Information Product Strategies
August 15, 2008
I just took a call from a client who was trying to get his information products business going a little faster. Like many people, he’s excited. The problem is that like many of his peers, the niche he has selected to try and attack is much too big.
His “targeted” niche had tens of millions of potential buyers.
The uninformed information marketer would say: GREAT! This would be the wrong path to go down. I instead asked him to take the niche that he selected and slice it thinner. I asked if he could target that particular group by industry or by geography.
Rather than targeting all seniors, you could target all the seniors who were still working part time jobs and lived in the state of Kansas.
But doesn’t this make your target market smaller? Absolutely. You want that. In “smalling down” your niche you are now in a position to become king or queen of that niche. It will be easier for you to OWN that particular segment of the “seniors” market.
Is there a magic number that you should shoot for? Sort of.
I always tell people to look for a niche that has somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 potential buyers. These are VERY rough numbers, but if you need a guideline, now you have one.
After you become the King (or Queen) of your smaller niche it would then make sense to try and go after other SUB-NICHES within the larger niche of seniors. Only after you’ve successfully penetrated a few of the SUB-NICHES would I recommend that you attack the niche as a WHOLE.
Follow this philosophy and you’ll be MUCH more successful.
I’d also recommend that you come to one of the bootcamps to learn more.
Information Marketing Traffic
August 14, 2008
If you’re an information marketer, it makes sense to find ways to get traffic. I recently discovered a guy who has been around for a while. I don’t know where I’ve been, but after spending some time in this guy’s program, it appears I’ve been under a rock.
Yaro Starak is his name. He’s got one hell of a great program to teach people how to blog. I don’t care who you are or what you do in the info product field, you need to check this guy out. I’m really particular about whose stuff I recommend. And, I’ve only been a “member” of his program for less than a week. BUT, I can tell you, this guy is the real deal.
People sometimes ask me why I (a so-called guru in some area) would pay to be in someone else’s program. The answer is easy? It makes good sense dollar-wise. I get to learn a LOT about blogging, in a very short period of time, from a guy who clearly knows his stuff.
Check this guy out! Go to his site. He has a lot of free stuff.
Go to http://www.CoolBlogTool.com
Yes, this IS an affiliate link. YES again. He material is phenomenal!
Selling Info Products System
August 12, 2008
SELL YOUR BRAIN POWER*
How to Take what you already know and turn it into Cash
by Fred Gleeck
If you’re trying to make money online, I have a critical suggestion for you up front. Do NOT get into the business by trying to sell other people information about how to make money on the internet.
Two reasons:
1. There is so much CRAP (and I do mean that most of it STINKS) already out there on that subject.
and
2. It doesn’t make any sense. How is it that people should buy information from you about making money on the internet when you haven’t done it yourself?
A bit disingenuous? I certainly think so!
That being said, there are some VERY GOOD ways for people to make money online. If they can only get out of their own way and see what they really have to offer. And for many, it’s quite a bit.
Here’s an example.
At a recent seminar of mine I met a guy who was trying to create a program about DEBT reduction that he wanted to sell online. He happened to be a lawyer and a pilot.
When we spoke, I coached him to take what he ALREADY KNEW. What he was suggesting appeared to me to be a pretty significant tangent.
He later agreed and produced some amazingly good info products geared to pilots.
Now let me back up and give you the steps I think you need to take to create an information marketing EMPIRE. A bit of hyperbole? Not really if you are willing to follow the steps and you’re in it for the long run, not just a quick “hit.”
Here are the 7 Steps You need to take to make this happen:
1. Select your Niche
2. Write the copy for your product
3. Create your Product
4. Put up a site
5. Drive Traffic to your site: paid and unpaid
6. Convert the Traffic: Get them to buy or opt-in
7. Continue to Selling them more and more
SELECTING YOUR NICHE
The example I gave earlier of the pilot is instructive. Many people who are looking to make some extra cash (or establish on online Empire) seem to want to start far afield from what they already know. NOT a good idea.
I always advise people to put up a big white board and start brainstorming potential topics. Write down any and everything that you know more about than 90% of the people on the planet.
Don’t you have to be THE expert in the field? Absolutely NOT.
Well what about the other 10% of the people who know more than you? Great. Good for them. Don’t try to sell them. And IF they buy you MAY have to refund them. Who cares?
All you have to do is know more than MOST and teach it BETTER. That’s the key.
