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When I first started Blacksburg Belle, I couldn’t wait to get my products and services out into the world. I wanted to help as many creative entrepreneurs as possible—and make some money while doing it.
I started an email newsletter list, and new subscribers trickled in. I blogged regularly. I guest posted on lots of different sites which brought in even more subscribers. My list had grown to over 500 people in just a few months, so I thought I was ready to make an offer.
I sent out an offer to my email newsletter list. I thought it was a great offer, and I was extremely excited. I thought I’d get a rush of orders. You know what really happened? Nothing. No orders. No money. No people rushing to work with me.
I soon realized the big mistakes that I’d made with that offer.
First, I completely underpriced and undervalued my services.
I thought I’d get a lot of purchases, because the offer was inexpensive. I looked at my competitors and charged less than many of them, thinking that would help me. It backfired. People don’t take you seriously when you undervalue yourself. Think about this: do you ever say that the cheapest product or service is the best? Probably not. You might say it’s a good value or a good deal, but you don’t go around telling your friends and family that it’s the best.
Second, I hadn’t built a trusting relationship with my list.
Most of my subscribers had been on my list less than a month before I sent out an offer to work with me. This might not have been such a big deal if I was offering a low cost product, but I wasn’t offering a low cost product. I was offering a personalized service that requires some level of trust.
Third, I didn’t clearly ask for the sale.
I sent out an email newsletter that told my subscribers about the offer, but I didn’t clearly ask for the sale at the end of the email. Of course, I included a link, but I didn’t give clear instructions.
After this failure, I regrouped. Moving forward, I built up relationships with subscribers on my list by providing them with high-quality information. I put together a 12-month blog program that brought in lots of sales. I worked with a bunch of creative entrepreneurs one-on-one. Then, I sold out a group coaching program. I built up my credibility by speaking at the Etsy Success Symposium and landing a guest post on Design*Sponge.
Then, I tried out the same offer again about six months later. It was the exact same offer that had failed before, but I made two changes. I increased the price to what I felt was the true value which was five times the price of the first offer. I also clearly asked for the sale at the end of the offer.
This post has many excellent points. There are so many people who have experienced this including myself. As I am in the process of reinventing my business and expanding you clearly have hit on the “offer” issue and creating trusting relationships. The difficult transition is creating trusting relationships when it’s all online marketing and less face to face connections. It’s like there is a hump at that stage. I also love how you point out you didn’t give up and your thought through your problems and tried again. Yay for never giving up.
Hey Andrea! Thanks for sharing. I have found that it was much easier to create trusting relationships than I thought it would be. These are some of the things that have helped me: consistently emailing my newsletter subscribers and giving them valuable content for free, posting videos {there’s something about video that makes you feel more connected to the person and it helps develop trust a lot faster}, showing people that I know what I’m talking about through my experiences and through getting featured on trusted sites such as Etsy and Design Sponge.
Great story! Thanks for sharing, April.
Thanks Laura! Of course 🙂
I love this story! Also so comforting to know that everyone goes through a learning process and it’s okay not to succeed 100% of the time.
It’s definitely okay not to succeed 100% of the time…failure is how I’ve learned A LOT in the past couple years.
What a great story, April! Thanks so much for sharing. A similar thing happened to me as well and it was a good lesson to learn.
Thanks Andreea. It is definitely a good lesson to learn!
I’ve been struggling with pricing my art, but at first I asked what I thought it was worth. I didn’t think it was outrageous, about $500 for a 24×30 acrylic painting on high-quality canvas. People kept asking about my prices, but then I’d never hear from them again. I cut my prices in half and still no sales.
Pricing is tricky. Charge the true value, or undercut and hope it sells? I really have no idea what to do. I’m just barely starting out, but I’m sure I’ll learn.
Hey McKella! Pricing original art is super tricky, but there are lots of artists who charge the “true” value of their art and are really successful. I have found that you have to find the right people to sell to and then the price doesn’t matter as much–if price does matter, then you’re not selling your art to the right people.
Hey April,
as always fantastic post ! This one is very close to my heart ,since Im in the same boat as you were when you tried these methods. Im also in the same boat as some of the other ladies here. Pricing and finding the right people who appreciate that value is a tricky one…..Im sure slowly but surely we will get there.
Thanks for sharing your lessons learned !
Thanks for sharing April:)
Thanks, April! I loved this post…it’s great to hear about your own experience and the message is powerful. I sometimes send out offers and then blame the (lack of) results on my products. Clearly I have a lot more to think about. Thank you!
Evening April,
When I was playing this clip my dogs were just laying around the room kinda quiet, but when your voice got excited and your dogs starting barking my dogs went nuts! They all jumped up and started barking and running to the dog door! They must miss the little human and her dogs!
C U Soon!