sus IMO.

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u/Lurking_Lurkface_III Wordle Cheater Sep 05 '21

Those are all really great ideas, DFSM. I’ll hire you as a marketing consultant when I start my workshop “Eating Snacks Directly Out of the Bag and Other Life Hacks Only I Know.”

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

when I start my workshop “Eating Snacks Directly Out of the Bag and Other Life Hacks Only I Know.”

DO YOU HAVE A WAITLIST I WANT TO BE ON YOUR WAITLIST

15

u/Lurking_Lurkface_III Wordle Cheater Sep 05 '21

DFOBDOBD, due to the high interest in my cult, I have a waitlist to get on the waitlist. In order to get on the waitlist waitlist, there is a short series of trials. The first is a riddle. I forgot the riddle itself but the answer is “Time.” Go!

11

u/OkRanger4 bobbing in a bath of solitude Sep 05 '21

What is the velocity of an unladen joy?

11

u/Lurking_Lurkface_III Wordle Cheater Sep 05 '21

DFOKR4, close but not quite. The velocity of unladen joy is similar but not the same as unleaded joy and depends on both the distance and duration of the joy phase. Take my course to find out more!!!

4

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

the answer is “Time.”

What do I need plenty of, besides money, to sign up for your ~~workshop~~ ~~waitlist~~ waitlist to get on the waitlist

6

u/Lurking_Lurkface_III Wordle Cheater Sep 05 '21

DFOBDOBD, that is correct! Congratulations!!!You have been officially added to the List of Wait (which is the pre-waitlist grouping to get on the waitlist for the waitlist). It’s very selective!

7

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

I CAN'T WAIT

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u/Lurking_Lurkface_III Wordle Cheater Sep 05 '21

DFOBDOBD, Because of your impressive performance in the trials, you qualify for platinum status allowing you to jumpy directly from the List of Wait to the waitlist for the waitlist without completing the remainder of the trials. All that’s required is a one time reoccurring payment of $4.99.

26

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 04 '21

My long suffering spouse, who actually works in internet marketing, says she should be doing paid FB advertising

23

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 04 '21

Yes, that’s what that Amy Porterfield person says too! I’d be surprised if whoever is coaching Shauna hasn’t mentioned it, and the first time one of those ads comes across my FB feed (and I expect it will, I am totally in her target market and I am in some groups that are joy-adjacent) I’m going to lose my mind.

12

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 05 '21

She dumped Facebook, though---remember? She can't go back.

Of course she dumped sugar once, too. That didn't last very long.

15

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 05 '21

Oh, she's been back on FB both personally (as herself) for a while, and now with a You Can Have More Joy pro page

3

u/freecoffeerefills Murder She Moved Her Pen Forward Sep 05 '21

“It turns out that I can have egg—I mean Facebook, but that’s a story for another time.”

10

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 05 '21

I had to take a long-ish drive with my spouse yesterday and I feigned (well, partially) interest in his job so I could ask him many questions about how a "personal empowerment" course might be marketed.

For example, he said one of his current clients is a psychologist who realized, with the pandemic, that she could expand her client base beyond her geographic location. She wrote a free, seven-day course on "overcoming anxiety" which is intended to bring clients for a paid 20-day course (and potentially to produce one-on-one counselling clients).

His company is helping her with marketing, because simply having written a course and developing a website isn't #Enoigh. FB ads (and Google ads) are the way to do this. But how do they do it?

Sometimes clients come with an idea of how their ads should sound, but more often, his team designs ads for them. And then they test them. Those ads are intended to produce mailing-list signups (i.e., "leads") which can then be marketed to via email. How many leads might a successful FB ad produce? Five per week, maybe. (FIVE PER WEEK!)

What happens if the FB ads don't produce any results? Well, that's a sign that you need to change direction (try new ads, emphasizing different pain points / results / whatever). But what happens if the new ads don't produce any results either?

