How to cut down on the frustrations of delivering digital content

Another true story for the archives: Back in 2016 your pal & long-suffering daily email horror host decided to start a membership site (called “elBenbo’s Apprentice”) that would have been purely digitally delivered. Up until then, I was mostly selling physically delivered — by mail — info products like Email Players, and my other products. But, I got the “bug” to do a paid membership site, which would deliver my podcast (which was way too valuable to keep giving free, in my opinion) and a whole slew of other digital content each month, including a pile of bribes to get people inside that was so long it took over 40 pages (no exaggeration) of bullets to explain in the ad. The result? It was the single most successful launch I’d ever done at the time. But, I also stopped sending the launch emails before the launch was over. And, I abruptly killed the entire project off the next day. Why? Because it was a gigantic pain my righteous gluteus assimus. With roughly 1,000 customers, we were already getting overrun with support desk requests (far too many sent to me personally, even though we had a clearly-displayed support email to contact) day and night, with people not getting their passwords, not being able to download content, having duplicate emails where they didn’t remember which one to login with, support emails going to spam (or routed to a folder due to them setting up rules in their Outlook or Gmail sending emails from me to it), not being able to access the private Facebook group that was attached to the offer, and the list goes on and on and on. I remember telling Producer Jonathan (my business partner in the venture): “If it’s this bad with 1,000 members, it’ll be a nightmare of monstrous proportions when we get 5k, 10k, or more.” He agreed wholeheartedly. It took the joy out of the whole thing. And, I retreated back to my cozy coastal cave selling physical products again. Then a few years ago I got the digital offer “bug” again. This time, to run a special sale selling a bunch of digital content very inexpensively. And, like the elBenbo’s Apprentice offer, it far exceeded my expectations to the tune of nearly $20k in sales from just 8 emails over 5 days. If I’d gone full-on “Ben Settle” sending the usual 15+ emails I do during sales, it’d have no doubt been a ho’ bunch more. But, that turned out to be a mini-nightmare, too. And, for all the same reasons the elBenbo’s Apprentice offer was. Thus, my utter revulsion to selling digital products. The nonsense involved with digital delivery is enough to turn my not-so-delicate stomach. That is, until recently. Because Troy Broussard told me that while, yes, digital delivery is ALWAYS a pain in the arse — even to the people claiming to have the largely mythical “lifestyle” internet businesses just selling digital seamlessly — there is a way to cut down on a lot of the evils & frustrations of delivering digital content. Admittedly not 100% all. Digital always has some kind of hiccup. But so does physical delivery. That’s just the nature of the direct marketing beast. But the vast majority have been smooth as honey when doing this. A way that is ridiculously obvious, yet very few businesses in our space do it. A way that again, is not perfect (nothing is). But I daresay it’ll probably make a lot of online sellers happy if they set it up. At least, the ones who are wise enough not to procrastinate on getting Troy’s Automation Magic course at the $100.00 discount off the regular retail price this week via my affiliate link. The deadline is looming like a digital ghost hovering over your bed — Sunday (4/7) at midnight EDT. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/automate]( Ben Settle P.S. Troy’s also including 2 LIVE Q&A calls for those partaking of my affiliate link by the deadline... along with a detailed automation walk through that DEMONSTRATES all of the cool automation he has been using in a series of challenges he’s been promoting to his list recently so you can do the same if you so desire. The deadline is Sunday 4/7 at midnight EDT. Simply use my affiliate link by then and it’s all yours. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/automate]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA