"why would we change if our products are good and our marketing works?" ...because of integrity? And to be less annoying... I don't think anyone is faulting you for marketing your content based on its value and communicating clear value propositions. They are mostly annoyed with the aspects of your campaigns that ARE misleading and manipulative. The limited time upselling, "wE mIgHt cLoSe tHe ScHoOl of bAsS" or whatever else is totally designed to prey on the customer's fear of missing out, and it's very obvious. And you can say something is worth $x amount and that you're giving us a 98% discount or whatever, but those numbers aren't valid, because a) no one is actually paying those prices and b) personalized 1 on 1 content isnt the same as impersonal mass distributed content. But my point is, even if those numbers were valid, they still wouldn't be RELEVANT to the consumer. We can pay $50 or $60 for courses by Zardonic or Stonebank and find a ton more on RUclips for free. That's what consumers care about. Does coca cola say "we spent $15 million on our bottling factory, but you can buy a can for only $3, that's a 99.99993% discount"? No, cause we don't care, we only care why we should get a coke for $3 instead of Pepsi for $2. But you're a smart guy, I know you already knew this. Those hypothetical prices are there to psychologically manipulate customers, period. There's no other reason. At some point you have to take a step back and see things from an outside perspective. The fact that you have to defend your tactics on this many fronts should be a sign in itself that you need to make some changes. Personally, I've bought several daw nation products myself (and will probably continue to), and while I do think they are decent for the most part, I do roll my eyes whenever I watch one of your sleazy melodramatic infomercial sales pitch videos. Yes, everyone has personal preferences, and mine is that I prefer marketing that sticks to what the product has to offer and why it's a better value than it's competitors. But it's your company, so take this info and do with it what you will. EDIT: I also have to say that claiming your products have a $12000 value or something that is obviously absurd to customers also undermines your credibility and trustworthiness, in addition to the points I made above.
Just as a disclaimer, this is a pretty big reply. Also, I'm not mad at you for your opinion. If it comes off that way, I apologize. I get very passionate about this subject. "...because of integrity? And to be less annoying..." You say that as though marketing the way that I do shows a clear lack of integrity and is obviously annoying. I genuinely don't see it that way. If I was lying, misleading, or objectively manipulating people, I would agree with you. But I'm not doing any of those things. I feel like I broke that down pretty clearly in the video. "They are most annoyed with the aspects of your campaigns that ARE misleading and manipulative." What aspects? I broke down what people could interpret as misleading and manipulative, and showed how they are not. Can you point to a specific page? A specific quote where I am being objectively, clearly, and unequivocally misleading or manipulating? NOT just your opinion or your interpretation, but an absolutely indefensible example. And is it an example that I haven't already covered in this video? If so, please show me. And PLEASE make sure it is an example that I haven't already covered in this video. "And you can say something is worth $x amount and that you're giving us a 98% discount or whatever, but those numbers aren't valid, because a) no one is actually paying those prices and b) personalized 1-on-1 content isn't the same as impersonal mass distributed content. Honestly, I'm not sure why you are bringing this up, I feel like I explained this pretty well in the video. Regardless, those numbers are valid. Because those numbers are showing you that the only other way to get that information, is by paying an astronomical amount of money in private lesson fees. The information that is provided in our products is the common denominator between taking private lessons and taking an online course. The information is the same. The medium is what is different. Again, like I said in the video, the reason why those numbers are there is to show you that there are only 2 options and that taking our course is the cheaper path. I understand that private lessons are inherently different than online courses, which is why we don't price our courses like we would private lessons. If you were thinking of buying a house in California, or a house in Utah, It is completely valid for me to say, "Just so you know, that house in California is going to be $1.5 Million. However, you can get the same house in Utah for $400k." You have two options. Buy the house in California, or buy in Utah. There are pros and cons to each, but at the end of the day, they are ultimately going to give you the same thing, a house. Just like how purchasing private lessons and taking online courses have different prices, and different pros and cons, at the end of the day, you are still getting the same thing, information. When you are marketing, it is not only commonplace, but it is extremely effective to present the other, more expensive options, and how your option is cheaper. "But my point is, even if those numbers were valid, they still wouldn't be RELEVANT to the consumer. We can pay $50 or $60 for courses by Zardonic or Stonebank and find a ton more on RUclips for free. That's what consumers care about. Does coca cola say "we spent $15 million on our bottling factory, but you can buy a can for only $3, that's a 99.99993% discount"? No, cause we don't care, we only care why we should get a coke for $3 instead of Pepsi for $2. " Again, you say this as though it is completely objective, and that clearly everyone thinks this way. Just out of curiosity, do you own your own business? Are you a business major? Are you a marketing guy? Do you run ads? Do you do email marketing? Are you a professional business analyst? Have you conducted a massive experiment where you interviewed hundreds if not thousands of producers from all around the world and can now look at the data and prove me wrong? I'm not asking that to throw back in your face. You are just speaking as though your opinion on this is clearly fact. Because what you are saying here, is completely against the years of data that we have acquired. So am I missing something? Do you have more data or experience than me when it comes to marketing? Because if so, I would love actually hop on a call, go over my data with you and see your credentials. That way we can both come to a logical, data-driven agreement, not a purely isolated opinion-based one. Also to answer your question, no Coca-Cola doesn't do that, but Coca-Cola also doesn't sell online courses. Different businesses require different marketing styles. I can't put the School of Bass on the shelves at the store. Nor is a can of a Coke giving you the same results as the School of Bass. This comparison isn't apples to apples. If you are trying to make the argument that if Coca-Cola doesn't use a particular marketing tactic, then it is sleazy for me to do so, I don't think that argument can hold for very long. Because every business has different marketing needs. "But you're a smart guy, I know you already knew this. Those hypothetical prices are there to psychologically manipulate customers, period. There's no other reason. " Again, I covered this in the video, I don't know why this is still being debated. Those prices are not hypothetical. As I explained, I sit down with everyone that we work with and ask what they would charge for this information. So if you are suggesting that I am being psychologically manipulative by asking what our partners would charge, then you are not only throwing me under the bus, but you are also throwing everyone we work with under the bus. You say all of this as though I am the marketing overlord and every marketing decision that I make is in direct conflict with what our partners want and I am forcing them to bow to my will. That's not the case. As I mentioned in the video, I build these funnels WITH the partners. I get everything approved WITH the partners. If you are pointing the sleazy finger at me, you are also pointing it at everyone else involved. Also when you say, "There is no other reason", I think that's pretty closed-minded. Even disregarding everything in this video, you can't come up with ANY other reason as to why we do, what we do. You can't imagine ANY other way of looking at all of this? The default answer is that I want to manipulate people, and you can't come up with ANYTHING else at all? "At some point, you have to take a step back and see things from an outside perspective." Can we not agree that be best outside perspective is in fact the data? Numbers do not lie. They do not have opinions. They do not care what my personal preferences are. The data is a manifestation of what the majority of people think on the subject. Not what I think in isolation, nor what you think in isolation. So frankly, I stick to the data, especially when I still can't get a clear answer as to what is OBJECTIVELY sleazy, scammy & scummy. "The fact that you have to defend your tactics on this many fronts should be a sign in itself that you need to make some changes. " The argument that the more you defend something, that this is somehow an obvious sign that something needs to change is a pretty poor argument. Show me the unchangeable, objective law of the universe that says, the more one defends something, the more it needs to change. As I mentioned in the video, I defend this, because not only is all of this data-driven, but this is also my art. This is something that I am extremely passionate about. So when anyone says, "You are psychologically manipulating people", I will 100% defend myself until someone can actually prove what I am doing is objectively wrong. " I also have to say that claiming your products have a $12000 value or something that is obviously absurd to customers also undermines your credibility and trustworthiness, in addition to the points I made above." - I don't think it is obviously absurd. I don't think it's absurd at all, nor do I think it undermines anyone. Value can be based on time, energy, resources, money, competition, and really any form of sacrifice in order to obtain a certain result. So if there are 2 paths.... Path 1 costs $12,000 to get a result and Path 2 costs $97 to get basically the same result, I can bring up why Path 1 has a value of $12,000 and why Path 2 is the easier and more logical path to follow. Show me why I can't. Give me an argument as to why this is terrible. We do this all the time in our lives, not just in marketing.
