Lex's Digital/Physical Product Group Accountability Thread

[KJFast]

I'm not running the original one any longer. I have a different site now that I'm not currently advertising until I find the right angle for it. So far, it has generated around $300. I also just launched a new course on Udemy. So far, it hasn't generated anything. I'm waiting for Udemy to run a promo to see how well it does (or if it's a big flop).

I'm glad you have a starting point. Feel free to share your progress here if you want. Everybody will be rooting for you.

How come you stopped the original one? And good to see you’re moving forward with digital products still.

I’ll keep sharing progress! Things are “tough” because I am doing everything off an iphone but soon I will get my laptop from my mums house to my dads along with an iPad to make things faster.

I’m going to test products out on marketplace sites (like etsy) because I have little money. A couple proven sales and reviews for the product(s) I make will provide all the funds I need. I’m not the best at websites but I have a good connection with a website developer who I can hire affordably.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

How come you stopped the original one? And good to see you’re moving forward with digital products still.

I’ll keep sharing progress! Things are “tough” because I am doing everything off an iphone but soon I will get my laptop from my mums house to my dads along with an iPad to make things faster.

I’m going to test products out on marketplace sites (like etsy) because I have little money. A couple proven sales and reviews for the product(s) I make will provide all the funds I need. I’m not the best at websites but I have a good connection with a website developer who I can hire affordably.

I let religion get in the way. Doesn't matter though. I could lose every dime I have, and I'd build it all again.

Once you have proven systems, then you can rebuild anytime you want. You just choose a system, start building it, and turn on the sales machine asap. If it's a dud, do another one and try again.

Etsy is good for starters. Get 30+ products live and turn on Etsy ads. There's a good chance you'll start earning sales. Once you have sales, increase your ad spend and get more targeted with the product you run ads for.

You don't need a website for now.

Some people build their entire business on Etsy. I don't recommend doing that in the long run, but it's a great way to test the waters in the beginning.

 

[Andy Black]

You don't need a website for now.

Some people build their entire business on Etsy. I don't recommend doing that in the long run, but it's a great way to test the waters in the beginning.

Smart.

And you're doing the same selling a course on Udemy.

Many wouldn't start, citing the commandment of control.

 

[KJFast]

I let religion get in the way. Doesn't matter though. I could lose every dime I have, and I'd build it all again.

Once you have proven systems, then you can rebuild anytime you want. You just choose a system, start building it, and turn on the sales machine asap. If it's a dud, do another one and try again.

Etsy is good for starters. Get 30+ products live and turn on Etsy ads. There's a good chance you'll start earning sales. Once you have sales, increase your ad spend and get more targeted with the product you run ads for.

You don't need a website for now.

Some people build their entire business on Etsy. I don't recommend doing that in the long run, but it's a great way to test the waters in the beginning.

Brilliant! Writing this down now into my notes for this biz. I’ll keep you all updated how progress is moving! Today I’m going to work on my current biz and not sure if I’ll have time this weekend but on Monday I can hop straight onto it! Will have my laptop (and possibly ipad) here then too.

 

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[Ludachris]

I'm working on a new idea to test out - similar to your t-shirt product idea Lex. It has to do with artwork, which will be available via digital download and also through a print on-demand service like Printify integrated in Wordpress.

Question for you Lex, have you made a product available as both a digital download AND a POD on the same e-com site? I'm debating on whether to start out with just Easy Digital Downloads plugin, and then later integrate a POD solution, or if I should set up both from the start to see which one works better. And if both, how to structure the e-com side of things so that I can offer both. It looks like EDD doesn't require Woocommerce, but if I set up a POD solution, I'll need Woo.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I'm working on a new idea to test out - similar to your t-shirt product idea Lex. It has to do with artwork, which will be available via digital download and also through a print on-demand service like Printify integrated in Wordpress.

Question for you Lex, have you made a product available as both a digital download AND a POD on the same e-com site? I'm debating on whether to start out with just Easy Digital Downloads plugin, and then later integrate a POD solution, or if I should set up both from the start to see which one works better. And if both, how to structure the e-com side of things so that I can offer both. It looks like EDD doesn't require Woocommerce, but if I set up a POD solution, I'll need Woo.

Why do you need EDD at all? WooCommerce can deliver digital downloads. EDD may have more options, but the free version of WC can handle them fine. Then you would only need WC and wouldn't have to deal with EDD.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Updates

Site 1: Had a few inquiries that might turn into sales, but mostly quiet. I'm still surprised by the number of people reaching the site organically. I'm also still getting clicks from ads even though the budget is set to .01.

Site 2: I set up my personal brand website since I had a few coaching inquiries. Not sure what I'll do with this, but may put courses on it.

