I need help marketing my guitar course for beginners

[Choate]

The funny thing is, everyone is only saying $97 is too high of a price because of the way you present your product. If I walked you through a home which had discolorations on the wall, dog shit on the floor, dishes which weren't done, a bathroom in dire need of a remodeling, a lawn that wasn't cut, furniture which didn't go well with the living space, and it was a rainy day to boot - you are going to laugh when I have an asking price of $400,000 - and likely low ball me or walk away completely.

Despite the home being built in 2010, being structurally sound, in a good neighborhood, good schools, and being perfect size for a family, it just will not sell. Did I mention that no one can even find the name of the road its on because its way too damn long and hard to remember? (hint: your URL) Your product is essentially the same exact thing.

Your website is the dog shit on the floor (not literally, just throwing in a little humor here). Your copywriting is the uncut grass coupled with the rainy day outside. The lack of videos and pictures is in essence, the poor choice of furniture and layouts for the house.

But we know the house is still structurally sound, and I have a feeling that you still have a very legitimate product to offer people. So what gives?

At this point, the intrinsic value of your product is irrelevant, what matters is the perceived value. You have done everything you can to create something that will legitimately help someone in the right hands. That's the intrinsic value of the product. But your product has very little in way of perceived value. High intrinsic, low perceived.

So let's flip it using your own example: you purchased a $130 business course which you felt cheated because it only had 100 pages of text, duplicated video, and didn't even have a fancy cover. Why? High perceived value, low intrinsic value. It seemed like it was worth it because it had a mark down from $400, is a trending topic, had something that triggered you to emotionally buy it, and it just happened to be in the right place at the right time when the right person found it. Coincidence?

All you need to do is work on your perceived value, because its obvious that you feel passionate about your course. $97 might not be too high. You could very well have a $299 product on your hands. The higher you price it though, the higher your perceived value must be. With your current website, that product is worth nothing. Not even free. If you can work on everything everyone is telling you, then you can figure out the maximum price that you can put it so that when the right person lands on it at the right time, they will have a high chance of pulling the trigger.

 

[jon.a]

I'd do utube vids and post on FaceBook.
I'm a guitar beginner, I'd like to see your site.

 

[AndrewNC]

Most of the people who take my NLP Practioner training course found me by free content I put out across the internet.

SEO - I'm just starting this, but my mentor says it may take 6 months before noticing results.
YouTube -
Paid traffic to an email list
Going to local networking events and helping people for free.

That's what I'm doing.

 

[Thiago Machado]

Learn the principles of design.

You're using many different colors.
Your copy is weak.
Your cover looks like it was made on microsoft paint.
Your other cover looks like a cheesy 80's VHS.
What's up with the arrows?
You left the PNG checkered mark on the 60 day guarantee. That is a rookie mistake.
Image sizes change way too much. Some I can't even see. Others are in my face.
No proper structure. Things oscilate way too much.

Sure, $97 may not be much to you. But your MARKET determines how much it's valued at. I did a Google search and found an entire course for free, that offers more than what you're offering. Again, why should I pay you $97?

Finally: So, how much of my hard earned cash do you want, Johnny?

Really? Must I explain this part of your sales page? Your call to action is "how much of my hard earned cash do you want, Johnny"

Excuse me if I appear to sound harsh, but you were given constructive criticism at it's finest in this thread and you're focusing on getting page views and justifying why your sales page looks amateurish. Take the advice and work upon it. Let your ego aside. We're trying to help you by showing you what's wrong and you're shifting your focus to things that don't matter.

 

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[Choate]

website problems: outdated look, lacks structure, URL is bad, poor copywriting (create a problem in your customers mind, describe in vivid detail the benefits of your service and put a picture in their mind how it will help them, then sell the solution), lack of authority on the subject (whether you are or not), only one buy button (way at the bottom of the page, after the customer is likely bored of reading), no videos, I don't know who you are or what you look like. "So, how much of my hard earned cash do you want, Jonny?" - no, just no. Now you're just reinforcing that their money is valuable and they should think twice before making this purchase. your website is way, way too logical. people buy off of emotions. specifically, anger, awe, and anxiety. you don't present any of these. for example. you could strike anxiety as in "practice doesn't make perfect - practice makes permanent" - triggering a fear that if they don't do it the right way, they will forever ingrain bad habits. and now, here is how my product benefits you. your whole landing page is nothing more than a bunch of "features", a slapped on money back guarantee that doesn't seem convincing, and a single buy button.