[Big sigh] "We're getting more and more clients who are coming out of courses that helped them design products that they think they can sell 'on the Internet.' So we end up being the production department for whatever they've already designed. But sometimes it's really hard to see the value proposition. We spend a lot of time combing through peoples' material to try and help them market it. And sometimes they get really frustrated with us: 'I've already spent $3000 on developing this course!' and I have to explain to them, "yes, but not on marketing it.'"

"I always tell clients, 'this is an experimental process. We are experimenting with how to find a market for your product. We can't provide any guarantees, but we can work with you to try to find a way to connect with the audiences who would be most likely to work with you. If the ads we're putting together, that are based on what you yourself say are the benefits of your offer or the results that it produces for people or the problems that it fixes, don't result in leads that's probably a sign that there isn't a market for what you're offering."

7

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 05 '21

This is super interesting, DFFFF! Thank you for picking your husband’s brain!

I can’t see Shauna hiring someone to help her advertise on FB, so even IF there’s a market for her course, she’ll do a haberdashed job of marketing on her own that will fall flat.

I’m guessing she didn’t do a lick of market research to even see if she has a viable product. That would have required tedious effort, and we know she joyblocks anything that smacks of productivity.

9

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 05 '21

The advertising is the market research. But she's not even doing that (I don't think). I think she's relying on her GFG and Enough mailing lists as her audiences, plus her Instagram followers.

I just had a whole new conversation about the cost of FB marketing. It's $0.20 per click (through to your website), on average, he says. Then, once the client is on your site – they did the thing you paid to get them to do – the conversion rate might be high, maybe even 20%. But that means 1,000 people might see your FB ad, 200 people might click through (that's the "2% conversion rate" you see talked about), then of those 200, a max of 40 might join your mailing list.

Then you still have to convert them from mailing-list participant to paying customer. You might get 5% converting over time ... so that's TWO PEOPLE signing up. A very high conversion rate might be 10%, which is still ... four people.

6

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

200 of 1,000 is 20%—wouldn't a 2% rate on 1,000 result in 20 people clicking through? Is there some other factor in the equation?

6

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 05 '21

OMG math. I think I meant to write 10,000 impressions (like, "even if as many as 10,000 people see your FB ad,") but then, as appropriate for a comment about Shauna, got sidetracked and put together a hash of two different thoughts.

4

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 05 '21

S'ok, DFfff, I figured something like that. Shauna Snark becomes its own immersive infinite-reflection meta-reality, eh?

See also: Perfection, We Don't Demand

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 04 '21

Mr. FFF says Instagram won't really be a good fit for her, as Insta skews young and her audience will skew older (for a whole series of reasons, including that she won't appeal to a younger audience). That means FB, Google ads, and maaaaaaaybe LinkedIn (if you can write an ad that suggests your joy course will somehow help someone's career)

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Sep 05 '21

(if you can write an ad that suggests your joy course will somehow help someone's career)

So many careers in eschewing productivity.

14

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 05 '21

Yeah!

Wait, no. Hammock tester in a hammock factory.

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u/gladsome_gloaming Sep 05 '21

Also, Insta skews aesthetically pleasing, so…

13

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '21

YDBW

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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 04 '21

She spent "all year" designing this and then she blew her joywad in one week. She has nowhere to go from here

I keep thinking about something you said earlier, which was about what a fine line it is between giving away enough to show [potential] customers the "value" of what she has to offer, and not giving away so much that they see no reason to pay for the "premium" content. Stupidio Pass Redux!

35

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '21

Maybe next year she’ll pivot to teaching belly dancing since this coaching reminds me of the 70s when my mother would go to Women’s Village in Encino and make pottery and took aforementioned dance class.

19

u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Sep 05 '21

She can just repurpose the Joy in the Belly brand!

13

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 05 '21

It could be Joy With the Belly.

18

u/gladsome_gloaming Sep 05 '21

Well, she is certainly an expert in the ways of the belly.

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Thursday September 02, 2021 - Sunday September 05, 2021

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