Site 3: I reverted to an idea I had before relocating. It's a quiz site where I'll run ads to niche quizzes. The site isn't monetized. It's an affiliate site masquerading as a quiz site. The way I envision is like this... I find a topic with a lot of Google searches but not a lot of competition. For example...



Now, I create a quiz such as, "Which tiny house is right for you?" I run ads to the people who are searching for that. They click and take the quiz. At the end of the quiz, they get a result. Somewhere on the page is one or more affiliate offers.

Offer 1: Want to purchase this tiny house? Click here to get started...
Offer 2: Want to learn more about buying tiny homes? Try this course...

I also set up a "Sponsor a Quiz" page for businesses who want to advertise their products but who may not have affiliate offers. They'll be able to purchase a custom quiz that leads only to their specific products.

Later, I can monetize with my own courses or other products.

If I can get it off the ground, there will be endless opportunities to promote niche products. Plus, as a quiz site, it has potential viral appeal.

A key challenge in the beginning is that I'll probably spend money on ads without seeing a return until the site has enough regular traffic. I'll try to offset this by building an email list of people who want to take new quizzes as they roll out.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Site 1:
Made another $100 in sales from two customers. A potential customer reached out with questions, but hasn't completed their purchase yet. A 4th started into a $100 purchase but hasn't completed it yet.

The site recovered its initial ads investment, and is now passively profitable by $146 with $29 recurring.

It is doing much better than expected considering the lack of ads. I'll do some analysis this week to see how people are finding me, and how I can improve the results.

Site 3:
The site is built and the quiz function is mostly fleshed out. There are only 3 quizzes right now. I'm working slowly to make sure everything functions well. I added 3 relevant affiliate products just beneath the quiz results. I'm starting with Amazon affiliate products because that's what I'm already set up for, but later I'll move to better affiliate programs and mix in my own products/merch/courses etc. I'm not turning ads on for this one until I have 30 quizzes published so there's enough content to keep people engaged.

 

[KJFast]

Updates

Site 1: Had a few inquiries that might turn into sales, but mostly quiet. I'm still surprised by the number of people reaching the site organically. I'm also still getting clicks from ads even though the budget is set to .01.

Site 2: I set up my personal brand website since I had a few coaching inquiries. Not sure what I'll do with this, but may put courses on it.

Site 3: I reverted to an idea I had before relocating. It's a quiz site where I'll run ads to niche quizzes. The site isn't monetized. It's an affiliate site masquerading as a quiz site. The way I envision is like this... I find a topic with a lot of Google searches but not a lot of competition. For example...

View attachment 54421

Now, I create a quiz such as, "Which tiny house is right for you?" I run ads to the people who are searching for that. They click and take the quiz. At the end of the quiz, they get a result. Somewhere on the page is one or more affiliate offers.

Offer 1: Want to purchase this tiny house? Click here to get started...
Offer 2: Want to learn more about buying tiny homes? Try this course...

I also set up a "Sponsor a Quiz" page for businesses who want to advertise their products but who may not have affiliate offers. They'll be able to purchase a custom quiz that leads only to their specific products.

Later, I can monetize with my own courses or other products.

If I can get it off the ground, there will be endless opportunities to promote niche products. Plus, as a quiz site, it has potential viral appeal.

A key challenge in the beginning is that I'll probably spend money on ads without seeing a return until the site has enough regular traffic. I'll try to offset this by building an email list of people who want to take new quizzes as they roll out.

Funny, I’m looking into a tiny house for a future/current living solution though may opt for “house-hacking” shorter term instead

 

[KJFast]

Everything’s really clicked in my mind, my #1 priority at the moment is getting this biz up. Getting my laptop on Tuesday myself because an unreliable person didn’t bring it for me. Then will start immediately and report back.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Site 1: Sales are seeing a slight uptick. Three within the last day. I'll put most of my focus this week into Site 1 and work on the quiz site as time permits. Based on what I'm seeing, there are some actions I can take to increase sales.

- Review SEO and ensure the site is optimized
- Review all pages for flow and function
- Add FOMO plugin for social proof
- Add abandoned cart email series
- Add new products
- Add a few blog articles

If I see a few more sales, I'll go ahead and invest in an email marketing service to create automations. Currently, I'm only collecting emails through a contact form integrated with Google Sheets.

Overall, good signs.

Maybe Site 1 wasn't a dud after all. I still think it's probably too niche, but with a bit of elbow grease it might turn into a sustainable full-time income. So far, I haven't had any issues with chargebacks, but time will tell on that one.

 

[Simon Angel]

This thread is ADHD in a nutshell. Good luck with everything you're doing, bro.

 

[jarvisdiego]

oh wow, I guess my store got suspended.

Interesting because I provided all my info and have added the policy pages as well.

I can't log in to it, then I reached out to support and said they were going to get back to me and got this email...