market problems: who is your target audience? why will they feel comfortable in their current stage of practice to buy your product? what if they don't feel they are even ready to tackle it? do they have the money to purchase a $97 course? is there even a need or want for such a product?

product problems - why would I pay $97 for your product? I bought a guitar for less than that. I don't want to read 282 pages of guitar lessons to get better. You list that first, so I take that was being the bulk of your product. By the way, what the hell are we learning for songs? I can YouTube learn any song I want, so what if I don't like the songs you are teaching me? And all those illustrations, man I am scared of them already. And there's hundreds more!? Shit. *clicks X* Oh by the way, I need Windows Media Player to watch any of the videos (the most important part of your offering)? I am on a Chromebook. I don't even think I can use WMP on a Chromebook. I'm out. What about Apple? Can people on Apple even watch that?


Solution: Create a new domain name, perhaps JonnyMontoya.com. Write free articles and create free videos and become an authority figure. Read Psychology of Influence and Cashvertising so that your copywriting on your landing page isn't repulsive. Have your website professionally created or rework it from scratch using something like WordPress. Pay for a premium theme + simple logo. Rebrand the whole course so it isn't named "Play Songs Correctly on Guitar". Create regular content showing off your personality and charisma as to gain followers and loyal subscribers, people who can attest for you. Make your website compelling, strike your audience's emotions, and make it easy for them to buy.

Just random thoughts, tried to keep it condensed for ya.

 

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[The-J]

I'll bet you that if you condense what you've been "given" here today down, you just got for free way more value than that course you took.

Except we're not very nice about it. We made Johnny here feel like he wasted his time.

Which is fine. I've wasted my time on shit that wouldn't work because I was the one in the way of making it work.

Sometimes it ain't just the offer: it's you. Your mindset, your ideas about what constitutes 'value' in the marketplace, your approach to actually validating it in the market.

The offer CAN be made good! It can be improved! It can be turned from this dog shit to something quite nice, something people would be BEGGING to pay $97 for!

I know this because there is a huge market of people out there who wanna learn how to master the guitar. But OP needs to focus on whom he's trying to provide value for. Just making a guitar course won't do it. But I bet after taking on 100 guitar students with a new mindset of providing value, he'll figure out what they have in common. Why?

1) He has access to a starving crowd, and

2) He is learning the actual frustrations of students at multiple levels!

OP: you'll get it right, but you gotta keep your eyes on the road.

 

[Mikkel]

I haven't seen your Youtube page but I feel that you could just put out videos like, "Chords to Stair Way to Heaven" and you will gain more views that way. Plus, you can virtually release an unlimited amount of content. People will like your videos on just simply the chord progression videos that they MAY be looking for you to go more in depth about guitar just in general. That is were your offer can come in.

The key with all social media, and all businesses is to provide more value then what you are asking for in price. If you can gain enough of a viewing on how to do chord progressions on a single song, you have a perfect way to advertise your course.

You can also use Instagram or Snapchats platform to shoot short clips of you playing a song and it will say something like "learn how to play this song at *your youtube channel*) Which will have your advertisement for your courses.


All other avenues are not my strong points, so that's my two cents

 

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[jon.a]

Wow, is it really that bad? What is it about it that gives such a bad impression?

Now remember, you might be a good player, and even a good teacher, but that doesn't make you a good business person.

Your site looks...
cheap
over priced
way too complicated
amateurish

I'm not qualified to guide you in fixing it.
We have the talent here. But it will take the help of several folks.

Product development
web design
marketing
sales
everything

 

[ZCP]

Only guitar above the fold is in your title block.
Your tab graphic makes it look like you press down ON the fret.... does not match the picture.
What if I am left handed?
What 6 songs?
$97! Ha, ha, ha...... who the hell is johnny Montoya? Google says its a CPA.
-------------
Probably a great product. Try again on the pitch.

 

[jon.a]

I'll bet you that if you condense what you've been "given" here today down, you just got for free way more value than that course you took.

 

[Thiago Machado]

@biophase just said 52 pages is a complete turn-off. (I think so too.)

A beginner just wants to know how to play a song, not read 52 pages of a pdf.

To approach beginners, you need to make them achieve something small, yet meaningful first. Once they have accomplished a smaller goal, they gain the motivation to pursue a larger one.

And unfortunately, most of the things you're saying does not come from your potential customer's perspective, but from your own.

YOU think that's what they want.
YOU "know" what's best for them.

The moment I stumbled upon this thread I could tell that you are only focused on yourself

Your call to action was: "so how much of my hard earned cash should I fork over Johnny?"

I still had faith that with a little bit of direction you'd "get it". But it doesn't look like it.

