Why You Shouldn’t Use Facebook Ads In Your Beta Launch (and what to do instead)

Hey, everybody, it's Tara, Bryan, and you are listening to the course building secrets podcast®. Whether you're a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give you practical real-life tips that you can use today to build your online experiences that get results and create raving fans. Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people without adding more time for the team to your business. If you're looking to uncover your million-dollar framework, package it and use it to scale, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hey, everybody, welcome to today's episode of the course building secrets podcast, I am thrilled that you're here with me today, I'm actually out traveling, so I am at a remote location. And but so happy to be coming in today to

have a little bit of time with you. So the topic that I want to talk about today is Facebook ads, and your online program. And when it is appropriate to start putting out Facebook ads. Alright, so I have so many clients who come to me and all they're trying to do is literally get their expertise out of their head, and packaged into an online course experience, or a program or whatever it is you want to package it into. And what happens is, most of the time, people say Oh, well, I'm just going to package my expertise into a course, I'm going to make it put on autopilot, and I'm gonna make a million bucks, it's gonna be amazing. And the reality is a little bit different. And let me explain why it doesn't mean that you can't get to that place. But what typically starts to happen is, when you first get started, your goal is to get your expertise out of your head and packaged into a framework that allows you to be able to put it online. And that's the very first step right. So that in and of itself is a big endeavor is just to get it organized, just to get it out of your head, and then start teaching it to real people. So the goal there is get it out of your head. So brainstorm all the things, put it into a framework that helps people get from point A to point B, right, so you're solving their problem. And then you're going to package it, before even package it, you're actually going to promote it, and then you're going to do it live, and then you're going to package it. So there's a whole system that you need to go through in order to get it dialed in, get it tested, and get it ready for you to then put jet fuel on it by putting in paid ads. So let me just walk you through what this looks like. Because you don't just automatically go into paid ads. And I'm going to share with you why as we go through this episode. But if you think about it, what you're doing is testing a new program a new offer a new product, however you want to think about it, I don't care what vocabulary you want to use. When you're testing something, you create an MVP, right, you create a minimum viable product. And then you go from there, you tweak it, you move it, change it and make it into version one, and then version two, etc, etc. So before you spend a lot of money on ads, and marketing and branding and all the things, your goal is to just make sure that what you have is viable, and that people want to buy it. If you start with ads, you start with different things too early, what you'll do is you'll just waste a ton of money.

And you don't even know if you have a converting offer yet. So what I always recommend to people is you look at at the process of launching this in with kind of three different lenses. So there are three types of buyers that you're going to have, who are going to be interested in your online program, you have your your hot buyers, which are people that are already in your world who literally are just waiting for you to put out the thing that you want to put out, right. So they're like, when are you? When are you going to finish that program? When are you going to create something that we can, you know, experience your expertise and learn from you as an expert, right. So if you're hearing those types of things, those your hot buyers are the people who you literally just need to put something out there and they're like I man, I trust you. You're my person and I want to learn from you. You've got the information that I want. Those are hot buyers. Those are the people that you want to get into your beta. Those are the people that you want to sell to first to test your offer to make sure that it's totally dialed in that what you're offering and the course that you're putting together is valuable and can get them results. It's a very first group you want to work with. Then there's warm buyers and warm buyers know that they have a problem they know that they want to solve it

