They don’t want my product. Now what?

The other day I got an email from Jesus, a software developer selling a course on the popular Ruby programming language.

He asks:

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I was wondering if you had any tips for keeping sales coming in after a product launch.

This is something I struggle with. I don’t want to spam people every day. And if someone has already decided they don’t want my product, how would another email change that?

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I sure do Jesus. I’ll dive in to some “tactical” tips on this later, but the first step here is clearing up a common misconception:

That everyone on your list who didn’t buy your product during the launch made a CONSCIOUS decision to REJECT it.

Now doubtless there are a few people in your audience who read your emails, checked out your product, and thought, “I’ll never buy that in a million years.”

For those people, chances are good that nothing you say will change their mind.

They’re a minority, though, and a bunch probably already unsubscribed during the launch.

The truth is there are a million possible reasons why any given subscriber didn’t jump on the bandwagon during your big launch.

Maybe he desperately wanted your product but he just heard a rumor about layoffs at work and decided to hold onto his cash for right now.

Maybe he had family visiting for the week and your emails just piled up in his inbox.

Maybe he really wants what you’re selling but he’s not 100% convinced that the product will do what he hopes.

Maybe he was interested in your topic two weeks ago, but he got distracted when his furnace died and the family minivan got rear-ended in the same day, and he’s still trying to catch his breath from all of that.

That’s why the first step to making sales after the launch buzz dies down is settling into a persuasion mindset.

Instead of thinking, “Well, I did my launch and 95% of my subscribers said ‘NO!’ to my product…”

Realize that in any list, there are usually 3-5% who are excited and ready to buy YESTERDAY.

But there’s another 20-30% that are on the fence.

These subscribers read your launch emails and thought, “Hmmm, this is interesting… Maybe later.”

Convincing all those “maybes” to jump off the fence is mission numero uno.

If you can’t do that, you’re going to struggle to make sales no matter how many hordes of people visit your website.

So while you definitely DON’T want to spam your subscribers…

You DO need a plan in place to follow up with them CONSISTENTLY and RELENTLESSLY.

And you need to write emails that cause your subscribers to sit up and think, “This guy really understands me. It’s like he’s reading out of my diary!”

…while all time you keep agitating the pain and suffering that your Ruby course fixes…

For more on writing emails that strike all the right chords, check out:

http://joshuaearl.com/lops

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