In the last two weeks, I've spent over 100 hours researching and interviewing my clients. This is what I've learned in two minutes.
Nobody gives a shit about content memberships
Not even the people who became premium members on my blog. I was surprised to learn that they loved my content, particularly its depth, topics, honesty, and humor... but they couldn't justify paying monthly for a content subscription alone. What I offered just wasn't what my audience wanted...
You need to simplify everything
To make a low-ticket membership business model work, you have to keep it simple. I was making things unnecessarily complicated. I ran lead generation ads, pushed them through an email funnel, had my membership in Ghost, sold courses separately, created new courses, and so on. I also had to connect everything in the above. People got confused, and I had created a lot of work for myself to maintain this system.
So, I have killed all funnels (again) and turned off sales for my online courses. I no longer have any upsells, and I shut down all sequences and flows to turn leads into customers.
From now on, things will be a lot easier for me.
My "True Offer"
My signature positioning used to be "introverted entrepreneurs". Worked great in my ads. But it was too broad to make a simple offer I could scale.
I've asked my clients what they wanted. Some were beginners who needed an offer, while others were more advanced and sought ways to scale their income and move away from one-on-one coaching.
Initially, I considered a 4-week True Offer Sprint cohort/high-ticket program for 1,000€. Reached out to my clients. One was in immediately, and a couple of others were interested as well.
But then it hit me... I never wanted to do high-ticket coaching (again) - that's why I moved to selling digital products in the first place. Creating offers is obviously not my strongest skill either. And it just didn't feel right to do this without any social proof that my methods work.
So, I've analyzed why people bought from me in more depth. Nearly everyone said that because of my ads / my hooks, or my strong message. They all wanted to have something like that for their own business, too.
And guys, let's face it... Running ads and writing copy is what I'm best at... I'm not a teacher, a mentor, or a therapist for my audience's problems. The only thing I ACTUALLY love doing is running ads.
From now on, I offer only one thing:
The Authentic Ads Community
Inside, you learn how to grow your online business with authentic ads (without becoming a marketing bro or a template sis).
There is a weekly call, a monthly workshop, and a brand-new course that leverages all of my knowledge of spending millions on Meta Ads.
The first 100 people will join for free (as founding members), and then I'll transition it into a paid community, charging anywhere from $19 to $49 per month.
I was tempted to do this in Circle, but again, that would have made things unnecessarily complex. So I decided to go with Skool. Probably the easiest platform to run and host a community.
Join now
Until October, the community is in a sort of beta phase. We officially kick off in early October with the launch of the new course. From then on, all my content will live inside the community and nowhere else. I might even shut down the website and this newsletter.
So if you’ve been following me for a while and you like my writing, my take on ads, or just the fact that I don’t talk like another get-rich-quick Dubai guru... this is your chance:
[Join the Authentic Ads Community here]
See you inside,
Stefan