Therefore, I am not going to give any more input on this thread. It's a waste of my time.

Many of us have personally told you what's wrong and how to fix it.

Yet, you insist on doing things your way.

If we tell you that the sales page needs to be fixed, you say you're going to focus on getting more Youtube views and that everything looks fine.

If we tell you to dumb down the content, you assure us that 52 pages is enough and what your audience needs.

I wish you the best.

Good luck!


P.S. watch this

 

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[Johnny1975]

Well that's unfortunate Thiago, because between my responding to amp0193 and reading your post, it all clicked. All of you are right. I get it now.

My sales pages is too complicated
My course is too long, and it makes everything seem harder than it is
My call to action sounds as if I'm only thinking of myself (although in my defence, it was my way of acknowledging that their money is hard earned and not to be taken lightly)

You haven't wasted your time. It's just that I have strong convictions and when I don't get something or I disagree, I can't just pretend that I do. Don't assume that just because I'm "arguing back" that it means I'm not taking everything in. I'm simply saying exactly what's on my mind. This is just a conversation, with everyone being candid. You're all being harsh (not a bad thing) and I'm being a bit defensive. Nothing wrong with any of that. No need to give up on me. You have the luxury of having some success in what you're doing, whereas I'm a nobody and surely you must remember what it was like to struggle at the beginning. I may kick and scream a lot but I things do eventually click in my mind. There's a lot more going on than my responses. I really am thinking about what people are saying in between posts. I'm having a hard time. I feel like you've all broken me down and although it's probably going to do me a lot of good in the long term, right now I'm just like, what the hell do I do. The thought of going back and redoing this course is dreadful. Surely there has to be a fairly simple way that I can salvage this project and make at least a bit of money from this somehow. I don't know.

 

[jon.a]

Hi, I do already have a youtube channel associated with the course, and I have quite a few videos there, but if I add more I'd be giving away the content of the course. When you say post on facebook, how would that attract potential customers? I mean, how would people notice me? I've tried advertising there but I didn't get any results, although it is cheaper than google adwords.


Here's the link to my sales page :

http://johnnymontoyaguitarcourses.com/playsongscorrectlyonguitar/

I hope it's ok to link to it.

It should be okay to post the link, you've been here a while.

It's really bad...
I hope that my saying that might encourage some more qualified to help folks to go take a look.

You're up against some really strong much higher quality competition.

I wouldn't be interested in your course for free.
Sorry, it needs to be completely repackaged.

 

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[The-J]

You're up against stiff competition, especially on Clickbank. There's tons of music tutoring offers there.

Your landing page sucks, but your offer is worse.

Holy hell does your offer suck.

First, I have no idea who you are. I'd pay for Kirk Hammett or someone like that to teach me how to play guitar. But... who are you?

Second, you're gonna teach me 6 songs for $97?! Only 6?

I can get access to tabs of pretty much every song for less!

Third, the kinds of videos that you're showing already exist in some form on Youtube.

60-day guarantee, eh? In 60 days, I can learn to read tabs, a little bit of basic music theory, and watch Youtube tutorials on how to play my favorite popular hit songs of the 80s, 90s, and today.

$97 for what, dude?

You know what I'd pay $97 for? I'd pay $97 for you to be in my house teaching me how to play...

...but not for this.

I might pay $17 for what you've got to offer. What's worse is that people who are interested in learning guitar usually end up looking at Youtube first. "how to play stairway to heaven on guitar" "how to play wonderwall on guitar" you know, stuff like that.

Go back to the drawing board, your offer is shit and if you even got one sale, I'm surprised.

 

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[Jeremy Groover]

This is what has been said so far about my sales page :

It's cheap and amateurish - I don't know what that means. How is it cheap and amateurish? The cover for the course itself, yes I get that it looks amateurish, but the sales page? How? I think it looks great. If I knew what was meant by cheap / amateurish, I would at least be able to address that.

You have WAY too much going on with all of it. Keep it simple and straight to the point. Also, if you give away too many technical terms, what stops someone with a little extra time just googling those terms?

It needs a video - Agreed.

It needs a few vids of excited people who either looked liked they enjoyed the course or actually did.

It needs testimonials (offer the course for free in return) - I guess that would help. But I don't know how I would go about doing that, and how I could get people to see my free offer. Without knowing how to get people's eyeballs in front of my page / anything I have to say, nothing can happen.

This is somewhere you will spend the most money upfront. If you go too cheap the process will take a lot longer then needed and you might miss the opp. Spend a few dollars and narrow down your demographics. Create a hashtag for people to use. Spend a lot of time "pushing" the page on social media by liking a ton of your demographics pics, tagging bigger pages so that when your demos look in the "pics of XXXX" it will show up. Comment on your demos pages and pics. Get your name all over peoples devices.