View attachment 54213

UPDATE: I still can't recover this store.

New Product:

Have launched new site with new digital product just now. It's a spreadsheet template. I set a price of $97. It took me about 1-2 hours to create. Let's see how it performs.

 

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[KJFast]

UPDATE: I still can't recover this store.

New Product:

Have launched new site with new digital product just now. It's a spreadsheet template. I set a price of $97. It took me about 1-2 hours to create. Let's see how it performs.

I’m interested to see if people really pay £97 for a spreadsheet template!! I’ll have access to my desktop today/tomorrow so going to make the best of it and take my laptop to my dads house.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Subscribed to FOMO on the $25.00 plan. Made back most of it the same day with a $19 sale. Made a $78 sale overnight. The $19 sale came from someone I emailed after they failed to complete checkout.

I'm close to crossing $500 for the first month.

One of the sales came from a foreign country. I don't advertise in foreign countries normally, but might give it a shot since it's usually inexpensive.

Email Automation
Depending on how the next two days go, I'll probably go ahead and invest in an email marketing service for February. Right now, I'm considering MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, and GroundHogg.io.

ML is the cheapest of the three, but I don't know if it will integrate with all of my systems.

I have the most experience with AC, but don't like that it's $70/mo unless I pay annually.

GroundHogg.io is the best AC alternative, but requires an annual payment. The benefit of GroundHogg is it's an annual flat rate for unlimited subscribers. That's a big benefit considering AC goes from $49/mo to $99/mo if you cross 1,000 subscribers and goes up and up depending on how many subscribers you have. Personally, I think that's shit and it's one of the main reasons I ditched them to begin with.

I'll probably set up GroundHogg on a trial run this week. It's $600 annually, but if the trial goes well, it will be worth it.

 

[KJFast]

Struggling slightly to find a product, been searching etsy and fiverr but haven't found anything. Going to keep looking for the next 3/4h and days until I find something I think is doable.
I have found one thing but it would lack control; though may start on it this week and set that biz up. Would rather find a typical digital product I can sell through my own site eventually with google ads.

 

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[John Clancy]

Email Automation
Depending on how the next two days go, I'll probably go ahead and invest in an email marketing service for February. Right now, I'm considering MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, and GroundHogg.io.

ML is the cheapest of the three, but I don't know if it will integrate with all of my systems.

I have the most experience with AC, but don't like that it's $70/mo unless I pay annually.

GroundHogg.io is the best AC alternative, but requires an annual payment. The benefit of GroundHogg is it's an annual flat rate for unlimited subscribers. That's a big benefit considering AC goes from $49/mo to $99/mo if you cross 1,000 subscribers and goes up and up depending on how many subscribers you have. Personally, I think that's shit and it's one of the main reasons I ditched them to begin with.

I'll probably set up GroundHogg on a trial run this week. It's $600 annually, but if the trial goes well, it will be worth it.

FluentCRM is another decent WordPress-hosted email marketing solution if you're still in the research phase: Marketing Automation For WordPress - FluentCRM

I haven't used them personally, but Sendy and Mautic are two other self-hosted options that might be worth a look.

FYI, you'll need to set up an SMTP service alongside any of these options (SMTP2GO, Amazon SES, Mailgun etc.) for actually sending the emails.

Self-hosting generally works out much cheaper than any full-service platform once you hit a decent number of subs - or if you send emails regularly - but there is a bit more work involved to get it all firing correctly.

Subscribed to FOMO on the $25.00 plan. Made back most of it the same day with a $19 sale. Made a $78 sale overnight. The $19 sale came from someone I emailed after they failed to complete checkout.

I'm close to crossing $500 for the first month.

Well done! Great to see it

 

[Andy Black]

Subscribed to FOMO on the $25.00 plan. Made back most of it the same day with a $19 sale. Made a $78 sale overnight. The $19 sale came from someone I emailed after they failed to complete checkout.

I'm close to crossing $500 for the first month.

One of the sales came from a foreign country. I don't advertise in foreign countries normally, but might give it a shot since it's usually inexpensive.

Email Automation
Depending on how the next two days go, I'll probably go ahead and invest in an email marketing service for February. Right now, I'm considering MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, and GroundHogg.io.

ML is the cheapest of the three, but I don't know if it will integrate with all of my systems.

I have the most experience with AC, but don't like that it's $70/mo unless I pay annually.

GroundHogg.io is the best AC alternative, but requires an annual payment. The benefit of GroundHogg is it's an annual flat rate for unlimited subscribers. That's a big benefit considering AC goes from $49/mo to $99/mo if you cross 1,000 subscribers and goes up and up depending on how many subscribers you have. Personally, I think that's shit and it's one of the main reasons I ditched them to begin with.

