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Episode 9Mar 5, 2021· 9:35

Creating Products for Your Blog Readers

▸ Show notes from the creator
I hope this episode inspires you to look into creating and launching your own products for sale my bloggy friends. We don’t have to be the smartest in the room. We just have to know a little more than the people we’re creating things for. I believe in each and every one of you, and I know you have greatness within you. More Show Notes From This Episode: What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show notes for this and every episode of The Bloggy Friends Show. My new home base for all things Bloggy Friends can be found here: https://www.famousashleygrant.com/podcast/ Be sure to follow me on social: Facebook | Instagram | X | LinkedIn | TikTok | YouTube ------------------------------------------------------------------- This podcast is supported by affiliate partnerships. Please check out a few of our partners below: – Start a podcast today here: https://rss.com?via=famous – Create content from your own voice with Castmagic's Suite of AI Tools: https://get.castmagic.io/dcjy15cirnts – Want to help support our show? Buy a girl a drink perhaps? https://ko-fi.com/famousashleygrant – Need content for your podcast or blog? Check out Tools for Motivation! The links above are affiliate links. This means my podcast will receive a small commission if you order through any of them at no additional cost to you. Affiliate commissions are one of the ways my podcast makes money so that I can create episodes free of charge. If you do purchase anything from my links, I sincerely would like to thank you for your support!
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About this episode
I hope this episode inspires you to look into creating and launching your own products for sale my bloggy friends. We don’t have to be the smartest in the room. We just have to know a little more than the people we’re creating things for. I believe in each and every one of you, and I know you have greatness within you. More Show Notes From This Episode: What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show…
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Full transcript
00:00
Creating products in a vacuum is a great way
00:02
to waste a lot of time and money on books, workshops,
00:06
courses, etc. that won't sell. What's up, bloggy
00:24
friends? Famous Ashley Grant here, and today
00:26
I want to talk about creating products for your
00:29
blog readers. If there's one thing that holds
00:31
promising entrepreneurs back from leveling up
00:34
their business, it's this, a lack of confidence
00:37
in creating and selling products. Sure, you think
00:41
that new course, ebook, or workshop is a great
00:44
idea, but how do you know it will sell? If you're
00:48
like me, you don't even want to imagine spending
00:50
weeks or even months of time plus the cost of
00:53
document design, video editing, and all the other
00:55
pieces that go along with it, only to discover
00:58
that it's not what your audience wants or needs.
01:02
You know, that feeling would be really frustrating.
01:04
And that's why I want to share a couple of ideas
01:08
that you can use to move forward without leaving
01:11
it to chance. There are plenty of ways to test
01:14
your idea before spending the time and energy
01:17
on a full launch. In fact, I tested a few of
01:20
these ideas before spending time launching, and
01:22
I think these insights will help you create and
01:24
launch your own products for your blog readers.
01:30
Now, the first one may seem a little bit obvious,
01:31
but the first and best method to get started
01:35
is simply to ask your readers if they want what
01:38
you're thinking about selling. It's the simplest
01:41
way to get a feel for what your readers want
01:43
and need. You can create a survey on SurveyMonkey
01:47
or even a Google form and send it out to your
01:49
mailing list. Or if you don't have a mailing
01:51
list yet, but you do have an engaged community
01:54
on social media, you could post a survey link
01:57
on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Now for best
02:00
results, what you're going to want to do is ask
02:02
things simple like, what are you struggling with?
02:05
What's your preferred learning method? Do you
02:08
like to learn with video, text, audio? How do
02:11
you prefer to learn? And you could also say something
02:14
like, what do you feel the training or product
02:16
that you're considering with launching is worth?
02:19
For example, let's say you're thinking about
02:21
launching an ebook about how to be a blogger.
02:23
You could ask your readers, if you were to release
02:26
something like that, how much they think it would
02:28
be worth. And that could be something that could
02:30
be your jumping off point for your price. These
02:35
three survey questions will tell you a lot that
02:37
you need to know in order to create a program
02:39
or book or some kind of product that's practically
02:42
guaranteed to sell. Another thing you could add
02:46
to your survey is something along the lines of,
02:49
if I were to create a product, what would you
02:54
want? They say that the best way to sell something
02:57
is to give people exactly what they ask for.
03:00
By the way, I just want to give a quick side
03:02
note here. As a blogger, you need an email list
03:04
if you want to do this full time. That is unless
03:07
you're doing what I'm doing and ghost blogging.
03:09
I have to say I've been very fortunate to skate
03:12
by without an email list because of the type
03:14
of work that I've been doing for my clients.
03:16
However, even I recognize that based on my work
03:19
with them, that the money really is in the email
03:22
list. In fact, it's why I'm planning still on
03:26
preparing my own email acquisition campaign for
03:29
my own websites. All right, we'll save the email
03:33
list talk for another episode. I want to get
03:35
back to the best ways to test your product ideas.
03:40
The next best way to test your product idea with
03:44
your audience is to listen to their complaints.