It's too complicated / technical / overwhelming - I don't know what that means. It looks pretty straightforward to me. If I knew what the issue was, I could address it.

Dumb it down a little. Your writing from an experienced point of view. Imaging someone marketing a new time machine and blabbering off all of the specs with capacitor sizes and mumbo jumbo that no one understands. Thats what your doing. You are boring people with all the techy talk and your probably scaring off a few people by it as well. Tech talk can be overwhelming and uninviting. Your class for beginners looks like its trying to be sold to someone with a little more then the beginner skills or understanding.

My course is too expensive for what it is - Perhaps, but what is my course about? Is it about learning 6 songs? No, it's not. It's about learning how to play songs correctly on guitar (hence the title), and the 6 songs are vehicle for achieving that. The sales page does explain that.

About my cover. I'm aware that it looks a bit, shall we say, home made. But if you look at it and see the title and subtitle, and read the sales page, you can see that it's very clear what the course is about. I'm teaching people who have just started playing how to play chords properly, how to change chords (a common issue for beginners), and how to learn a song. The 6 songs are there to illustrate everything that I have to teach, as well as giving a basic repertoire to get them started. It's not about the songs.

The reason why I made the course the way I did, was because when I paced up and down in my lounge wondering what a beginner on the guitar needs the most, the answer that came to me was : have something to show (repertoire) and be able to play songs so that they sound good, aka playing them properly. I was originally going to make it 24 songs, but I decided against that as the course would be huge, considering that I'm breaking everything down a lot.

Even with 6 songs, there's 4 hours of videos and almost 300 pages. With 24 songs it would be a hell of a lot more and that's just way too much. So I decided to streamline on the number of songs so that they can stay focused. Sometimes less is more, as long as you keep the focus on the most important things. Not to mention that the 9 1/2 months that it took me to make this course would have increased by a lot. But I should also point out that as the course progresses, I do mention other songs.

I don't know what someone would think about my course if they just casually skimmed through the sales page (especially if they're not my target audience), and I'm not expecting anyone here to take the time to do so as you probably have better things to do and I understand that, but I would like to think that if someone who is my target audience who takes the time to go through it would understand what my course is about. And honestly, I don't think the sales page is too long or too complicated. I just don't see it. I think it says everything that's necessary, no more no less. But if there's something I'm missing, do let me know, it's just that right now I don't see a problem.

Also, when I looked at other sales pages for guitar courses on clickbank, seriously most of them suck. A lot of them don't even have the "CLICKBANK TRUSTED SECURE" badge at the top of the page, which is a requirement by clickbank. They're sloppy and they don't seem to have really made an effort. I think my page looks clean, clear, well organized and structured and a pleasure to look at, but again, if I'm missing something, if I'm just really biased or wishful thinking (it can happen), then maybe someone could really explain what's wrong with it.

As for the price, yes maybe it's too much. But do think it's worth more than $17, definitely.

These are my thoughts on the feedback that I've had so far, and my main 2 points are that I think that I've definitely done a lot of things right, and that I don't see how my page is amateurish or complicated.

You ranted a little on this. You can think you have a million dollar idea and if people are only willing to pay $100.00 for it then you have a $100.00 idea. I don't remember the technical "business" terms for this but you have a fluctuation of a few things that you need to find harmony in. The amount you can charge for something vs the amount of people that will buy it for that price. Basically look at it like this. You have 100 people buying it for $1000.00 or you can have 10,000 people buy it at $40.00. I would rather sell it at $40.00 if 10,000 people will buy it. Find the right ratio and make your money. You can only squeeze so much out of the market. I understand that you have time devoted to this and you want to cash in on your hard work, but it looks to me like your trying to cash in a little too early and your trying to make money too quickly. This is not an overnight success or a ground breaking idea. It has been done time and time again. Add value to the product by making it different then others, more user friendly, more satisfying, better support, or a tighter niche that hasn't been concord. You have to find something to set it apart and just because you think that you did doesn't mean that you did. I'm not trying to be mean or shoot you down, but this has been done before. Make it unique, revamp the idea or take it back to the drawing board. Prefect it sell it then prefect it again and again and again. Maybe offer updates for that $97.00. Something, anything to set it apart from the competition.

