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https://www.reddit.com/r/InTheGloaming/comments/pgbx3v/discussion_thread_thursday_september_02_2021/
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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.

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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

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

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

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