@@DAWNation I mentioned some of these things I'm gonna say here in my longer reply chain, however I think the differences you 2 are seeing here is because both sides are using their own personal world lens to judge the other's point of view. At the end of the day, they think some things are obviously absurd or sleazy, kind of like I did in my first comment, and you think they are obviously not, and neither perspective can ever be more correct or objective. Additionally, "You are psychologically manipulating people" really is based off of your personal definition of manipulation. If you define it as influencing someone to do something without their express knowledge, then yeah you are. If you define it as "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously." (the official definition), then you probably aren't, but then unfairly and unscrupulously also have to be defined using personal definitions, which just leads to everything being subjective again. If you are going for maximum sales, the only thing I would be concerned about is if there is some point where being less aggressive (which by my definition means the amount of tactics employed to get someone to purchase and how those tactics are worded/portrayed) yields more sales rather than less. Or I guess worded differently, are you potentially closing off access to a larger audience while simultaneously making sales go up by making your current audience more likely to buy? For example, a company that markets phones to elderly individuals may make something more appealing to elderly people, such as large icons, high contrast, automatically enabled accessibility settings, simpler functionality, could increase sales among its audience while being less potentially profitable than other phone companies. At that point they need to ask themselves if their product really is just meant for elderly people, or is there another point where they could be making more money? I don't know the answer for your business in specific, but just something to test and think about. If you are going for anything else, that is even more subjective and up to you and the people you work with alone, but I think I would be correct in saying you mostly go for sales, which is obviously fine as well.
@@DAWNation "What aspects? I broke down what people could interpret as misleading and manipulative, and showed how they are not. Can you point to a specific page?" Saying "We might close registration for this course", "we might raise the price for this course" or putting a time limit on upgrading your purchase for a discount, is a well-known high pressure sales tactic designed specifically to exploit customers' FEAR OF MISSING OUT. It is objectively, undeniably psychologically manipulative. Not just my opinion. Convenient of you to ignore this in my first comment. I don't care what your "contracts" say, the point of stating those things is to manipulate customers, we all know that and I think you know that. Same with the other points, you can chock it up to a "difference of opinion" and say you "don't see it that way", but I don't buy it. I personally think you know exactly what you're doing, and so do many other people. And if enough people see things a certain way, you can't just dismiss it as "wrong", and enough people BRINGING THESE ISSUES UP TO YOU should be the sign you should listen to them. If you want some hard DATA, take a survey and see how many people actually think the school of bass is worth $3,464, cause I'd bet it wouldn't be many. If you're extra brave, see what percentage of people enjoy your whole billy maze schtick, cause that might be even less. I actually do have a business degree with a specialization in entrepreneurship and arts-related ventures. I know about digital marketing and sales techniques. And just to be clear, I don't doubt that these marketing techniques work, I would actually guess that they work quite well. However, it should be clear that these no-holds-barred, conversions-at-all-costs type tactics (aside from what I said about being manipulative) clearly leave a bad taste in some people's mouths, as should be evident by now. So you have a choice to make. You can be straight shooter and run simple campaigns with no gimmicks. OR, you can use those gimmicks that get you an extra 5% conversions, have your reputation among some of your customers be the sleazy car salesman infomercial guy, and just live with the critics. It's your business, so it's your choice how to run it, but you can't say the criticism of your choices are invalid, especially when numerous customers are all saying the same things.
Hi again! Excellent video, I am just writing this comment as I'm watching to get my thoughts and a more concrete conclusion down. NOTE: RUclips gives me an error when trying to post the whole comment in one go, presumably because it is quite long, so I'm going to try to post the later sections via replies: Part 1/3: Hi again! Excellent video, I am just writing this comment as I'm watching to get my thoughts and a more concrete conclusion down.
As for popups, I think I'm with you here more than I was originally, I personally still don't like them but I can see how some would. Maybe its partially how often I switch between tabs and minimize things that just made it come up within like one second of opening the page, making me think it's more aggressive than it would be for others. I personally still think there may be a better condition for the popup to come up on, especially for people who use larger screens and don't use a browser full-screen. I just normally don't have my mouse on my web browser window while reading, so the popup did hamper my ability to do that. Depending on how common that is, it could potentially decrease funnel though rate, as every little thing a person has to click, as you know, decreases CTR. I'm not sure of a solution for this though, and idk if there's any method that would lead to a net gain in CTR.
19:30 I completely agree that if you click on something and a popup comes up, that is completely warranted. I don't really consider them popups in that case, so I wasn't referring to those in my original comments.
Actually, just now while looking at the website once again I feel like some of the vibes that are putting me off the page are aesthetic inconsistencies with the download buttons and whatnot from the rest of the content. On the main page that's linked in your description, everything on the page looks super clean and meshes well except for the "CLICK TO TURN ON SOUND" button, which has a arial/impact like bold font while the rest has a thin, modern, sci-fi vibe. The red volume button and the animation also makes it stand out a lot. Obviously this makes it easier to find and click, but for me it kind of also had the unconscious effect of making it look "scammy" just based on other sites I have seen. I personally would just change the color to a teal-blue and change the font to something still bold, but just slightly different, maybe like an extrabold version of the font you use for the rest of the page. Very, very small change but I think things like these are the things making me, and possibly others, feel weird about it.