Chevrolet Suburbans and Cadillac Escalades cost less then $2000.00 difference to make yet the Escalade sells for almost 40k more then the Suburbans. Why you ask? Its offers a certain persona. It isn't much different, but Cadillac has sold this idea of rich and wealthy with it. Create something like that, and you'll stand out. And yes I know that GM owns both makes. Its just the best example I could think of with my tired mind right now haha.


Jeremy

 

[MP_fLEX]

So much good info here, it's almost overwhelming how much stuff can be done to improve your situation.

Another suggestion is to break down that product into several smaller sections.
You can then sell them a-la-carte for say 25-30 bucks & then bundle them up for 1 lump sum at a discounted rate.

As mentioned before,
see for yourself what some successful instructors are doing:
http://www.rick-graham.co.uk/hd-video-guitar-lessons-store1.html

This guys is asking 20 bucks for 20 minutes of instruction bundled with backing tracks.
"Don't want that lesson? Great, here's 10 more that might interest you"
It's 200 dollars for the full package (vs 275 individually).


The other guitarist I came across on IG:
https://andyjamesguitaracademy.com/
As soon as you arrive on his page, there's a lead magnet along with a video & the USP. Lots of testimonials too.
The products themselves are about 40 bucks for say an hour or so worth of instruction. Everything looks high quality.

What stuck out most from these two is there is no technical guitar jargon up front on their sales pages.
There's no upstroke/downstroke charts, chord tabs, or any of that DMaj - CMaj music theory mumbo jumbo.

It's just a couple paragraphs of copy on what the lesson is about, what it can do for you, and what the package includes. Simple & to the point, which it to play guitar & be awesome.

 

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[biophase]

Holy crap! 52 pages for one song?

Sounds hard. Too hard for me!

I'm sure that's what someone's thinking when they see that.

Isn't that song a few chords? I feel like there's just way too much text and not enough images.

Also, a video would be much easier to learn from vs an ebook.

 

[Johnny1975]

I have created a guitar course for beginners, and I have joined Clickbank but so far I have had no affiliates. I don't know much about marketing and so I wonder if anyone could point me in the right direction. How can I get people to be aware of my course?

Also, is it ok if I post a link to the sales page to my course? Perhaps someone here who is experienced in marketing might be interested in some kind of arrangement.

Thank you.

 

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[juan917]

Now remember, you might be a good player, and even a good teacher, but that doesn't make you a good business person.

Your site looks...
cheap
over priced
way too complicated
amateurish

I'm not qualified to guide you in fixing it.
We have the talent here. But it will take the help of several folks.

Product development
web design
marketing
sales
everything

I checked out the site after reading this comment. Tbh I don't think its the WORST thing in the world just the fact that its mobile responsive makes it legit enough for me. A small video would make a world of difference IMO

 

[MP_fLEX]

I'm actually selling physical products for guitar. It has been an exhaustive grinder for the past year & a half but I've finally got some traction. Recently I've been getting interested in doing guitar lessons too in order to move over into something a bit more passive.


To me it sound like you might be going a too broad with the "beginner" audience. There's already plenty of free resources out there to learn guitar, you've got to at least give it a spin.

What I've seen working well is doing niche lessons on a certain style or a compilation of songs.

I recommend you check out what Rick Graham & Andy James are doing with their lesson products.

Take a look at how their product is packaged & presented. What types of lessons they're offering, their pricing structures, and that sort of thing.


Also as others mentioned, you should include a video of what you can do & offer your audience. The biggest thing here is to build up your credibility as an instructor.

A good way to start is with an Instagram account since it's free & gets an okay amount of interactions. Again check out those 2 guitarists & see what they're doing. They both have massive accounts with sky-high engagement.



As far as you website, I think you're getting a bit too technical with it. It is good content and all but it's overwhelming, especially if someone is just starting out.

Some testimonials are missing too, they shouldn't be all to hard to get by offering a few review copies of your product.
Build yourself a community on IG & reach out to other guitarists there. From my experience, the guitar community is steadily growing with so many new brands coming out ever other day. The opportunities are out there.

I hope that gives you a bit of insight. Feel free to message me if you have any questions. I'll be happy to share what I've picked up here and there.

 

[Thiago Machado]

This is my youtube channel :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSr3UONdG_HKa50tzTysELA/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

How can I get more views? I haven't put links to my sales page on the videos yet, but if I can get views I would do that.

You've gotten some feedback from others talking about how bad your sales page is. Focus on providing massive value first, then on monetizing + expanding.

P.S. What are more views going to do for you if everything else is out of place?

 

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[Thiago Machado]

P.S. If you ever want to make a quick landing page that looks AMAZING, I recommend this theme
https://themeforest.net/item/canvas-the-multipurpose-html5-template/9228123?s_rank=2

No special skills needed.

