EP 490 | How I Use Debriefs to Sell Digital Products
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How to Turn What You’re Already Doing Into Sales
If you’re constantly wondering what the heck you’re supposed to talk about in your emails, podcast, or content, you might be overlooking some of your best marketing material.
Because if you actually do the thing you teach, you’re already sitting on stories, data, experiments, results, mistakes, and lessons your audience would probably love to see.
Lately, I’ve been turning those things into what I call debriefs.
I do something in my business, then I pull back the curtain and show people exactly what happened.
What worked. What didn’t. What surprised me. What I’d do differently. And how that particular strategy fits into the bigger picture of my business.
But here’s where it gets more interesting:
Those debriefs aren’t just content. They’ve become part of my email sales funnels.
Your business can become your content
My business is intentionally built around doing the things I teach.
I teach people how to host Bundles, so I host Bundles.
I teach Pitch Sequences, so I use Pitch Sequences.
I teach tripwires, so I build and test tripwires.
And every time I do one of those things, I collect information.
Numbers. Screenshots. Results. Decisions. Mistakes. Things that went exactly according to plan and things that absolutely did not.
Instead of keeping all of that information to myself, I can turn it into a debrief.
For example, after hosting a Bundle, I might talk about:
How many people participated.
How many subscribers joined.
What generated revenue.
What I’d repeat.
What I’d change.
And how the Bundle fits into my larger email list growth strategy.
That debrief then naturally connects to Bundles That Build, my course teaching people how to host their own Bundle.
I’m not creating random content and trying to figure out how to shove an offer into it afterward. I’m showing the strategy I teach in action.
How the Debrief Funnel works
When I create a new debrief, I send an email inviting the people on my general email list to watch it.
When someone clicks the link, that behavior tells me something:
They’re interested in this topic.
That click triggers an automation that puts them into the Pitch Sequence for the offer that corresponds with the content in the debrief.
And the offer isn’t some surprise waiting for them on the other side.
I mention it in the debrief, it’s linked on the page where they are watching the debrief.
The Pitch Sequence simply continues the conversation they already chose to enter.
That’s the part I really love about this. The selling isn’t disconnected from the content. The sales mechanism is built into the experience.
About 50 clicks turned into 5 sales
I recently used this strategy with a debrief about hosting a Bundle.
Around 50 people clicked through to watch it. For an email list of more than 11,000 people, 50 clicks isn’t exactly a number I’m going to frame and hang on the wall.
But then something much more interesting happened.
Those people entered my Pitch Sequence for Bundles That Build. And 5 of those 50 bought.
That means roughly 10% of the people who raised their hands and showed interest in that specific topic became customers.
Instead of sending a sales message to everyone and crossing my fingers, I let their behavior tell me what they were interested in and then made them a relevant offer.
The 45 people who didn’t buy matter, too
This funnel told me something about the 50 people who clicked.
This group of people is interested in learning more about Bundles. (Even if they didn’t join my course, Bundles That Build.)
Maybe they weren’t ready to buy yet. Maybe they had other priorities. Maybe Bundles That Build wasn’t their next step right now.
But I now have information I didn’t have before.
And I can use that information to segment my email list and send them more relevant content in the future.
So one debrief can do three jobs:
It creates useful content.
It sells an offer.
And it helps segment my audience based on what they’re actually interested in.
That’s a much bigger win than simply getting another piece of content published.
Start with what you’re already doing
You probably don’t need to invent another elaborate piece of content for a debrief.
Start with your offers and ask:
Am I currently doing the thing I teach people how to do?
If you teach launches and recently launched something, debrief it.
If you teach copywriting and rewrote your sales page, debrief it.
If you teach ads and tested a new campaign, debrief it.
If you teach client onboarding and rebuilt your onboarding system, debrief it.
And please don’t think the experiment needs to have gone perfectly.
Sometimes the most valuable debrief shares when something did not go the way you thought it would. Good or bad!
Your expertise isn’t proven by pretending everything works perfectly. It’s often proven by showing people how you think when it doesn’t.
The big takeaway
You’re probably already doing the work. You might as well let that work become part of your marketing.
Instead of constantly asking yourself what you need to create next, look at what you’ve already done.
There might be a piece of content sitting inside it. There might be a sales opportunity sitting inside it. And there might be a really useful signal about what your audience wants sitting inside it, too.
That’s the Debrief Funnel.
Join the LIVE Masterclass on September 23 at 1:00 pm ET!
Sell on Autopilot Masterclass
Use email marketing to sell while you sleep
(or, ‘ya know…live your actual life!)
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q1: What is a Debrief Funnel?
A1: A Debrief Funnel uses content documenting a real strategy, experiment, or project in your business to identify interested subscribers and lead them into a relevant email sales sequence.
Q2: How can debriefs help with email list segmentation?
A2: When subscribers click to consume a debrief about a specific topic, that behavior can be used to identify their interests and send them more relevant content and offers in the future.
Q3: Can a Debrief Funnel sell digital products?
A3: Yes. The debrief can naturally introduce a related digital product, course, or offer, while a behavior-based email automation follows up with subscribers who showed interest in the topic.
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