This same thing also goes for the download buttons, looking back, the fact that they are large is not the issue at all. As you say, they are a completely normal size when compared with others. It's that the font is very different from the rest of the page, and the button is rounded in a kind of early internet theme, which in my mind goes against the sci-fi theme of the page. This also goes for the text at the top of store pages like the Your Brain on Drums pack. It's written in a plain font using title case, when much of the other text is all capitals or just normal sentence case in a more sci-fi thin font. At the bottom of the page with all the prices added up, the text colors and fonts also deviate from the rest of the page's aesthetic, which kind of jarred me and made it feel less professional and potentially more "scammy", even though I knew your site wasn't a scam already.
Ok, at 14:10 you say that I couldn't have seen the same buttons, this was kind of a communication fault on my part. What I really meant is that I have seen very similarly styled buttons, not the exact same ones. My experience with these buttons comes from having to click through ad-fly pages every once in a while lol, happens a lot through Minecraft texture pack downloads and whatnot if you're not careful as small texture pack creators are just trying to earn pretty much anything from their pack, which is fair, but also puts me off their product a lot. Also some ads on websites include a download button as part of the ad, which in my mind seems quite sketchy as normally they would have that on their page. I haven't directly gotten malware from any of these pages, but I feel like they would definitely give me some if I clicked every button I saw. This video at the beginning shows some sites like that, not all have the same type of buttons, but enough do that I learned to avoid them ruclips.net/video/WKLRKCVar6Y/видео.html&ab_channel=Kitboga
As for sites trying to replicate tactics that work (15:15), you are probably correct, but due to the prevalence of these sites, younger generations like mine now avoid buttons like that more frequently, and so any benefits are probably wearing off. I know that most websites have moved away from even having "Download" buttons for paid products because of this, now more commonly opting for "Buy" "Add to Cart" or "Get". An example of this can be found here: projectsam.com/libraries/.
I do know that older people tend to prefer/don't mind the older style of buttons and page layouts, and many scams such as tech support scams take advantage of that.
Essentially, I pretty confidently believe that a small aesthetic overhaul on the buttons while making them remain obvious and easy to press would lend more credibility to your site and increase sales. For example, the buttons on the Star Citizen site (although that game was scummy in other ways, just the first thing I thought of) robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen are still very clear, but have a sci-fi styling. A very similar aesthetic would work well with your site I think.
I don't want to start saying the same thing over and over again, so I'll just say my arguments about aesthetic also apply to the popups and offer stack.
Ok, for provesource (16:10) I'm not exactly sure where my dislike/feeling for them came from, but I definitely have it. I made the incorrect assumption that most others would feel the same way as well, but that is definitely incorrect. I guess for me personally it's maybe the fact that it's like testimonials but without the person agreeing to do said testimonial? I'm not sure. You are also correct that scammy websites do not usually have something like provesource (although I would assume some have made a fake alternative, but have no examples so really just an assumption).
At 18:00 you talk about how just because a website has certain attributes doesn't mean it's sketchy, which is completely true, and going in from the beginning I knew your page was legitimate. However, I was more trying to criticize in case it put off a percentage of people who didn't already trust the site and wouldn't spend time checking its validity. Just like the other things you do, I think some changes could be made to even further improve your funnel rate.
Part 2/3: At 20:20 you start talking about the offer stack. I think the main thing that could be changed with this section of the page is just telling people what the prices refer to somewhere above the stack. I just had no idea what the prices were referring to, so to me they felt completely random even though there was a reasoning behind them. At 21:30 you say that's the price it would cost to get that information somewhere else, and I don't think that is necessarily true. While some information I'm sure can only be found in the classes and nowhere else on the internet, inevitably some of it will appear in other classes, either from people separately discovering the same thing, or unknowingly/accidentally sharing information in their own class that they learned from your classes. Once again though, more clarity about where the value numbers are coming from would be great and negate this issue (24:00 Although, to be honest, though a private lesson you gain more benefit than you can ever though online content because the creator can directly offer you feedback in real time, so the information isn't exactly the same. It would be more equivalent to attending a lecture with 30 people than a private lesson).
At 24:35 you do say you say this information "in the fine print", but I can't see it on your page anywhere, so I do think it would be beneficial to you and to customers to make that information much more obvious, as I think the effect of large prices and then a small price increasing sales would still hold up.
At 26:30 you say that my product would be worth all of my time at a set price, and I completely agree, I think my wording didn't get across my point, which was that I don't think an individual copy of my product would be worth all that money. If a company approached me to buy my product, then yes, it would be worth the full price, probably over $30,000 if I'm paying myself fairly.
You also say that value exists if someone isn't willing to pay for it, which I would agree with philosophically, however, in a product sense this isn't necessarily true and that's what I was referring to. My product is $30,000 in theory, but given that it is my first product and I am a small creator, there is 0 way it will ever return me $30,000 in monetary value through any means. It did return me with a lot of fun and joy to make, as well as expertise and a new product I get to use though, which is value in its own way. I was somewhat nihilistically making that point in my previous comment, which in hindsight wasn't really needed.
While referring to the website for this part, I also noticed that the exact same download button/product graphic appears 3 times, potentially making me feel like there was more download buttons than was required for the product and lending to my initial reaction to the page, essentially compounding the effect of the aesthetic differences between the page and download buttons. I think tweaks to the button would also mostly eliminate this issue.
At 28:25, I now agree that it is not useless or unneeded information as long as the method behind the numbers is clearly shown to the viewers. Also, it's good knowing you've done a lot of split testing of your site and whatnot.
At 29:00 you talk about how the offer stack works well large, and given what I talked about before, I am now pretty indifferent to that. However, originally I felt like I had to scroll though everything to get to the price because I somehow didn't notice it on the download buttons, maybe because my brain subconsciously associated them with downloading rather than price. I think having the price more clearly displayed next to the product "box" image, as well as the discount amount, would help people immediately see a price and know how much they're paying.
Also, while looking at the website again, I think you could swap the testimonials and included content section, or display them in 2 columns next to each other (ideal as long as it wouldn't make things to small). Would definitely require split testing, but I think having the content/demos more immediately available to look at would help with sell through.
At 31:40 you talk about the 1 click upsells, and seeing what they actually look like (when displayed in the popup) they look great. As I mentioned in my second comment though, I still got a 1 time offer twice in a row without doing any checkout just on the main page. It wasn't a 1 click upsell as far as I know. I am unfortunately unsure what page this appeared on, but I haven't seen anything similar since. This was the thing I had a problem with, not the 1 click upsells. I would personally still prefer something like a loyalty discount/bundle discount in addition to the upsells. For example, an "All Au5 Classes" bundle for the combined price of all things discounted like 10% would be great for people with a higher budget.
Maybe the thing I saw was a sale, like you mention at 35:10, although as far as I remember it just said something like "Wait, do not click off this page. If you do, this one time offer of $XX will go away". When I closed the tab and reopened it, the actual text talking about the offer was still there, not just the page as you mention at 37:00. If you do ever have those offers, that's one thing that I think is a bit scammy in any situation as it puts too much pressure on the customer, preventing them from making a well-thought out decision, which in my opinion is unethical. A sale timer is completely fine with me though.