03:47
If you have a community or a part of one with
03:50
potential ideal clients, you should pay attention
03:53
to what they're asking about the most. For example,
03:56
let's say you have a Facebook group and you're
03:58
constantly sharing your blog posts with your
04:01
readers and they're always asking the same questions
04:04
in your comments. That could be the basis for
04:07
an awesome book, another blog post, a sponsored
04:10
pitch, anything. Or if you're in a Facebook group
04:14
and you're a craft blogger and people keep asking
04:17
questions about things like how to sell crafts
04:19
on Etsy or where to get the best supplies to
04:23
make your crafts a little bit cheaper, then clearly
04:25
there's a need for training in that area. A third
04:29
way to test your product ideas is to actually
04:34
launch a sales page with a test offer. If you
04:38
have been thinking about launching a course or
04:40
a book, you could announce it and put it up on
04:43
a sales page to see whether or not anyone has
04:45
an interest in it. I personally did this with
04:48
a course a long time ago, and I actually sold
04:50
two seats in a workshop before I ever recorded
04:53
a single session for it. In fact, one of the
04:55
things you can do is pre -launch a book on Amazon.
04:59
Amazon allows you to pre -launch, and you can
05:02
pre -sell it up to 90 days in advance. Of course,
05:05
if you don't load your book 10 days prior to
05:08
its official publication date, the pre -orders
05:10
are canceled. And the other thing you need to
05:13
know is if you do choose to go this route, you
05:15
won't be allowed to do pre -order sales for a
05:17
full year afterwards if you decide to take it
05:21
offline instead of actually launching the book.
05:24
But the thing is, this is a great way to test
05:26
the waters with your audience if you want to
05:28
make sure that you'll make money before putting
05:31
in a bunch of effort. I did have a friend that
05:34
did this and they then sold so many that they
05:38
only had a month to write and launch their book.
05:41
But if you're looking for a way to give yourself
05:44
a kick in the pants and light a fire under your
05:46
butt, it's a great way to go ahead and put it
05:50
out there, offer it for sale, and then get to
05:53
work. Another way of pre -selling that I've seen
05:56
is using GoFundMe or Kickstarter or some other
05:59
crowdsourcing, crowdfunding website. One of my
06:03
bloggy friends had a Kickstarter up before he
06:05
even started working on his book. Once it was
06:08
fully funded, then he got to work, sharing updates
06:11
along the way while creating fabulous blog content
06:14
to give his audience a front row seat to the
06:16
behind the scenes work that it took to write
06:18
and publish it. The possibilities with this are
06:21
completely endless. The final way I want to share
06:25
of how to test your idea before you launch is
06:28
to study other bloggers and what they did when
06:30
they launched their products and books for sale.
06:34
They might have even documented it and you can
06:36
get an insider's look into how they went about
06:39
selling it to their audience. If you don't already,
06:42
you should create a list of bloggers, social
06:44
media influencers, maybe even your top competitors.
06:48
and start reading their blogs, their emails,
06:50
lurk in their Facebook groups. Hell, you might
06:52
even want to buy their products. This is a great
06:55
way to gain insight into what they're doing,
06:57
not to copy them, but to discover what's working,
07:00
what's selling, and what people are getting excited
07:02
about. If you do consider buying their products,
07:06
obviously you never want to copy them, but it
07:09
could give you a chance to get your feet wet
07:11
by promoting their product as an affiliate. Not
07:14
only will this help you test the waters of marketing
07:16
and selling, but it will give you a feel for
07:18
what's missing and what you could do better.
07:23
From there, you can go and create a better, more
07:26
comprehensive version of the products you're
07:28
already selling or that they're selling. And
07:31
if you don't want to be an affiliate, you can
07:33
bypass that idea completely and dive right into
07:36
creating something better than the competition.
07:38
Who knows, you might be able to create a light
07:41
or lower cost version of the book or course or
07:44
whatever it is that you're seeing and hit the
07:47
ground running with your target audience. If
07:50
you take nothing else from this episode, please
07:52
hear this. Creating products in a vacuum is a
07:56
great way to waste a lot of time and money on
07:59
books, workshops, courses, etc. that won't sell.
08:03
And what I mean by in a vacuum is where You get
08:06
the idea, you work hard on it, you launch it,
08:09
and you sell to crickets. Instead, pay attention
08:13
to what your blog readers are already asking
08:15
for, find out what they're willing to pay for,
08:18
and delve into your competitors' offers. The
08:21
information you gain from these activities alone
08:24
will give you incredible insight into your market,
08:27
what they need, what they want, and what's not
08:29
out there, and then you can go and make it easy.
08:32
to create your own hot selling products for your
08:35
blog readers. I really hope that this episode
08:38
inspires you to look into something like creating
08:42
your own products or books or whatever for sale.
08:46
You don't have to be the smartest person in the
08:48
room. You just have to know a little bit more
08:50
than the people that you're creating things for.
08:53
I believe in each one of you, my bloggy friends,
08:55
and I know you have greatness within you. Until
08:58
next time, may your page views be high and your
09:01
bounce rate be low.