I'll probably set up GroundHogg on a trial run this week. It's $600 annually, but if the trial goes well, it will be worth it.

Well done.

FOMO is a great name for a product or company. What is it btw?

 

[Lex DeVille]

Well done.

FOMO is a great name for a product or company. What is it btw?

It displays little pop-up boxes in the corner of your website that says stuff like, "John Smith from Texas just purchased new shoes 5 minutes ago" or "Beth J. just joined Space Rocket newsletter 1 minute ago."

It has other features, too but that's the main one. The little pop-ups are clickable links too, so if the user clicks it (and they do) they go straight to the product.

The pop-ups can be triggered by people starting checkout, viewing pages, purchasing stuff, joining newsletters, etc.

Fomo | Social Proof Marketing Platform

Fomo is the world's first social proof marketing platform.

fomo.com

 

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[KJFast]

Okay just gonna say F*ck it and go ahead with one idea I have accumulated today. Let's see how it goes, I'll document progress here. Got to secure the funds to start as I have little money but should get them soon!

 

[DCG]

I've been trying to update my products on woocommerce but the update button hasn't been working. I've been reasearching how to to fix it but nothing is working. If anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.

 

[kr8nt]

Lex, I would really appreciate if you could explain one detail from the process you described in your previous digital product thread that you used to find product ideas. I can't figure out this one thing.

To find an idea for a product, you browsed on the marketplaces and tried to find products with already proven sales that you knew could be made better and more niche. Now here's the part I can't figure out. How do you find out whether that specific niche you want to make a variation of the product for will actually need it?

 

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[KJFast]

Lex, I would really appreciate if you could explain one detail from the process you described in your previous digital product thread that you used to find product ideas. I can't figure out this one thing.

To find an idea for a product, you browsed on the marketplaces and tried to find products with already proven sales that you knew could be made better and more niche. Now here's the part I can't figure out. How do you find out whether that specific niche you want to make a variation of the product for will actually need it?

From what I gathered use google keywords bro

 

[kr8nt]

From what I gathered use google keywords bro

Thank you! Somehow completely forgot the keywords tool exists

 

[Lex DeVille]

How do you find out whether that specific niche you want to make a variation of the product for will actually need it?

If people buy the product on Etsy, then the *need* part is already determined. What you have to figure out is if the niche is large enough to not only earn sales, but to sustain and grow them.

You have to research each niche. There's no one right way to determine the size of a niche. Use online tools. Use Google. Use Facebook. Use forums. Eventually, you learn to know a good niche intuitively.

At some point, you just pull the trigger. You'll never have as much info as you want about a niche. You'll never know for certain until you create the product, list it for sale, and find out if anyone buys.

 

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[KJFast]

Hey guys, haven’t worked more on this business yet as I have no funds to start! So instead, I worked on my current biz and trying to increase sales. Once I got some cash flow and money saved I’ll spend on the new biz.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Hey guys, haven’t worked more on this business yet as I have no funds to start! So instead, I worked on my current biz and trying to increase sales. Once I got some cash flow and money saved I’ll spend on the new biz.

Funds for what?

A digital product costs nothing until you reach a point where you want to invest in improving your systems.

The only cost before that is the one thing you have in abundance, time.

 

[kr8nt]

If people buy the product on Etsy, then the *need* part is already determined. What you have to figure out is if the niche is large enough to not only earn sales, but to sustain and grow them.

You have to research each niche. There's no one right way to determine the size of a niche. Use online tools. Use Google. Use Facebook. Use forums. Eventually, you learn to know a good niche intuitively.

At some point, you just pull the trigger. You'll never have as much info as you want about a niche. You'll never know for certain until you create the product, list it for sale, and find out if anyone buys.

Thank you a lot, Lex!

One more thing I still can't quite figure and would appreciate to hear your opinion on is, when do you know that it's time to give up a niche or product and move on to the next one?

 

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[KJFast]

Funds for what?

A digital product costs nothing until you reach a point where you want to invest in improving your systems.

The only cost before that is the one thing you have in abundance, time.

Funnily enough, I realised this yesterday! Decided today I’ll take some time to learn how to create the product(s) I’m planning to launch and get to it

 

[Lex DeVille]

Thank you a lot, Lex!

One more thing I still can't quite figure and would appreciate to hear your opinion on is, when do you know that it's time to give up a niche or product and move on to the next one?

If I haven't made a sale with a digital product in 1-2 months I'd probably find a new product, but I don't think that answer fits everyone. I know how to get products online for sale and in front of people fast, and I don't waste time on action-faking tasks. Not saying you do that, but a lot of people are action-fakers who spend time on non-essential tasks and then call it quits when they don't have sales after a short period. That's not the same as putting products in front of real people and asking them to hand over their cash.