36:00 Here you say that you can't legally guarantee a price, which of course is fine, but (you probably already do this but in case not) you should ask artists who sell through you to give you 1-2 days notice before you actually change the price if they'd be willing to. This probably wouldn't always be guaranteed, but if it is confirmed you can at least have a good warning period for customers on the site.
34:24 Here you talk about my idea for having a dedicated area for the provesource, and I do see your point about wanting it to stick with the viewer. In my mind I was thinking of a website in 2 columns: the left one for pack information, prices, and download/buy button that you can scroll in (buy button could stick to the top at all times), and the left one for testimonials and the offer stack that you can also scroll in, but separately. The provesource notification could stick in the top of the testimonials area regardless of scrolling. Above both of these boxes could be a banner for your website with the Home, Courses, Packs, Merch, Podcast, Free Stuff, and Contact bottoms.
40:30 Here you answer my question about if you had your site take other forms, and in hindsight, most sites aren't actually too different from yours functionally, generally they just don't have the offer stack and the popups upon trying to leave the page. As I've said before, I think the main difference is a lack of unified aesthetics on your page.
At 42:00 you mention how Adobe also implements a funnel based approach, and while they do make a lot of money, they are also one of the most hated companies among the pirating/open source community, leading to them being one of the most common targets of pirating. I think this is more to do with the expensive subscriptions for every product rather than the funnel specifically, but just thought it would be worth mentioning. You also talk about Apple, and while I also hate Apple as a company for other reasons, the upsell chain is mostly fine in my opinion. When I mentioned "funnel based" in my previous comment, I more was referring to the provesource, popup, testimonials, and offer stack all being in one long scrollable block and being worded/structured in a somewhat aggressive manner. This is probably not the actual meaning of a website funnel, and I was just using the term funnel-based for lack of a better term.
43:30, continuing with my previous point this was more of my incorrect usage of "funnel-based". However, I do think I should say that iZotope doesn't have 1 click upsells, you can add more to your cart, but you always just purchase everything in one go at the end all for the original price with no specials discounts (unless they were in a bundle). iZotope still has some stuff I dislike as well, such as timed popups and one-time offers that just come up randomly (as far as I know) rather than based on some sort of input. If they told me a discount was a loyalty discount or a new customer discount, I would be less put off by there.
Oh, and one more thing not mentioned in the video: I had previously not watched the videos on the store pages, and they do mention what the offer stack prices are based off of. (This was on the Crywolf masterclass page) However, on both the page and the video the actual price of the product isn't mentioned until the end, potentially discouraging people from buying because they think the price will be much higher (especially through the video). Since this is different (for the text at least) on other pages, it may be something you are currently testing, but my gut feeling is that having the price at the top of the page would help people immediately go in and buy straight away if they think it is a good deal for them, potentially increasing sell-through. I also think the video on that page specifically at least could be edited down a bit with less repeated phrasing and a bit less emphasis on the prices to get the actual features of the class across quicker, although it's probably harder to AB test a video as you have to remake the video each time which is a lot harder than just changing the website, so this is a minor gripe for me. I don't really watch videos on web-pages anyway because I prefer reading information (although I have stumbled across one that made you watch a whole like 20 minute marketing video for a discount lol. Needless to say, I did not buy the product).
I was considering buying one of the Au5 courses but didn't because your entire website looks like one of those sketchy popups telling you that you just won an iPad
Show me the sketchy website that you are referring to, and we can compare and contrast. I have never seen a sketchy website that has put that much effort into it.
I think the Russell Brunson method has unfortunately become synonymous with "get rich quick" schemes and "gurus" etc. But I can vouch for DAW Nation products, I've used 3 separate courses and found them all incredibly valuable, especially for the price. However, I totally get why people might feel icky about the website pop ups, artificial scarcity/time limits etc. I'd compare it to going into a store and being left to browse and decide for yourself Vs a store assistant bouncing over to you and being overly helpful and obviously trying to get a sale. For some people, they like to be sold to. For others, they like to be left alone to decide for themselves. Being sold to feels icky and unauthentic for them. I don't really know what the solution is to accommodate both kinds of people but that's what I think is going on.
This might also be a culture thing. I'm from the UK and we're miserable and like to be left alone and avoid talking to stranger. The US seems to be much more into interacting with staff and customers. Maybe try region based marketing differences.
Interesting, and now I finally understand where your pulling those value/pricing numbers from. It did seem kind sus buying from you at first but now I have 4 courses cause they are great. But he was not wrong about the website seeming sus at first, especially the 1200 is now only 100 dollars or whatever. Kind of reminds me of those african dudes in spain who are tryna sell me sun glasses and they start out at 50€ then by the time im walking away they are shouting 5€ at me. Just throwing numbers around out of thin air. (that's how i felt before your explanation here)
Yeah, that's kinda how I felt in my first comment that he mentions. I said this in a huge long comment I made just now but I think clearly mentioning where the numbers come from would pretty much solve this issue for new customers. Same with some of the other stuff, it just kinda all hit me at once initially and it took until now for me to really dissect what exactly was making it seem off to me.
I don't know if you still want to continue engaging in this conversation, and if not, fair enough, however I have some more data I would like to share. I asked 6 of my friends (all gen Z) what they thought about your website. 1 was indifferent, 5 immediately thought it looked like a scam while just showing the top of the site without scrolling, and 1 of those 5 still thought it was a scam even after I told them it wasn't. Additionally, most of the comments on this video with more than 1 like are comments with a similar attitude. While this could be chocked up to a loud minority, I don't think this is the case. At least among younger generations, I think your website immediately puts the majority of people off. For more data, you could run a poll on this channel's community page which could prove useful. I wrote about some potential solutions to this (in my mind) in my longer comment thread, but I would also love to go on a call and discuss further as well if you are open to that.
Hey, I apologize for the late reply on all of this. Yes I do want to continue this conversation, however it's launch week right for the Crystal Skies Masterclass. So I'm frantically getting everything ready for that. I will be able to pick this back up on Monday and discuss it more. Would that be okay?
You also need to market, because you want to make money. Regardless of whether you believe in the product. The purpose of pop-ups and ridiculous saving claims is to manipulate the customer essentially to cause an impulse buy. If they truly needed your product then they wouldn't need to feel a sense of urgency to do so, they would just do it. I didn't buy your serum walkthrough with au5 specifically because of the marketing tactic. It feels like from the outset that the product is being forced, despite the fact that its probably value for money. I don't think it's sincere to say you are using marketing tactics because you "believe in the product" when the incentive (and the data) is fueled by sales i.e. making money. You know what you are doing and so do we, so it is what it is.
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"why would we change if our products are good and our marketing works?"
...because of integrity? And to be less annoying...
I don't think anyone is faulting you for marketing your content based on its value and communicating clear value propositions. They are mostly annoyed with the aspects of your campaigns that ARE misleading and manipulative. The limited time upselling, "wE mIgHt cLoSe tHe ScHoOl of bAsS" or whatever else is totally designed to prey on the customer's fear of missing out, and it's very obvious.
