Built in a Day: Tutorials to Make Better Google Sheets

Hi Andrew.

You built this in a day? Wow, awesome work man! That must feel great.

Now that you've got the product, marketing is next. Which basically means: Connecting the user's mental world to your product. Bridging where they are right now to them understanding what your product can do for them.

Right now, your website pitches an answer, but without painting a picture of the question this answers will solve.

You are showing people what you'll cover in the course. For instance, you say you'll cover INDEX MATCH as an alternative to VLOOKUP. But if your audience already understood that VLOOKUP is their bottleneck, and that they need to learn INDEX MATCH, they would have already googled info about this new function. They wouldn't need you. So the idea that they can use this other function is already part of the value you are providing. But they don't know that yet. Hence, advertising the fact that you'll teach them INDEX MATCH will not "connect" with your audience.

Other commentators already mentioned that you should provide use cases. That means:

Describe situations in which your lessons will be the savior.

One way to identify such situations is your own journey. Obviously you must have been frustrated at some point, which made you figure out these problems. What was that frustration? What were you trying to achieve?

And drop the engineer's perspective for one moment here. Psychologist Alfred Adler says that all problems are relationship problems. So what part of that frustration was people related? Were you on a deadline? If so, you were probably afraid of disappointing somebody. Or did you want to help someone out? If so, you probably wanted to find the solution so you could be someone's hero.

If you're like me, you probably resent marketing that's overly emotional. Or that sells products based on totally unrealistic promises. Like, "Buy that car and women will be all over you". But that doesn't mean that connecting to human desires per se is bad. It only means that you shouldn't make unrealistic promises.

Apart from backtracing your own journey, you can close your eyes and try to imagine what kind of people out there might love you for showing them what you are showing in the videos. In what situation is that person? Where does the pressure she feels come from? Whom does she want to please? Whom does she not want to disappoint? What are the consequences of her making a bad Google Sheet? What are the consequences of her making a better one? What does this person believe she needs? What is she typing into Google in order to solve her problem?

If you can describe the problem your prospect is facing in greater detail than he can, he'll automatically credit you with being able to help.

People will listen only after they feel understood. Do more understanding (i.e. describing their world), and less talking (i.e. describing your features), and you'll sell a lot more.

Hey @AndrewKamphey! As someone working on Google related content as well, it's always great to see this stuff. Love the initiative as well. Gives me a bit of a kick to the ass to stop wasting time and start creating more.

To echo a bit of what @rosiesherry said - the biggest improvement I see is that you're not really selling a relatable outcome. It's hard to tell exactly who you are targeting here. Do you have a target audience? What are their biggest pains? How does "making better google sheets" help them?

Also I think there needs to be a bit more of a funnel before you hit people with a hard sell straightaway. I would lead with your free content, get people to trust you know what you're talking about, see if they like your style, before moving towards the next step. Don't hide that free content behind a button and make people work for it.

Hope that helps!

I think it would be helpful to describe some of the things you have or are creating, otherwise I/people don't really know if it is relevant to them.