#084: How to WIN at Selling Digital Products Online

If you sell products, or you are thinking about creating products to sell, today's episode is the episode for you.  Selling products involves learning about landing pages, tripwires, opt-ins, sales emails, and how to promote those products.  To get a leg up on all this, you're going to want to listen in as my good friend and popular podcast guest, Monica Froese, and I talk all things product sales.  In case you missed it, Monica and I chatted on a recent episode about how to make Promoted pins work for you.  Creating Successful Opt-In Landing Pages When Monica creates an opt-in email landing page, she wants it to be very bold and clear.  She doesn't want there to be any question about what the reader is getting for free, and where they need to enter their email address.  Monica's most successful opt-in is her process on how she plans her goals for the entire year. This opt-in is a 14-page PDF that goes over how she plans for her family, herself, and her business.  Monica has experimented with every different opt-in page possible. The longer form opt-in has gotten slightly better conversions for her. She does prefer the embedded opt-in for her Promoted pin campaigns.  Monica uses the app, Proof, which is a paid plug-in software. Proof enables a pop-up that shows how many people have chosen to opt-in. She uses this on all her opt-in pages because it's an easy way to give social proof, without quoting testimonials.  How to Create Successful Sales Pages  The second type of landing page that Monica uses are sales pages. The length of the landing pages depends on the product. For more expensive products, Monica will provide more information and images.  Monica sometimes provides a video of what exactly the user will be paying for. These videos are about a minute and a half, where she talks briefly about how the product will benefit them if they buy it.  She also puts seasonal spins on her products. Pinterest is very seasonal, so adding any kind of seasonal keywords is always a great idea.  Because Monica is driving a cold audience to these products from Pinterest, she also provides a freebie on the landing page. This allows them to walk away with something, even if they aren't ready to buy just yet.  If they choose to enter their email address, they are automatically taken back to the original landing page and have the opportunity to purchase the product for a discounted price for a very limited time.  This is called a tripwire.  If they choose not to purchase, Monica sends them an email talking more about the product after they download their freebie.  Monica's Email Progression Monica has a strategic series of emails she sends to those who decide to download her goal-planning process.  Email #1 - contains the link to the download Email #2 - is another offer for the tripwire, sometimes at the discounted price and sometimes with a different discount Email #3 - is a value-add email, directing you to more free content or another freebie Email #4 - is typically sending you to an affiliate link, providing you a freebie for someone else's content Email #5 - is either another value-add or Monica's welcome sequence Large Product Landing Page  The landing page for Monica's most expensive course (her $500 Promoted pin course) is a very long-form page. The main reason for that is because Monica is asking them to make a very large investment.  They need to know more about what she is offering and why they should purchase.  She has about 6 testimonial videos on that page. These testimonials allow the user to see what can be achieved through the course.  Monica talks about the pain points that her product can solve and how her product is different from other products on the market.  All throughout the sales page, she has "Buy Now" buttons. She has it on the page at least 6 or 7 times.  Monica plans to use Hotjar, which is a heatmap of your sales page to see where people are clicking and where people are falling off the page, with her next launch. We use HotJar at MiloTree and it's extremely helpful.  Using Pinterest To Sell Your Products Monica always says that there is not a lot of control over the ads on your site.  And the things about ads is that you are sending people away from you. She wants to be keeping people in her house and promoting her own products. Pinterest makes it very easy to brainstorm product ideas. You never want to copy anyone, but you can gain great inspiration.  Do keyword research and look at what problems the other bloggers are solving. You can either do something better or just gain great ideas.  Sometimes people are afraid to ask for money for products that other people are offering for free. But almost all of Monica's lower-end products can be found for free on Pinterest.  Pinterest's product pins have around a 40% higher click-through rate. Your product doesn't have to be super expensive. As a user, Monica gravitates toward paid pins because it will be a quicker win.  Using Pinterest to do your research allows you to know what problems people are having and how you can solve them. A lot of times you are already solving the problem and you just need to repackage it into a paid product.  In order to use product pins or rich pins, all you need is a business account on Pinterest.  Make The Yes Easy for Your Reader I love Monica's landing pages. And yet she is admittedly not a "website guru" or an expert coder. She takes advantage of products like Leadpages to create her amazing landing pages.  The thing about landing pages is that it takes away all the clutter. There aren't sidebars full of buttons. There is no navigation bar. You're asking the reader to do one thing and one thing only. When you are putting money behind something, you want it to be super clear what you want. You don't want the reader to experience any confusion at all.  Most of all, you just want to make the "yes" easy for your audience.  Action Tip My challenge for you is to scroll through your Pinterest feed and go to some landing pages. Sign up for opt-ins that look good to you and learn from what that blogger is doing.  Monica's are some of my favorites so I want you to look for hers specifically, but you can learn from others, too.  Notice how your favorite bloggers set up their landing pages. Read the email series they send you after signing up. Make a swipe file of those emails so that when you get ready to sell your products. Definitely refer to those emails as you create your own. The great thing about the internet is you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Look at what's working for others, and use the same techniques. Previous Episodes with Monica Froese   #030: The Easiest Ways to Make Money as a Blogger with Monica Froese (Part 2) #029: How to Start a New Business When You're A New Mom with Monica Froese (Part 1) #072: How to Make Promoted Pins Work for You With Monica Froese     What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! TIMESTAMP   Intro  1:18    The Control of Paid Advertising  4:48    Creating Successful Landing Pages  11:50  Creating Sales Pages  20:50  Monica's Email Progression  24:53  Large Product Landing Page   34:24  Creating Products and Using Pinterest To Sell   41:50  Make The Yes Easy    43:00  Action Tip TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Be clear on your landing page about what you want the reader to do; what they're getting and where to put their information. Use video, testimonials, seasonal text, and tripwires on your sales pages. Create a strategic email funnel that keeps the reader interested and draws them back to your products. If you don't know what product to create, use Pinterest to research a problem you can solve with a paid product.