And you can say something is worth $x amount and that you're giving us a 98% discount or whatever, but those numbers aren't valid, because a) no one is actually paying those prices and b) personalized 1 on 1 content isnt the same as impersonal mass distributed content. But my point is, even if those numbers were valid, they still wouldn't be RELEVANT to the consumer. We can pay $50 or $60 for courses by Zardonic or Stonebank and find a ton more on RUclips for free. That's what consumers care about. Does coca cola say "we spent $15 million on our bottling factory, but you can buy a can for only $3, that's a 99.99993% discount"? No, cause we don't care, we only care why we should get a coke for $3 instead of Pepsi for $2.
But you're a smart guy, I know you already knew this. Those hypothetical prices are there to psychologically manipulate customers, period. There's no other reason.
At some point you have to take a step back and see things from an outside perspective. The fact that you have to defend your tactics on this many fronts should be a sign in itself that you need to make some changes.
Personally, I've bought several daw nation products myself (and will probably continue to), and while I do think they are decent for the most part, I do roll my eyes whenever I watch one of your sleazy melodramatic infomercial sales pitch videos. Yes, everyone has personal preferences, and mine is that I prefer marketing that sticks to what the product has to offer and why it's a better value than it's competitors. But it's your company, so take this info and do with it what you will.
EDIT: I also have to say that claiming your products have a $12000 value or something that is obviously absurd to customers also undermines your credibility and trustworthiness, in addition to the points I made above.
Just as a disclaimer, this is a pretty big reply. Also, I'm not mad at you for your opinion. If it comes off that way, I apologize. I get very passionate about this subject.
"...because of integrity? And to be less annoying..."
You say that as though marketing the way that I do shows a clear lack of integrity and is obviously annoying. I genuinely don't see it that way. If I was lying, misleading, or objectively manipulating people, I would agree with you. But I'm not doing any of those things. I feel like I broke that down pretty clearly in the video.
"They are most annoyed with the aspects of your campaigns that ARE misleading and manipulative."
What aspects? I broke down what people could interpret as misleading and manipulative, and showed how they are not. Can you point to a specific page? A specific quote where I am being objectively, clearly, and unequivocally misleading or manipulating? NOT just your opinion or your interpretation, but an absolutely indefensible example. And is it an example that I haven't already covered in this video? If so, please show me. And PLEASE make sure it is an example that I haven't already covered in this video.
"And you can say something is worth $x amount and that you're giving us a 98% discount or whatever, but those numbers aren't valid, because a) no one is actually paying those prices and b) personalized 1-on-1 content isn't the same as impersonal mass distributed content.
Honestly, I'm not sure why you are bringing this up, I feel like I explained this pretty well in the video. Regardless, those numbers are valid. Because those numbers are showing you that the only other way to get that information, is by paying an astronomical amount of money in private lesson fees. The information that is provided in our products is the common denominator between taking private lessons and taking an online course. The information is the same. The medium is what is different. Again, like I said in the video, the reason why those numbers are there is to show you that there are only 2 options and that taking our course is the cheaper path. I understand that private lessons are inherently different than online courses, which is why we don't price our courses like we would private lessons. If you were thinking of buying a house in California, or a house in Utah, It is completely valid for me to say, "Just so you know, that house in California is going to be $1.5 Million. However, you can get the same house in Utah for $400k." You have two options. Buy the house in California, or buy in Utah. There are pros and cons to each, but at the end of the day, they are ultimately going to give you the same thing, a house. Just like how purchasing private lessons and taking online courses have different prices, and different pros and cons, at the end of the day, you are still getting the same thing, information. When you are marketing, it is not only commonplace, but it is extremely effective to present the other, more expensive options, and how your option is cheaper.
"But my point is, even if those numbers were valid, they still wouldn't be RELEVANT to the consumer. We can pay $50 or $60 for courses by Zardonic or Stonebank and find a ton more on RUclips for free. That's what consumers care about. Does coca cola say "we spent $15 million on our bottling factory, but you can buy a can for only $3, that's a 99.99993% discount"? No, cause we don't care, we only care why we should get a coke for $3 instead of Pepsi for $2. "
Again, you say this as though it is completely objective, and that clearly everyone thinks this way. Just out of curiosity, do you own your own business? Are you a business major? Are you a marketing guy? Do you run ads? Do you do email marketing? Are you a professional business analyst? Have you conducted a massive experiment where you interviewed hundreds if not thousands of producers from all around the world and can now look at the data and prove me wrong? I'm not asking that to throw back in your face. You are just speaking as though your opinion on this is clearly fact. Because what you are saying here, is completely against the years of data that we have acquired. So am I missing something? Do you have more data or experience than me when it comes to marketing? Because if so, I would love actually hop on a call, go over my data with you and see your credentials. That way we can both come to a logical, data-driven agreement, not a purely isolated opinion-based one. Also to answer your question, no Coca-Cola doesn't do that, but Coca-Cola also doesn't sell online courses. Different businesses require different marketing styles. I can't put the School of Bass on the shelves at the store. Nor is a can of a Coke giving you the same results as the School of Bass. This comparison isn't apples to apples. If you are trying to make the argument that if Coca-Cola doesn't use a particular marketing tactic, then it is sleazy for me to do so, I don't think that argument can hold for very long. Because every business has different marketing needs.
"But you're a smart guy, I know you already knew this. Those hypothetical prices are there to psychologically manipulate customers, period. There's no other reason. "
Again, I covered this in the video, I don't know why this is still being debated. Those prices are not hypothetical. As I explained, I sit down with everyone that we work with and ask what they would charge for this information. So if you are suggesting that I am being psychologically manipulative by asking what our partners would charge, then you are not only throwing me under the bus, but you are also throwing everyone we work with under the bus. You say all of this as though I am the marketing overlord and every marketing decision that I make is in direct conflict with what our partners want and I am forcing them to bow to my will. That's not the case. As I mentioned in the video, I build these funnels WITH the partners. I get everything approved WITH the partners. If you are pointing the sleazy finger at me, you are also pointing it at everyone else involved. Also when you say, "There is no other reason", I think that's pretty closed-minded. Even disregarding everything in this video, you can't come up with ANY other reason as to why we do, what we do. You can't imagine ANY other way of looking at all of this? The default answer is that I want to manipulate people, and you can't come up with ANYTHING else at all?
"At some point, you have to take a step back and see things from an outside perspective."
Can we not agree that be best outside perspective is in fact the data? Numbers do not lie. They do not have opinions. They do not care what my personal preferences are. The data is a manifestation of what the majority of people think on the subject. Not what I think in isolation, nor what you think in isolation. So frankly, I stick to the data, especially when I still can't get a clear answer as to what is OBJECTIVELY sleazy, scammy & scummy.