On the whiteboard you should have written every possible topic (personally and professionally) where you know more than 90% of the folks out there. But, don’t go off half cocked yet. You are not done. Before you go to step #2 you have to make sure that there is a market for what you want to sell.
You are going to want to put together a product where there is SOME competition, but not TOO much. For now, let’s leave that a bit vague and non-numerical. We’ll come back to it later.
How do you do that? First thing we want do is take your topic and do two things. First, Google it. See what comes up. Are other people selling products in that niche? If so, how many? At what price point? I would order two or three of the top products and see what you think. Follow their sales process. What is their follow up like? What would you have done differently?
Then I would go to a program like WordTracker or a free site like: www.LowerYourBidPrice.com.
This will allow you to get an idea of how many people are searching for material on the topics you’re considering producing. Please notice that you have not yet spent any money, just some of your time.
When looking at the number of searches that people are doing, I’d like you to proceed to the next step if and only if there are between X and XX number of searches each month.
You are then going to want to make sure that the topic you select provides an intersection of passion and profit. I certainly don’t want to work on topics JUST for the money. I suggest you don’t either. That way, you can enjoy the ride you create for yourself.
WRITE THE COPY FOR THE PRODUCT
Before you even create the product? Yes indeedy!
I want you to write the sales piece for your product so that you know exactly what you want to include in the product itself. It’s sort of like what most good book authors do. They create and write the cover (front and back) of their books before they write the book itself.
If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense.
Should you write the copy yourself? You should certainly try. If this is your first go at creating and information product, the answer is a definite YES.
Need some help? Then get some. Not by paying a professional copywriter at this point. Start by buying a couple of books on the topic. I’d reccomend that you pick up one of my clients books: The Copywriters Handbook - by Bob Bly. There are also a slew of other books on copywriting. Take your pick.
The reason to do it yourself is to:
A. Find out if this is a skill that you have and
B. Make sure that a copywriter can’t take advantage of you since you know the process and how difficult or easy it is
Remember, after you put up your website with YOUR copy, the worst it will ever be is the first time you put it up. You can always go back and change and tweak it any time you want. That’s what’s great about the internet. It can be changed quickly and easily.
If you decide to hire a copywriter, then I suggest you start with asking that person to TWEAK (take a look at: www.SuperFastTweak.com) what you’ve already produced yourself with the books and other resources you’ve assembled. This will cost you WAY LESS than asking a copywriter to “do it from scratch.”
So, let’s assume your copy has been written, now. . . .
CREATE YOUR PRODUCT
The first step in the product creation process is to ask yourself what FORM or FORMAT the product needs to be in. Should it be:
1. Written - an book or an ebook
2. Audio - Audio CD or MP3 (dowloadable or physical)
3. Video - DVD or streaming online video
4. Experiential Event - seminar/bootcamp/???
How do you decide which form it should be in? What makes sense? If you’re doing golf videos, it’s tough to do THAT in audio form!
Ask yourself: “What method would make it easiest for my customers to use and implement the ideas/concepts that I’m teaching?”
Give people what will make the most sense. Full stop.
Whichever medium you choose, you’ll need to have a very detailed outline. The more detailed the better.
I one time showed up to do a video at a place in Vermont. It was one of my first times doing a video. When I showed up the night before the producer asked to see my script. My response: “What script?”
A muted smile came over his face.
I said: “We’re just going to WING IT.”
He smiled a bit broader.
They were getting paid by the hour/day for the video shoot. As a result of my lack of preparation I ended up taking twice as long and paying twice as much as I should have to complete the video project. Lesson learned.
Don’t make this same mistake. Be prepared. And being prepared means a detailed outline. BUT, how do you do it.
Here’s how:
First, write down any and everything that you think should be in the product. No screening at this point. Write every idea down on a separate Index cards. You’ll want to go buy at least 500 to start.
After you write down everything you can think of, now start putting them into piles. if an index card is a subset of another card, put it underneath. Do it until you’ve go a number of piles of cards.
Pile number 1 may have 6 cards under it. Pile 2 may have 11 cards. No worries. Just do it and think about the top card as the “Chapter” heading for that topic. The cards underneath it are subheadings.
When you’re done, put all the piles in the order that you think would make sense to teach them to someone else.
Once you’ve completed that task, go to the individual piles of cards and arrange the cards underneath the “Chapter” in the order you think would make most sense to present them.
On any of the index cards, now write any notes to remind yourself of something specific you may want to do. A Story, a prop, a statistic or a quote. Anything that you may want to use to ILLUMINATE the concept.