It's an HTML5 theme and comes with a builder.

Just drag and drop, tweak it with guitar stuff, and you're good to go.

So easy a caveman can do it.

 

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[Hai]

The biggest problem of any product is to get the first sale.
Find out how to get the first sale and then focus on getting more of those.
It´s simple as that.
Get feedback from beta testers.
The course doesnt need to be perfect, but you need enough sales to fund further improvement.

You put a lot of time into this, but now listen. Put it aside for some time.

Learn Marketing and Sales.
Learn Marketing and Sales.
Learn Marketing and Sales.
Learn Marketing and Sales.
Learn Marketing and Sales.

 

[amp0193]

I used to teach music lessons in schools and out of my house. I'm really good at teaching.

In my experience, I can make ONE thing better a lesson/song. ONE. If I ask them to fix their vibrato, then their bow is going to be shit. If i'm asking them to fix their bow, then their left hand is going to be shit. If I give them 52 pages of things to think about, there's going to be shit in their pants.

I wouldn't have had kids in my band class at the end of the year, if I made the 6th grader play one song all year, and made them do it CORRECTLY. I could easily have do this... there are so many damn things that can go wrong with one note, let alone a song. But it wouldn't be fun or interesting to the students, who just wanted to play Justin Bieber on their tuba.


Look, when I was in college, my lessons with my professor, that I paid $90/hour for, were exactly what you're describing. Detailed as hell, and really picking apart everything. I could take it, because I was super advanced, and was already thinking on that level. He wrote the most comprehensive, detailed, bare-bones-basic fundamentals book ever wrote for the instrument, and I bought it for $80. It sounds similar to your course. What you're marketing is a college level class to beginners, and I'm not sure it makes sense.

Maybe a better target audience would people who can already play the guitar pretty good and want to go back and un-do all the shitty self-taught habits they have, that have been holding them back, and really take it to the next level.

However, I think even that premise may be flawed, as advanced players wouldn't want to work on beginner level music. They'd want to fix their fundamentals while still doing fun/harder stuff.


I know you're passionate about this, especially because you've worked so long on it. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to continue working on it. That's called a Sunk-Cost Fallacy, read more here: https://foreverjobless.com/sunk-cost-fallacy/

 

[jon.a]

Well that's unfortunate Thiago, because between my responding to amp0193 and reading your post, it all clicked. All of you are right. I get it now.

My sales pages is too complicated
My course is too long, and it makes everything seem harder than it is
My call to action sounds as if I'm only thinking of myself (although in my defence, it was my way of acknowledging that their money is hard earned and not to be taken lightly)

You haven't wasted your time. It's just that I have strong convictions and when I don't get something or I disagree, I can't just pretend that I do. Don't assume that just because I'm "arguing back" that it means I'm not taking everything in. I'm simply saying exactly what's on my mind. This is just a conversation, with everyone being candid. You're all being harsh (not a bad thing) and I'm being a bit defensive. Nothing wrong with any of that. No need to give up on me. You have the luxury of having some success in what you're doing, whereas I'm a nobody and surely you must remember what it was like to struggle at the beginning. I may kick and scream a lot but I things do eventually click in my mind. There's a lot more going on than my responses. I really am thinking about what people are saying in between posts. I'm having a hard time. I feel like you've all broken me down and although it's probably going to do me a lot of good in the long term, right now I'm just like, what the hell do I do. The thought of going back and redoing this course is dreadful. Surely there has to be a fairly simple way that I can salvage this project and make at least a bit of money from this somehow. I don't know.

Okay, that's better.
Now stop.
Stop posting.
Take the rest of the day and all day tomorrow to review and absorb what everyone has given you here.
Come back on Thursday with your thoughts.

The correct response is "okay"

 

[Thiago Machado]

I'm not ungrateful. You misinterpreted my tone. See, this is why I rarely post on forums. It's a maze of misunderstandings.

I agree. It just seems like it though. It's seems as if you completely disregard what we say and then do what you think is best.
Be a little more open to suggestions from people.

Maybe a lot of us who shared our thoughts here would love to learn the guitar. We openely told you our objections as to why we would never buy from you.

Remember: feedback is king.

You'll know exactly what your customer's want if they open up their mouths. And on this thread, we've told you everything from various perspectives.

Sorry If I came a bit harsh.

No hard feelings.

I'm really just trying to help.

I know what it's like, so I can go a little overboard at times too. So I do apologize.


Let me help you out:

On your next project, be sure to VALIDATE YOUR IDEA BEFORE LAUNCHING.