"The fact that you have to defend your tactics on this many fronts should be a sign in itself that you need to make some changes. "
The argument that the more you defend something, that this is somehow an obvious sign that something needs to change is a pretty poor argument. Show me the unchangeable, objective law of the universe that says, the more one defends something, the more it needs to change. As I mentioned in the video, I defend this, because not only is all of this data-driven, but this is also my art. This is something that I am extremely passionate about. So when anyone says, "You are psychologically manipulating people", I will 100% defend myself until someone can actually prove what I am doing is objectively wrong.
" I also have to say that claiming your products have a $12000 value or something that is obviously absurd to customers also undermines your credibility and trustworthiness, in addition to the points I made above."
- I don't think it is obviously absurd. I don't think it's absurd at all, nor do I think it undermines anyone. Value can be based on time, energy, resources, money, competition, and really any form of sacrifice in order to obtain a certain result. So if there are 2 paths.... Path 1 costs $12,000 to get a result and Path 2 costs $97 to get basically the same result, I can bring up why Path 1 has a value of $12,000 and why Path 2 is the easier and more logical path to follow. Show me why I can't. Give me an argument as to why this is terrible. We do this all the time in our lives, not just in marketing.
@@DAWNation I mentioned some of these things I'm gonna say here in my longer reply chain, however I think the differences you 2 are seeing here is because both sides are using their own personal world lens to judge the other's point of view. At the end of the day, they think some things are obviously absurd or sleazy, kind of like I did in my first comment, and you think they are obviously not, and neither perspective can ever be more correct or objective. Additionally, "You are psychologically manipulating people" really is based off of your personal definition of manipulation. If you define it as influencing someone to do something without their express knowledge, then yeah you are. If you define it as "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously." (the official definition), then you probably aren't, but then unfairly and unscrupulously also have to be defined using personal definitions, which just leads to everything being subjective again.
If you are going for maximum sales, the only thing I would be concerned about is if there is some point where being less aggressive (which by my definition means the amount of tactics employed to get someone to purchase and how those tactics are worded/portrayed) yields more sales rather than less. Or I guess worded differently, are you potentially closing off access to a larger audience while simultaneously making sales go up by making your current audience more likely to buy? For example, a company that markets phones to elderly individuals may make something more appealing to elderly people, such as large icons, high contrast, automatically enabled accessibility settings, simpler functionality, could increase sales among its audience while being less potentially profitable than other phone companies. At that point they need to ask themselves if their product really is just meant for elderly people, or is there another point where they could be making more money? I don't know the answer for your business in specific, but just something to test and think about.
If you are going for anything else, that is even more subjective and up to you and the people you work with alone, but I think I would be correct in saying you mostly go for sales, which is obviously fine as well.
@@DAWNation "What aspects? I broke down what people could interpret as misleading and manipulative, and showed how they are not. Can you point to a specific page?"
Saying "We might close registration for this course", "we might raise the price for this course" or putting a time limit on upgrading your purchase for a discount, is a well-known high pressure sales tactic designed specifically to exploit customers' FEAR OF MISSING OUT. It is objectively, undeniably psychologically manipulative. Not just my opinion. Convenient of you to ignore this in my first comment. I don't care what your "contracts" say, the point of stating those things is to manipulate customers, we all know that and I think you know that.
Same with the other points, you can chock it up to a "difference of opinion" and say you "don't see it that way", but I don't buy it. I personally think you know exactly what you're doing, and so do many other people. And if enough people see things a certain way, you can't just dismiss it as "wrong", and enough people BRINGING THESE ISSUES UP TO YOU should be the sign you should listen to them. If you want some hard DATA, take a survey and see how many people actually think the school of bass is worth $3,464, cause I'd bet it wouldn't be many. If you're extra brave, see what percentage of people enjoy your whole billy maze schtick, cause that might be even less.
I actually do have a business degree with a specialization in entrepreneurship and arts-related ventures. I know about digital marketing and sales techniques. And just to be clear, I don't doubt that these marketing techniques work, I would actually guess that they work quite well. However, it should be clear that these no-holds-barred, conversions-at-all-costs type tactics (aside from what I said about being manipulative) clearly leave a bad taste in some people's mouths, as should be evident by now.
So you have a choice to make. You can be straight shooter and run simple campaigns with no gimmicks. OR, you can use those gimmicks that get you an extra 5% conversions, have your reputation among some of your customers be the sleazy car salesman infomercial guy, and just live with the critics. It's your business, so it's your choice how to run it, but you can't say the criticism of your choices are invalid, especially when numerous customers are all saying the same things.
Hi again! Excellent video, I am just writing this comment as I'm watching to get my thoughts and a more concrete conclusion down.
NOTE: RUclips gives me an error when trying to post the whole comment in one go, presumably because it is quite long, so I'm going to try to post the later sections via replies:
Part 1/3:
Hi again! Excellent video, I am just writing this comment as I'm watching to get my thoughts and a more concrete conclusion down.
As for popups, I think I'm with you here more than I was originally, I personally still don't like them but I can see how some would. Maybe its partially how often I switch between tabs and minimize things that just made it come up within like one second of opening the page, making me think it's more aggressive than it would be for others. I personally still think there may be a better condition for the popup to come up on, especially for people who use larger screens and don't use a browser full-screen. I just normally don't have my mouse on my web browser window while reading, so the popup did hamper my ability to do that. Depending on how common that is, it could potentially decrease funnel though rate, as every little thing a person has to click, as you know, decreases CTR. I'm not sure of a solution for this though, and idk if there's any method that would lead to a net gain in CTR.
19:30 I completely agree that if you click on something and a popup comes up, that is completely warranted. I don't really consider them popups in that case, so I wasn't referring to those in my original comments.
Actually, just now while looking at the website once again I feel like some of the vibes that are putting me off the page are aesthetic inconsistencies with the download buttons and whatnot from the rest of the content. On the main page that's linked in your description, everything on the page looks super clean and meshes well except for the "CLICK TO TURN ON SOUND" button, which has a arial/impact like bold font while the rest has a thin, modern, sci-fi vibe. The red volume button and the animation also makes it stand out a lot. Obviously this makes it easier to find and click, but for me it kind of also had the unconscious effect of making it look "scammy" just based on other sites I have seen. I personally would just change the color to a teal-blue and change the font to something still bold, but just slightly different, maybe like an extrabold version of the font you use for the rest of the page. Very, very small change but I think things like these are the things making me, and possibly others, feel weird about it.
This same thing also goes for the download buttons, looking back, the fact that they are large is not the issue at all. As you say, they are a completely normal size when compared with others. It's that the font is very different from the rest of the page, and the button is rounded in a kind of early internet theme, which in my mind goes against the sci-fi theme of the page. This also goes for the text at the top of store pages like the Your Brain on Drums pack. It's written in a plain font using title case, when much of the other text is all capitals or just normal sentence case in a more sci-fi thin font. At the bottom of the page with all the prices added up, the text colors and fonts also deviate from the rest of the page's aesthetic, which kind of jarred me and made it feel less professional and potentially more "scammy", even though I knew your site wasn't a scam already.
