What’s a bad product for you? The first definition of “bad” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “failing to reach an acceptable standard, e.g.: a bad repair job”.
For most people, bad means the same thing: it doesn’t work as promised. If you buy an alarm clock and it refuses to ring, that’s a bad alarm clock.
But a (digital) product can work just fine and still fall flat.
Think about it this way: the course you launched works — people can login to the platform, watch it, and hey, they’ll even get results if they implement it. Except…very few people buy it.
Is it a good product because it works?
I’ll tell you why it’s not after a short message from our partner today – the kind of message I wish I had seen before working with clients from all over the world.
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Victoria Patenaude
Are you working with clients or partners from different cultures? Whether they are overseas or not, you do.
Today, we’re constantly communicating across cultures, whether we realize it or not.
Unfortunately, these conversations are filled with hidden miscommunications. Why? Each person views the interaction through their unique cultural and linguistic lens, creating blind spots neither side can see.
These aren’t just awkward moments—they’re costing you real connections and business opportunities. Victoria Patenaude’s TEDx talk delivers a powerful perspective that transforms how you approach cross-cultural communication, giving you an immediate advantage without requiring you to become a cultural anthropologist.
It’s the talk I wish I had seen when I first started working across cultures — it would have saved me from a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings.
Watch Victoria’s TEDx talk here
Want your name up here? Reserve your slot!
Products vs objects
In marketing, a product that “works as intended” is the bare minimum. For a product to be good, it needs to do way more than that.
Simplistically, before the purchase, it’s a product. After the purchase, it’s an object.
For it to be successful, it needs to work as intended both before and after the purchase.
- Before they buy: it’s a promise you’re making (the transformation, the knowledge, the relief from their burning problem).
- After they buy: it’s a tangible (or digital) reality that either delivers or disappoints.
What bad products truly mean
With that in mind, let’s look at a few cases of bad products:
- It doesn’t work — the dictionary definition of “bad”.
- It’s too expensive. Sure, a new alarm clock would be nice, but $400 for it? Are you insane? Does it also cook and tell me I’m pretty?
- It’s too cheap. $2? It’s a piece of crap that will disintegrate the first time it rings
- This alarm clock weighs 4 kilos. The other clocks on the market are lighter, I’m gonna get one of those.
- Alarm clock? Who needs that? I have a phone, an Apple watch, and an Oura ring that wakes me up gently to Tibetan monk music.
The beauty of business and marketing is that the statements above are not gospel. Save for the first objection, you could find buyers for your weird alarm clock:
- $400? It means it’s a luxury item, I’ll buy it to reinforce my social status.
- $2? I’ll buy it because it’s all I can afford.
- 4 kilos? Finally, an alarm clock that my cat can’t push off the nightstand.
- I can hit snooze or dismiss on all my devices. I need a real alarm clock that I can’t turn off if I’m ever going to make it to the gym.
Humans are weird and wonderful. The key is finding that alignment between what they want and what you provide.
For laypeople, a product is an object. For business and marketing people, it’s an ecosystem.
A bad product is something that doesn’t have demand, pricing, and a clear promotion strategy baked into it from the get-go. Because it doesn’t matter if you build the world’s best alarm clock if no one knows about it, or if those who find it can’t afford it.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever built a product that you thought was good, only for it not to sell.
I have. Most people have.
In all honesty, it’s because we’ve built bad products.
Let’s do better.
What goes into a GOOD product
The 4Ps of marketing (popularized by Kotler and Armstrong in Principles of Marketing) are the mix you’re looking for.
1. Product The essence of what you’re offering. Think “What’s the point of my course?” If you’re promising to “completely overhaul someone’s mindset,” be ready to show tangible steps, not just a few motivational quotes.
2. Price Is it reflective of the value you promise? If your $3 course claims to solve “all your life problems,” people might roll their eyes. If it’s $3,000, you’d better be delivering something truly transformative.
3. Placement Where are you selling this? If your audience is mostly on Instagram but you spend most of your time on LinkedIn, your product will flop. (Learn how to zero in on what really matters.)
4. Promotion No one’s asking for a carnival barker. They do, however, need clarity: why does your course or coaching session exist, who is it for, and how will it help? And yes, your audience needs you to talk about what you’re selling – how else will they know?
(Learn how to promote yourself when you hate self-promotion.)
How to “un-bad” your product
First off, you need to look beyond what people usually call a “product”. Think holistically because the job of a business is to sell what it makes. R&D (Research and Development) is only the beginning.
In fact, R&D can be (and is) done by other organizations, like universities. They research and develop new objects, but the selling part belongs to businesses.
Most businesses fail not because they don’t have a functional product but because they don’t market it properly.
If you’re thinking about launching a new product, start here:
Interrogate your promise
Does your product genuinely deliver on its headline? If you’re teaching people to “run their first marathon,” ensure you give them a training plan, not just a pep talk.
Do people even want it?
It’s very, very easy to fall in love with your own idea. Especially if you follow the usual “I’m my own client” mantra. It’s OK to develop products you would use/need, but how many people out there share in your need?
Find your TAM (Total Addressable Market), but, more importantly, look at your audience, the people you can easily reach. Ask them if they want what you’re thinking about building.
Even a $500 course on “Mindful Macaroni Sculpting” could sell if the audience is made up of hardcore macaroni artists.
Align your pricing with your audience’s expectations
Are your people $2 or $400 alarm clock buyers? There is no right or wrong here, but you need to know where they stand budget-wise. Otherwise, they won’t buy.
Look at their history with you and at what else they like. Roughly speaking, there are two types of people: bargain hunters and those who would never buy something cheap because they don’t trust it. And this isn’t always about their disposable revenue — thrift shopping is a thing even among the rich.
Promotional bandwidth
Do you have the budget and/or the time to properly promote it? Think beyond the launch and the pre-launch phases.
How does the product fit into your current ecosystem? Do you have any upsell/cross-sell opportunities? Does it align with your brand values and BIG idea?
Can you create content around it to pre-suade and persuade?
If you don’t see a clear path to promoting it, you have a bad product. Hold off on developing and launching it until you know how you can confidently sell it.
Perhaps the most important and overlooked part of un-badding a product:
The audience is ALWAYS right
Always. If something doesn’t sell, it’s not because people are too dumb or too unsophisticated to know what’s good for them.
It’s because the seller botched one of the 4Ps.
I’ve seen a lot of tech companies say “we were too early and people just didn’t get what we were doing”. Or companies selling consumer goods/apparel say that “people don’t get quality; they don’t understand us, so they keep buying the cheap stuff”.
That’s always (always!) on you, not them.
People aren’t “too dumb” or “too cheap” to buy your product. They’re simply not convinced you’re offering something valuable enough for the price and context you’re presenting.
So, whatever you do, don’t turn it into an “us vs them” match. You will never win against your audience because that’s an unnatural match.
If your audience tells you they don’t want what you’ve built, go back to the drawing board. Start with demand (that’s usually where the problem is — people don’t need what you’re selling). Passed that checkpoint?
Then look at messaging and promotion, marketing in a nutshell. If there is a sizeable audience who needs what you’re selling but you’re still not making headway, that’s where your problem is.
The audience is always right, now it’s time to prove to them that your product is right for them.
Shameless plug: not sure if you’re building a good or a bad product? I designed the Growth Intensive program to help you launch good products only.
For two months, we’ll work together, just you and I, to make sure your products are solid and to map out all the content, the copy, and the marketing activities you need to meet your revenue goals.
Check it out here and reply to this email if you need more information.
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