See if people truly want what you're offering.

By doing this, you'll save yourself a lot of time and money. (No need to go all in for 9 months, only to realize that the marketplace doesn't quite value what you created.)

What you did was good. You asked for feedback from a marketing perspective. So just listen to us and implement what we told you that could be improved upon.

Here: http://www.appsumo.com/how-appsumo-was-built-for-50/

Also, you can benefit by reading about Scrum and A/B split testing. (especially scrum though)

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

I poked my head in here earlier to see what had changed or transpired. I was hoping (and frankly excited) to see some improvements on your course and your website but there's a lot of talking and not a lot of doing.

Get to it, brother!

Love to see progress. Let's see what you've come up with from this conversation!

 

[AmericanSpartan]

I briefly read through this thread, and I saw a lot of back and forth, but I think this info can help you, and help anyone that is providing value in the information business. I attended a webinar presented by Frank Kern and wrote down everything I thought of value to selling information online:

There are a few ways to market your content. Kern has it boiled down into five product types: Liquidator, Bread and Butter, Modulated Courses, Continuity, and Big Ticket Interactive.

Liquidator- These are usually under $30 and take the form of ebooks, special reports, etc. They are typically used as funnels to where other sales are made.

Bread and Butter- These are usually multimedia (pdf, video, audio) niche info products that come in one package (such as 'How to quilt a blanket' course with ebook and video tutorials). These are priced between $30-500.

Modulated Courses- Usually priced between $500-$3500. These are always multimedia and mission specific (accomplishes a specific task). The content is usually released in packets or modules over a set period of time (ex. one module per week). This reduces overwhelm for customers and allows complex ideas to be digested in short periods over time. (ex. 'How to Build an e-commerce/online quilting business using wordpress' course )

Continuity- These are membership sites that typically charge $10-300 per month. These deliver multimedia content to paid members. This can also include low-level coaching.

Big Ticket Interactive- Usually priced between $3500-100,000 (or less on a monthly basis). These are live, facilitated, modulated classes, live masterminds, or high level coaching. These always involve live interaction with you (or staff). These typically are for people faced with high barriers of entry that will pay BIG money to solve BIG problems for people.

This information will help refine your actual value-based product to deliver to the consumer, and how to do it.

Once you know the product vehicle you will use to give value to your costumers, here is how to find them.

Your market must meet these three qualities in order to hit a home-run: 1) irrationally passionate, 2) great in number, 3) easy to reach. I feel that beginner guitar players fit all three of these qualities.

Much like hunting or fishing, you need to know your target demographic to best reach them. When you nail your target demographic down, you accomplish the NEED commandment in CENTS. They already want to buy, you just need to get what they want in front of them.

Facebook is a great tool in finding how big your market is. Using their Ads Manager (which is free to mess around with), you can set up a campaign and get to the Audience section. From here the gem you want is 'detailed targeting' where you hunt demographics by type in your niche keywords and see how many people associate with them. For example, fishing has 12 million people who would be interested in buying fishing related products. With this tool, you can keep narrowing down your demographic in order to see how big a market is in a given niche.

Take a moment to write down your ideal customer. Are they male or female (or targeting both?), how old are they, what type of music do they like, what kind of things do they buy for leisure, what kind of music do they like. Seriously take a moment and put yourself in their shoes. Envision yourself as them, and write down what their ideal day would be. What excites them, motivates them, makes them happy or sad. You need to develop an intimate relation with them and understand how they think, and why they do what they do. Once you understand your IDEAL target audience, then you can start to know how to reach them, and how they want to be reached, and how to really get them excited about your product.

You can cast a net in open waters and hope for the best or you can decide on a specific fish, find out what he eats, where he lives, and go there, present a lure he likes, and actually catch a trophy!

Now, the details on the fundamental ways to deliver your content to your market with information based products.

There are only four types of webpages you need: Opt-in page, sales page, order page, and a content page.

Opt-in- this is where you present a free value offer to bring them to you in order trade your free offer for their email and establish an email list.

Sales page- where you present your sales letter or video

Order page- where they actually can order your product (where they go when they push the 'BUY NOW' button

and Content Page- a thank you page, articles, webinars, videos, lessons, etc

These four webpages are the workhorse in exchanging value for currency. This workhorse will become the machine to *passively* sell your products. In order to do this we must follow these steps:

1) Build a list (offer free content, lessons on youtube, etc to get people to give you their email because they WANT what you offer them for free. You offer them value by helping solve a need, and they want to continue this to receive more help by offering a way for you to contact them)

2) Sell them stuff using the email list BUT DONT BE SPAMMY OR NEEDY. Offer value based incentives. (four ways- linear, cycling, ascending, descending)

Linear- Offer value, get them to opt in, then drive them to a webpage to purchase or not.