Ok, at 14:10 you say that I couldn't have seen the same buttons, this was kind of a communication fault on my part. What I really meant is that I have seen very similarly styled buttons, not the exact same ones. My experience with these buttons comes from having to click through ad-fly pages every once in a while lol, happens a lot through Minecraft texture pack downloads and whatnot if you're not careful as small texture pack creators are just trying to earn pretty much anything from their pack, which is fair, but also puts me off their product a lot. Also some ads on websites include a download button as part of the ad, which in my mind seems quite sketchy as normally they would have that on their page. I haven't directly gotten malware from any of these pages, but I feel like they would definitely give me some if I clicked every button I saw. This video at the beginning shows some sites like that, not all have the same type of buttons, but enough do that I learned to avoid them ruclips.net/video/WKLRKCVar6Y/видео.html&ab_channel=Kitboga
As for sites trying to replicate tactics that work (15:15), you are probably correct, but due to the prevalence of these sites, younger generations like mine now avoid buttons like that more frequently, and so any benefits are probably wearing off. I know that most websites have moved away from even having "Download" buttons for paid products because of this, now more commonly opting for "Buy" "Add to Cart" or "Get". An example of this can be found here: projectsam.com/libraries/.
I do know that older people tend to prefer/don't mind the older style of buttons and page layouts, and many scams such as tech support scams take advantage of that.
Essentially, I pretty confidently believe that a small aesthetic overhaul on the buttons while making them remain obvious and easy to press would lend more credibility to your site and increase sales. For example, the buttons on the Star Citizen site (although that game was scummy in other ways, just the first thing I thought of) robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen are still very clear, but have a sci-fi styling. A very similar aesthetic would work well with your site I think.
I don't want to start saying the same thing over and over again, so I'll just say my arguments about aesthetic also apply to the popups and offer stack.
Ok, for provesource (16:10) I'm not exactly sure where my dislike/feeling for them came from, but I definitely have it. I made the incorrect assumption that most others would feel the same way as well, but that is definitely incorrect. I guess for me personally it's maybe the fact that it's like testimonials but without the person agreeing to do said testimonial? I'm not sure. You are also correct that scammy websites do not usually have something like provesource (although I would assume some have made a fake alternative, but have no examples so really just an assumption).
At 18:00 you talk about how just because a website has certain attributes doesn't mean it's sketchy, which is completely true, and going in from the beginning I knew your page was legitimate. However, I was more trying to criticize in case it put off a percentage of people who didn't already trust the site and wouldn't spend time checking its validity. Just like the other things you do, I think some changes could be made to even further improve your funnel rate.
Part 2/3:
At 20:20 you start talking about the offer stack. I think the main thing that could be changed with this section of the page is just telling people what the prices refer to somewhere above the stack. I just had no idea what the prices were referring to, so to me they felt completely random even though there was a reasoning behind them. At 21:30 you say that's the price it would cost to get that information somewhere else, and I don't think that is necessarily true. While some information I'm sure can only be found in the classes and nowhere else on the internet, inevitably some of it will appear in other classes, either from people separately discovering the same thing, or unknowingly/accidentally sharing information in their own class that they learned from your classes. Once again though, more clarity about where the value numbers are coming from would be great and negate this issue (24:00 Although, to be honest, though a private lesson you gain more benefit than you can ever though online content because the creator can directly offer you feedback in real time, so the information isn't exactly the same. It would be more equivalent to attending a lecture with 30 people than a private lesson).
At 24:35 you do say you say this information "in the fine print", but I can't see it on your page anywhere, so I do think it would be beneficial to you and to customers to make that information much more obvious, as I think the effect of large prices and then a small price increasing sales would still hold up.
At 26:30 you say that my product would be worth all of my time at a set price, and I completely agree, I think my wording didn't get across my point, which was that I don't think an individual copy of my product would be worth all that money. If a company approached me to buy my product, then yes, it would be worth the full price, probably over $30,000 if I'm paying myself fairly.
You also say that value exists if someone isn't willing to pay for it, which I would agree with philosophically, however, in a product sense this isn't necessarily true and that's what I was referring to. My product is $30,000 in theory, but given that it is my first product and I am a small creator, there is 0 way it will ever return me $30,000 in monetary value through any means. It did return me with a lot of fun and joy to make, as well as expertise and a new product I get to use though, which is value in its own way. I was somewhat nihilistically making that point in my previous comment, which in hindsight wasn't really needed.
While referring to the website for this part, I also noticed that the exact same download button/product graphic appears 3 times, potentially making me feel like there was more download buttons than was required for the product and lending to my initial reaction to the page, essentially compounding the effect of the aesthetic differences between the page and download buttons. I think tweaks to the button would also mostly eliminate this issue.
At 28:25, I now agree that it is not useless or unneeded information as long as the method behind the numbers is clearly shown to the viewers. Also, it's good knowing you've done a lot of split testing of your site and whatnot.
At 29:00 you talk about how the offer stack works well large, and given what I talked about before, I am now pretty indifferent to that. However, originally I felt like I had to scroll though everything to get to the price because I somehow didn't notice it on the download buttons, maybe because my brain subconsciously associated them with downloading rather than price. I think having the price more clearly displayed next to the product "box" image, as well as the discount amount, would help people immediately see a price and know how much they're paying.
Also, while looking at the website again, I think you could swap the testimonials and included content section, or display them in 2 columns next to each other (ideal as long as it wouldn't make things to small). Would definitely require split testing, but I think having the content/demos more immediately available to look at would help with sell through.
At 31:40 you talk about the 1 click upsells, and seeing what they actually look like (when displayed in the popup) they look great. As I mentioned in my second comment though, I still got a 1 time offer twice in a row without doing any checkout just on the main page. It wasn't a 1 click upsell as far as I know. I am unfortunately unsure what page this appeared on, but I haven't seen anything similar since. This was the thing I had a problem with, not the 1 click upsells. I would personally still prefer something like a loyalty discount/bundle discount in addition to the upsells. For example, an "All Au5 Classes" bundle for the combined price of all things discounted like 10% would be great for people with a higher budget.
Maybe the thing I saw was a sale, like you mention at 35:10, although as far as I remember it just said something like "Wait, do not click off this page. If you do, this one time offer of $XX will go away". When I closed the tab and reopened it, the actual text talking about the offer was still there, not just the page as you mention at 37:00. If you do ever have those offers, that's one thing that I think is a bit scammy in any situation as it puts too much pressure on the customer, preventing them from making a well-thought out decision, which in my opinion is unethical. A sale timer is completely fine with me though.
36:00 Here you say that you can't legally guarantee a price, which of course is fine, but (you probably already do this but in case not) you should ask artists who sell through you to give you 1-2 days notice before you actually change the price if they'd be willing to. This probably wouldn't always be guaranteed, but if it is confirmed you can at least have a good warning period for customers on the site.
