Struggling to Sell? Here’s How One Business Created a Product That Earned $3,000 in 7 Days

By Kristin MacLaughlin April 17, 2020

During COVID-19, your regular products and services may not earn the revenue they once did.

Your audience’s lives have changed. Due to new financial, social, or cultural differences caused by this pandemic, your products or services may not be as in demand right now.

If this sounds like you, it might be time to create a new product or service that’s both relevant and helpful to your audience’s current struggles and pain points.

That’s exactly what Paula Rizzo — founder of List Producer, media trainer, and author of Listful Living — did.

In a week, she formed a concept for a highly-relevant, new product and created it. To date, she has already generated three thousand dollars in revenue from this new product.

Here’s how she did it.

The 5-step process Rizzo used to launch a new product and start earning income.

Step 1: Find a problem you can solve.

With many businesses now working remotely, video meetings, webinars, and virtual events are suddenly common. And for many professionals, being on video is uncomfortable.  

Rizzo realized she could help these individuals  be more confident during virtual meetings and presentations. “I help to train people to feel more comfortable and look better and sound better on camera, so I thought I could help people not used to doing this communicate better,” says Rizzo. 

Using her expertise, Rizzo created a 1-hour, online training that teaches professionals how to be confident during virtual meetings and events. She hoped this training would solve a pain point that people currently have due to social distancing and remote work.

Step 2: Invite a group to try your product or service.

Rizzo invited members of her list to sign up for a $97 online training that she recorded on ZOOM. It allowed her to not only generate some income but get feedback from real users.

She was also able to incorporate the recorded Q&A into the final on-demand product. Plus, she could gather testimonials and use them to promote the product.

In the invite email, she made it easy to sign up by including multiple calls to action that linked to the training sign up page.

Step 3: Gather feedback and testimonials.

After the event, Rizzo emailed those who attended her training to see if they liked it.

Not only did this help Rizzo get useful feedback, it gave her testimonials she could use to sell her training. 

Below are a few of the testimonials Rizzo collected.  

Step 4: Launch your product or service.

Armed with feedback from users, Rizzo honed her 1-hour training “Virtual Meeting Pro” that she had previously recorded with Zoom. The course is now available on-demand for her audience.

Virtual Meeting Pro is hosted on Paula’s website using the membership software WishList Member.

WishList Member™ is a  membership software solution that can turn any WordPress site into a full-blown membership site. Wishlist Member integrates with both AWeber and Rizzo’s payment collection tool PayPal. 

PayPal integrates with AWeber and includes tag support to make segmenting your list super easy.

Step 5: Start promoting your product or service.

Once Rizzo launched her product, she began promoting it with email marketing.  

Rizzo sent 4 promotional emails that helped her quickly earn $3,000 in sales from her new course.

Here are 2 of the 4 emails Rizzo sent to her audience.

In this email, Rizzo uses a real, relevant story and humor to sell her training.

In this email, Rizzo explains the pain points her audience is probably feeling and shows how her product is a solution to those problems.

Learn more about Rizzo’s email marketing strategy!

Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with Rizzo and our Communications Manager Brandon Olson about productivity and email marketing. 

Learn additional tips on how Rizzo uses email marketing in her business, how to stay productive during COVID-19, and suggestions on growing your list.

Try AWeber and start growing your business online.

You’ll get everything Rizzo uses to grow her own business online — including sign up forms, newsletters, and landing pages.

Get started with AWeber Free today.

You could be AWeber’s next customer success story.

We are looking for AWeber customers to feature in future customer success stories.  

• Has your email marketing or business strategy changed due to COVID-19?
• Did you create a new product or service?
• Have you used email marketing in new ways?
• Do you have email marketing pro tips that have worked during these uncertain times?