Before getting started on how to create and sell killer info-products, I want to share with you the rationale for choosing information products over other alternatives.
Information is intangible. Everyone has some of it, often in a specialized niche. Someone, somewhere will benefit from information YOU have.
The trick is in:
- identifying what information you have that's unique and valuable
- finding out the right people who need/want your information
- screening them to see if they can and will pay the price your information is worth
Information is also a product you have infinite profit potential from - because the creation cost of an info-product is very low, its perceived value is very high, and therefore profit potential is huge.
Most online marketers think of information products as meaning only ebooks.
No. There are FIFTY-THREE different kinds of information products. And each one of them (or any combination of them) can become the building blocks of your information empire.
The nice part is that the same information can be packaged in multiple different ways to become many different products - each with a unique channel of distribution. It is the ultimate form of creation leverage - create once, sell many times over.
Let me give you an example.
Say you want to write a book. You could sit down and write it from beginning to end, spending weeks or months to get it done. Edit it, format it, package it, and then put it up for sale.
Chances are it will flop - badly. And you would have wasted a lot of time, effort and money.
But consider this alternative.
Launch a blog. Write your book, and when a section or chapter is done, post it to your blog (or summarize it on your blog). Promote the blog at first to get some readers interested.
Then, put feedback systems in place. Ask readers to share their comments and opinions. Invite them to give suggestions to improve or enhance your work. That way, as your book gets written, it dynamically evolves.
You can seek opinions on what more your readers would like to learn about. Assuming that you target the correct audience, which is the same as prospective buyers of your book, you will get amazing feedback and can tailor your book according to readers' needs.
By placing opt-in forms on your blog, you can build a list of future buyers, who will jumpstart your sales when the book is done.
Smart authors like Seth Godin have perfected this into an art-form. By following Seth's blog daily, you'll get most of the material in his print books - but not all. If you're interested in what he's writing, you'll snap up his books as soon as they are published.
Imagine how superior this approach is to just banging away at your keyboard, guessing at what your audience might want to hear about!
We'll get into intricate details of how you can handle this process over time. Let's begin with an outline of the process to create a killer info-product.
There may be parts of the process to create and sell infoproducts easily that are not explicitly detailed in this article. You will find more elaborate explanations of them in my Infoproduct Toolkit. When you have finished this article, you will have enough material to plan, outline and create killer infoproducts on demand.
Once you understand how it works, you'll find yourself churning out products faster than you ever believed possible. There was an occasion where I created a killer infoproduct starting from scratch IN JUST ONE HOUR - and that included this sales page!
So, anything is possible - even a 1-hour info-product!
Ready to start learning how to create your infoproduct?
Great.
How To Create And Sell Info-Products Easily
- Step by Step
In this section, I'm going to share the exact steps, thinking and process planning that goes on behind the scenes every time I create and sell infoproducts - so you too can use it to plan a project, create your own information product and start profiting from it.
STEP #1 - CHOOSING THE RIGHT TOPIC
Niche research can be a tough task. You've probably heard it said that the best way to find a hot selling product is to look for a problem many people are facing, and then offer a solution.
One of the best ways to do this is through online forums, especially busy ones. You can locate them by browsing through directories listing online forums, or hunting for them using search engines (type in the search term: "(Your niche topic) + discussion forums"
A good guide to assessing if a forum will be suitable for your niche research is to look at how often people post there, and how recent the latest post is. If there are no visitors to the forum in the last few days, it's probably not suitable for your needs.
Have a quick look around to evaluate the quality of the discussion. Then make a decision to use that forum or not - and then move on to the next one.
It is hard to detail the best way to conduct such research, but here's what I do. Visit the forum. Look for 'hot' threads - discussion topics that have a huge number of page views or many responses.
As a rule of thumb, if a discussion has over 400 views in a day, or over 1,000 views in 3 days, it's likely to have massive potential, both to find topics and triggers close to your target market's heart, and issues or problems they are seeking a solution for.
As you gain experience in a niche, you might even latch on potentially viable topics simply by seeing the title of the post and studying the nature of the responses other members offer.
When you see the same (or similar) questions being asked on the forum, instead of getting annoyed, see if there's an opportunity you can tap. Study the nature of the discussion each time around - and see if any questions are common, if any issues keep cropping up regularly.
STEP #2 - PLANNING OUT YOUR PRODUCT
At its core, an information product is judged by one thing, and one thing alone - the quality and usefulness of the information inside it.
Not by the pretty packaging, not by the method of delivery, not by the fancy graphics or glitzy programming... but by the stuff it contains and the value your information offers buyers.
And that's good news - for you!
If you have useful information, insider tips, practical experience or extensive knowledge about the topic under discussion, you probably have the kernel of a great information product.
And even if you don't have it, but know WHERE to find the information, you're on the right track!
Before taking the next step, think about the topics, questions, issues, problems cropping up in the discussion. For example, for one report I wrote about lowering the risk of getting refunds when you create and sell infoproducts, I identified a few core issues from a discussion on a forum, like:
- what's the best way to offer refunds?
- how to deal with cheats and serial refunders?
- can refunds be turned into an advantage?
Based on my own experience from a decade of selling info-products online, I also added a few things like the psychology behind a refund, the reasons why people might consider requesting a refund, and included some of the most effective solutions I've built into my own business that helped lower my own refund rate.
This entire process shouldn't take too long, especially when you're planning a short report. For a full-fledged ebook or ecourse, this might take a bit longer - but still not more than an hour, tops. After all, all the research material is right there in the forum, within the discussions that attracted your interest in the niche!