34:24 Here you talk about my idea for having a dedicated area for the provesource, and I do see your point about wanting it to stick with the viewer. In my mind I was thinking of a website in 2 columns: the left one for pack information, prices, and download/buy button that you can scroll in (buy button could stick to the top at all times), and the left one for testimonials and the offer stack that you can also scroll in, but separately. The provesource notification could stick in the top of the testimonials area regardless of scrolling. Above both of these boxes could be a banner for your website with the Home, Courses, Packs, Merch, Podcast, Free Stuff, and Contact bottoms.
40:30 Here you answer my question about if you had your site take other forms, and in hindsight, most sites aren't actually too different from yours functionally, generally they just don't have the offer stack and the popups upon trying to leave the page. As I've said before, I think the main difference is a lack of unified aesthetics on your page.
At 42:00 you mention how Adobe also implements a funnel based approach, and while they do make a lot of money, they are also one of the most hated companies among the pirating/open source community, leading to them being one of the most common targets of pirating. I think this is more to do with the expensive subscriptions for every product rather than the funnel specifically, but just thought it would be worth mentioning. You also talk about Apple, and while I also hate Apple as a company for other reasons, the upsell chain is mostly fine in my opinion. When I mentioned "funnel based" in my previous comment, I more was referring to the provesource, popup, testimonials, and offer stack all being in one long scrollable block and being worded/structured in a somewhat aggressive manner. This is probably not the actual meaning of a website funnel, and I was just using the term funnel-based for lack of a better term.
43:30, continuing with my previous point this was more of my incorrect usage of "funnel-based". However, I do think I should say that iZotope doesn't have 1 click upsells, you can add more to your cart, but you always just purchase everything in one go at the end all for the original price with no specials discounts (unless they were in a bundle). iZotope still has some stuff I dislike as well, such as timed popups and one-time offers that just come up randomly (as far as I know) rather than based on some sort of input. If they told me a discount was a loyalty discount or a new customer discount, I would be less put off by there.
Oh, and one more thing not mentioned in the video: I had previously not watched the videos on the store pages, and they do mention what the offer stack prices are based off of. (This was on the Crywolf masterclass page) However, on both the page and the video the actual price of the product isn't mentioned until the end, potentially discouraging people from buying because they think the price will be much higher (especially through the video). Since this is different (for the text at least) on other pages, it may be something you are currently testing, but my gut feeling is that having the price at the top of the page would help people immediately go in and buy straight away if they think it is a good deal for them, potentially increasing sell-through.
I also think the video on that page specifically at least could be edited down a bit with less repeated phrasing and a bit less emphasis on the prices to get the actual features of the class across quicker, although it's probably harder to AB test a video as you have to remake the video each time which is a lot harder than just changing the website, so this is a minor gripe for me. I don't really watch videos on web-pages anyway because I prefer reading information (although I have stumbled across one that made you watch a whole like 20 minute marketing video for a discount lol. Needless to say, I did not buy the product).
I was considering buying one of the Au5 courses but didn't because your entire website looks like one of those sketchy popups telling you that you just won an iPad
Show me the sketchy website that you are referring to, and we can compare and contrast. I have never seen a sketchy website that has put that much effort into it.
@@DAWNation bruh i like your website, don't listen to haters. Haters gonna hate.
I think the Russell Brunson method has unfortunately become synonymous with "get rich quick" schemes and "gurus" etc. But I can vouch for DAW Nation products, I've used 3 separate courses and found them all incredibly valuable, especially for the price.
However, I totally get why people might feel icky about the website pop ups, artificial scarcity/time limits etc. I'd compare it to going into a store and being left to browse and decide for yourself Vs a store assistant bouncing over to you and being overly helpful and obviously trying to get a sale. For some people, they like to be sold to. For others, they like to be left alone to decide for themselves. Being sold to feels icky and unauthentic for them.
I don't really know what the solution is to accommodate both kinds of people but that's what I think is going on.
This might also be a culture thing. I'm from the UK and we're miserable and like to be left alone and avoid talking to stranger. The US seems to be much more into interacting with staff and customers. Maybe try region based marketing differences.
This is some really really great insight, dude! Thank you for this. Everyone go checkout Sad Meal’s channel by the way!
@@DAWNation ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for this Wyatt!!!! Def be applying thiss
Interesting, and now I finally understand where your pulling those value/pricing numbers from. It did seem kind sus buying from you at first but now I have 4 courses cause they are great. But he was not wrong about the website seeming sus at first, especially the 1200 is now only 100 dollars or whatever. Kind of reminds me of those african dudes in spain who are tryna sell me sun glasses and they start out at 50€ then by the time im walking away they are shouting 5€ at me. Just throwing numbers around out of thin air. (that's how i felt before your explanation here)
Yeah, that's kinda how I felt in my first comment that he mentions. I said this in a huge long comment I made just now but I think clearly mentioning where the numbers come from would pretty much solve this issue for new customers. Same with some of the other stuff, it just kinda all hit me at once initially and it took until now for me to really dissect what exactly was making it seem off to me.
Thank you for sharing wyatt!!
I don't know if you still want to continue engaging in this conversation, and if not, fair enough, however I have some more data I would like to share.
I asked 6 of my friends (all gen Z) what they thought about your website. 1 was indifferent, 5 immediately thought it looked like a scam while just showing the top of the site without scrolling, and 1 of those 5 still thought it was a scam even after I told them it wasn't.
Additionally, most of the comments on this video with more than 1 like are comments with a similar attitude. While this could be chocked up to a loud minority, I don't think this is the case.
At least among younger generations, I think your website immediately puts the majority of people off. For more data, you could run a poll on this channel's community page which could prove useful.
I wrote about some potential solutions to this (in my mind) in my longer comment thread, but I would also love to go on a call and discuss further as well if you are open to that.
Hey, I apologize for the late reply on all of this. Yes I do want to continue this conversation, however it's launch week right for the Crystal Skies Masterclass. So I'm frantically getting everything ready for that. I will be able to pick this back up on Monday and discuss it more. Would that be okay?
Please make more marketing video
You also need to market, because you want to make money. Regardless of whether you believe in the product. The purpose of pop-ups and ridiculous saving claims is to manipulate the customer essentially to cause an impulse buy. If they truly needed your product then they wouldn't need to feel a sense of urgency to do so, they would just do it. I didn't buy your serum walkthrough with au5 specifically because of the marketing tactic. It feels like from the outset that the product is being forced, despite the fact that its probably value for money. I don't think it's sincere to say you are using marketing tactics because you "believe in the product" when the incentive (and the data) is fueled by sales i.e. making money. You know what you are doing and so do we, so it is what it is.
If you did a Hiphop or Trap course you would make bank. Dubstep/bass music is too niche, go get a pro beatmaker and rake it in.
Smart man! Cymatics has been going after this market...