and they just need a couple of, you know, kind of small steps that help them know that you are the person to help them. And then they're ready to buy. So you're hot, you're hot and warm buyers are the easiest ones to put into your beta. Because you, you know, they already are in your world in some way, shape or form. Maybe it's your people on your list, maybe you have people who have purchased something else of yours and are ready for the next step. Maybe there are partnerships or connections that you have that you can reach out to and say, Hey, would you promote this, or allow me to come and do a workshop or a training for your people, so I can introduce them to this new thing. Those are for your warm and hot buyers, those people do not need Facebook ads. Because again, you're not going out to the masses, you're you're literally just looking within your world, and you're starting to sort of plant those seeds and, and reap the benefits of the people who have already been sort of orbiting your space. That is where you start when you're doing your beta. If you do not have anyone in that are hot or warm buyers yet, then that is your very first step, as you're putting together your your online program is to start planting those seeds go out and do that that will be a different episode where I can explain that. But basically, that is who you want to have in. So you don't want to have your first go around. You don't necessarily want to have 1000s of people in your, your MVP, you want to have a number of people who can give you feedback. Sometimes that's five people, sometimes that's 20 people, but whoever's going to provide you with feedback, so you can tweak and sort of perfect your offer, make sure it's converting and that you're able to get people results. That's where you want to start every every every day, not with Facebook ads, because Facebook ads attract the third type of buyer, and that's a cold buyer, and the cold buyer doesn't know about you. So they don't know like and trust you yet. And they may or may not know they have a problem. So some people are out seeking a solution to their problem, that's great, Facebook ads would scoop them up. And then your job is to nurture them and make sure that they know that you're the one who can provide that solution. So that would be the benefit of that. The majority of the time though, what you're doing is you not only have to, you know, test your course, test your offer. But then if you're adding Facebook ads, you have to you have to test the ads, it's a lot for your very first launch. And what tends to happen is people spend a lot of money testing, when they don't even know that they're their offers converting yet. And so I always recommend do not start with Facebook ads as your sort of base strategy for moving forward and doing your beta.

Again, once you have a converting offer, then that's the time then to start looking into Facebook ads. So whenever my students come to me and they get excited about you know, going from zero to 1000 people in their, in their program, I always sort of slow down and, and look at how the pieces fall together. And what's going to make it successful with the least amount of investment is just to test your offer, test your program, do the different things that you need to do foundationally, so then you can hit the ground running. So then the next time you launch, you may be ready for ads, or you may launch a couple of different times before you're ready to put sort of the jet fuel on it, right. Because once you put the jet fuel on you have, you know a lot of people in your program, you gotta make sure it's dialed in, because otherwise you're gonna have a lot of churn, you're gonna have a lot of people who aren't getting results, which affects your reputation, and everything else. So, so, for me, that is what I recommend. Again, I am not a Facebook expert, Facebook ads expert, there are lots of people who out who are out there that do that, but that's a strategy that I use with my students, it's very successful, and saves them a ton of money on the on the back end. And

the other thing I tell people is just, you know, bIess slower at the beginning, don't be in such a hurry to, you know, spend a bunch of money to put out there to test your offer. Because, again, foundationally if you start in with the right steps, you're going to get to that place where you're able to grow and scale it it's just a matter of of going through the process. So don't be in too big of a hurry. Or you know, if you want to throw a bunch of money at Facebook ads and see if that strategy works for you. Go for it.

And and then you know

it's just a lot more chaos. A lot more sort of variables that are playing in so really focused on that warm and hot market. Go out find people who are you know, have

similar or complementary programs, that that those people may need help with your topic, or, you know, have other people promote, do have do trainings, do your webinar, do all the things that you need to do to get the right pieces in place, I promise you, you will be much happier when you get a lot of people in, to not be scrambling with volume, to have those things dialed in. That being said, don't over engineer the first couple

MVPs that you do, get the pieces together that allow you to really get this whole thing dialed in. Alright, there you go. That is my course building tip for today. Don't be in a hurry for Facebook ads, make sure that you are communicating and looking at the right audience at the right time. Start with your warm and hot buyers. And then look at a cold buying strategy. It's two totally different strategies. And it's much easier to get sales with people who are already sort of orbiting your world than it is to go out and grab new people and get all of that dialed in. That being said, for sure do that. Just do it in the right order. All right, there you go. Hopefully, this served you if you love this episode and other episodes that we have done, please go ahead and give us a rating and subscribe to our podcast. We would love to have you be a regular listener, and we look forward to talking to you again in the next episode.