STEP #3 - CREATING THE PRODUCT
This part is as easy or as difficult as you make it out to be.
To me, writing comes easy. I wrote the entire report in one session lasting a little under 2 hours. You might find it easier to dictate and have it transcribed (or even offered as an audio product), or ghostwritten by someone else for a fee.
If you aren't writing from personal knowledge or experience, you might have to spend some time doing research and reading, online or in your local library. How long you take to do it depends on your expertise, knowledge and depth of material you expect to share in your product.
For short reports, just start writing. For bigger projects like a book or ebook, you might want to first outline your structure by chalking out a table of contents. Make sure the table of contents covers all areas you wanted to focus on. You can also draft out some of the highlights that will go in each chapter, so you have a skeleton of your proposed book which you will then flesh out.
Once your outline is done, just jump in and do it. Don't let the task appear forbidding or scary. You'll often find as you start writing, things will flow - especially if you're writing about something you know well and are passionate about.
Your style of writing will vary depend on the nature of your subject matter and your target audience. Whether you write in the precise, structured tone of an academician or the informal, chatty style of the guy next door, make sure what you write is easily understood by your reader.
If this sounds hard to grasp, try this simple exercise. Imagine you are sitting down to tea with your ideal customer (or have him on the phone) and talk to him about the topic of your information product. What would you say? How would you say it? That's the exact same way you should write your book or report or ebook.
Break down your work into manageable chunks. Draw up a schedule to get it done. Stick with your timetable. Stop making excuses for falling behind. Don't stop working until you get each day's task finished. Before you know it, your work will be completed.
Once you've finished writing and editing, decide on the format you are going to make your written report available. It could be a PDF document - there are many services that allow you to convert a text document into PDF, or you could use the official Adobe Acrobat software to do it with many extra features thrown in (like security passwords).
It could be presented as a web page (coded in HTML), or a Word document offered for download, or even a printed report (or book). We'll discuss this in another article shortly.
That's it, you're done
STEP #4 - GETTING FEEDBACK - AND TESTIMONIALS
One of the coolest things about online forums is the amazing folks who will review your creation, offer constructive and extremely valuable feedback, and quickly give you lovely testimonials (if they are happy with what you've created) that you can use on your sales letter.
One word of caution, if you've never done this before... be very specific about what you're looking for, and by when.
There have been many times, early on, where I've only ended up giving away samples of my ebooks with little to show in return - because I wasn't clear about 'end points'
Here's a sample of what I posted on a forum when I was creating the 'Refund Profit Secrets' report:
Need Review +/- Testimonial... By Tonight
If you've got a few minutes to spare right now, I'll
trouble you for a small favor.I just finished a report about refunds and dealing
with them - and need some feedback and testimonials
for the sales letter.I would like to give out FIVE review copies to anyone
who can quickly go through it and offer feedback/
reviews/testimonials I can use on the letter -And Do It Very Soon - Before The Day Ends
The report is 22 pages long, and will take around 45
minutes to read. It's about dealing with refunds and
turning them into profit centers.If you'd like to be a reviewer, just post a note here,
or send me a private message, or email me with REVIEW
COPY in the SUBJECT line.Write to info (at) ________ .com
Thanks for your help, sorry for the short notice, and
in case I've got 5 reviewers before you contact me, I
apologize and will give you an extra special deal when
I launch.Thanks again.
All success
Dr.Mani
It got 5 reviewers within an hour - and ALL of them sent in reviews which now grace the sales letter...
STEP #5 - CREATING YOUR SALES LETTER AND PROCESS
The nice thing about this approach is that the sales letter practically writes itself!
While you're researching your material, you'll already know your prospect's hot buttons... their biggest worries, toughest problems, most difficult hurdles. If you address them in your sales letter, it's sure to convert enough of them into buyers.
The major issues in the discussion thread will become your copy bullets. The biggest 3 or 4 things will go into your headline. The problem becomes your lead-in to the sales letter.
All that's left is to throw in the price, guarantee and sprinkle in testimonials - and you're done!
You've completed all the steps to create and sell infoproducts - and it's easy!
If you want to do this even better, include an opt-in form and create a multi-part autoresponder email sequence (a set of messages that are pre-loaded into your email autoresponder service to be delivered to all people who sign up to your list on a schedule you decide and set up in advance - everything happens automatically!)
Another idea is to extract a section of your report, and create a PDF booklet that offers a sample of your information in the full report - and acts as a sales letter for your product.
Then, set up your payment processor to accept credit cards, test out the entire process, and you're ready to roll.
What's GREAT about using this technique?
Just this... if you're willing to work fast and furious, you can have your product ready, tested and validated, all within 24 hours!
With this speed, you can test 3, 4 or even more infoproducts EVERY WEEK!
Just imagine - you can CRUSH any competition who will take weeks, if not months, to get this far.
And with thousands of forums, discussion groups and mailing lists on just about every subject under the sun, there's enough research material to hunt out hot niches for a long, long time.
It's why I look at some online forums as my GOLDMINE. The rich ore is right there on the Web - all you have to do is mine it!
There are several hundred fortune-making products around the Internet that began as seeds on online forums - and you have just the same access to this rich material as I do. The only thing that impacts your results is in how you will use it.
Take a pro-active, niche-hunting, fortune-building, opportunity-seeking approach to visiting forums, participating on discussion lists and subscribing to ezines.
Make sure every minute you spend there is an investment in either growing your knowledge, extending your network or researching future products and promotions.
Use that knowledge to create and sell infoproducts for easy profits. Repeat the process, providing your readers will increasing value, and pretty soon you'll be the owner of a powerful and profitable information empire on the Internet!
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