Cycling- If you have multiple products, try offering one product, and if no response, offer another, and repeat or try multiple passes at selling the same product.

Ascending- offer free value to get opt-in, offer liquidator product, then bread and butter product, then modulated, etc. Offer inexpensive options and continue to build and offer more expensive/more value based options to purchase.

Descending- the opposite of ascending. Offer more expensive/higher value based items, and then lower less expensive options till they find a sweet spot they agree with and buy (also shows them what they can look forward to purchasing down the road)

The trick to making advertising work is to start small and scale!

Start small with 20-30 ads the first day, measure the analytics of the ad (did they opt-in, are they opening your emails, are they clicking on your website, are they engaged, did they buy, etc)

If they are, scale and monitor. If not, modify and try again.

***PEOPLE DON'T BUY YOUR PAST, THEY ARE BUYING YOUR ABILITY TO HELP THEIR FUTURE***

The best way you can help them is by helping their 'present.' Offer value to help them out for free. You want to develop a relationship with your customer. If you help them out, they will begin to build trust with you/your brand. The more you help them, the more they associate you with the value you provide. It's "give, give, pull." Provide value, help others, then, when the time is right, throw in that if they purchase your product, they can get a dense bundle of value all at once instead of desperately waiting for the next tidbit.

People can surf online and study for free, but time is valuable, and by saving them time, they will be willing to pay for it.

It all begins with helping another person first. Help them solve a tiny problem they have RIGHT NOW. Then solve another, then another. After a while, you will have a bundle of problems that you can package solutions for and offer that for a price saving people time and helping them out in a big way.

Don't try to offer the ultimate all inclusive guitar playing course. Start by offering a 'learn basic scales in a week' course, then 'learn basic chords in a week' course, etc... then bundle and offer a 'beginner guide to chords and scales' with a bit extra such as more practice drills, then scale up and offer 'music theory for guitarists' course, build, grow, bundle, scale. (liquidator> bread and butter > modulated course). Down the road, once you have a large enough base and are successful with your BRAND, offer branded guitar kits for beginners, picks, straps, etc. SCALE< SCALE< SCALE. It all begins with first solving one specific problem. Don't build an elephant off the bat, build the best trunk you can, the best eyeball you can, then best tail, legs, etc... and before you know it, the best elephant you can create will create itself!

 

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[AmericanSpartan]

I've been racking my brains trying to figure out how I would split this course up into separate, smaller products. It's impossible. Whichever way I split it, it ends up being not worth much. The only way is to have it all as 1 product.

Or how about if I just go ahead and simplify everything (which I'm going to do anyway), and then just put all the content on my site for free, as a series of pages covering individual bits, and then on the last page I offer a lead magnet, get people on a mailing list (although I have no idea what I would email them day after day or week after week - in fact I dread the thought), and then create another course, something more substantial and specific, something that I could justifiably charge a reasonable amount, and then sell that instead. And then go on twitter etc and post bits and pieces from the free course to get followers.

You won't have to think about what to deliver. Your audience will do that for you. Listen to them. Listen to their struggles and frustrations. Solve their problems. Find common problems and solve them. I am sure that if a few are struggling, others in your audience will as well. That is what you will give them. Send them solutions to problems. Tips, tricks. Even humor. Build a culture based community and it becomes easy. Then you just provide content others enjoy, that you know they will enjoy, because they will tell you what they want to receive if you listen.

 

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[The-J]

How much effort have you put into developing your ideal customer?

You want a beginner guitar player... but there's a lot of different kinds of beginner guitar players. There's the teenage boy who wants to get laid. There's the housewife with school-age children who is bored and wants to use her time to learn a skill. There's the 40-something dude who just bought a Strat and wants to live his youthful fantasies... but never played the guitar before.

Notice how their motivations are different? Guess what else is different? Their willingness to pay.

The teenage boy would rather spend his money on a cool looking instrument than a course and is unlikely to spend it on lessons of any sort. The housewife, though, doesn't really care what her instrument looks like and wants a tutor rather than a self-guided course. The 40-something guy probably feels like he doesn't need a tutor, but might feel like a self-guided course is right up his alley.

These are all guesses based on intuition, not truths, and MUST BE TESTED. I don't actually know the market. I'm not saying go after the 40-something dude; I'm saying try going after ALL of them and see which one actually buys your course.