Once you’re done with that then . . . .
Create the product using the outline.
If you think a written product makes sense, then start writing. it’s easy to do with a great oultine like the one you’ve created.
If it’s an audio that you think makes sense, find a great interviewer to serve as your LARRY KING and have them ask you the questions.
IF you decide on a video, be careful. You’ll need to speak and/or consult with an expert in this field before you do it yourself the first time. Trust me, I’ve been there.
Same thing holds true for seminars and events.
Most people end up doing a book or an ebook first, but don’t feel that HAS to be your initial product. Specially if it doesn’t make sense.
PUT UP A WEBSITE TO SELL YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE
When you put up a website to promote your product/service you first need to ask the 64,000 question: WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DO WHEN THEY GET THERE?
You have basically two choices:
Get them to BUY something or get them to OPT-IN to a list and try and sell them later.
As people become more jaded with online offers I think you’ll find that getting people to opt in to your list is a good place to start. If you already have a big list, then it might be different, but let’s assume you’re going to try and get people to give you their name and email address first.
This means that your entire objective on your site is to CLOSE people on having them give you their name and email address. Don’t forget that fact.
Should you write a long sales letter to do that? Perhaps. Would it be better to write and create a short SQUEEZE page? Maybe. There is no right answer except to TEST it.
The obvious best way to test it to create a squeeze page first. It’s quick and easy to do. A squeeze page looks like www.fredgleeck.com/ebooks. Take a look and do something similar to this one.
As time goes on, you’ll want to test a simple squeeze page against a longer copy approach to see which one pulls better. You shouldn’t care which works better. Just d what the data tells you.
Do you need to get a professional website designer to help you create your site? Probably not. Quite frankly you can just copy and paste some of the websites that you like out there, bring them into an html editor, tweak them a little and produce your own
This is what every one else does! A little incestuous, but that’s the truth.
If you’re not web-savvy, get on elance and get someone to do a quick website for you. There plenty of people who will design and create a squeeze page for you for less than $50.
DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE (USING BOTH PAID AND UNPAID METHODS)
After you have the site up you’ll need to drive traffic to it. If the site is out there and no one sees it, nothing has been accomplished.
As I mentioned earlier, you’ll need to use both paid and unpaid methods to drive traffic to your site.
You’ll want to first start with PAID traffic. Why? It’s quick and easy to get. Also we can turn the traffic spicket on and off to test what approach will work BEST. After you optimize your resultst, then and only then will you want to try and get UNPAID traffic to your site.
In the paid traffic area, advertising on Google using Adwords is the place to start. This is because THEY are the 800 pound gorilla. Google accounts for around 60% of all of the paid traffic.
You’ll need to set up a Google adwords account. Go to the Google main page and you’ll see a link to advertise with them. Set one up and you’ll have traffic to you in no time. You’ll want to perfect it over time, but it will happen lightning fast.
As far as unpaid traffic, you’ll need to optimize your site for the search engines. I hire people to do this for me. It’s a skill that takes full time work to understand and perfect. I suggest you do the same. If you get to the point where you want to do that, please contact me. I’ll be happy to send you the names of the folks I use.
CONVERT THE TRAFFIC TO BUY OR OPT-IN
Once you get people to come to your site, you want to get them to take a certain action. In almost every case, that will be to either buy or opt in to a list.
If you’re trying to get them to buy something, your fall back position will be to get them to opt into your list. This way you can try and sell them something later.
Using a pop-up on exit is a good idea here. People who don’t buy are presented with an ethical bribe to get them to sign up for your list. Most people (and I suggest you do as well) are offered a digital bonus to entice people to opt-in.
Tracking is critically important. Without tracking you don’t know how well you’re doing and it will be tough to correct or adjust your efforts. You should set up Google Analytics on your site. This will allow you to get some vital statistics on your website.
To do this, go to your Google account and look for the Analytics area.
What data are you looking for with Google Analytics? You’re after a few key items:
1. Your number of unique visitors
2. How many people bought your product
3. How many people opted into your list
4. Your average visitor value
By taking the total number of buyers and dividing by the total number of unique visitors, you’ll get your conversion to sale percentage. By taking the total number of opt-ins and dividing by the same unique number of visitors you’ll have opt-in coversion rate.
Here’s a real life example (highly simplified) to illustrate.
Let’s say that you sell a $100 digital product. We’ll assume that for every sale you make the FULL $100.
Let’s say that over a period of time you got 100 unique visitors.
Let’s ALSO say that 3 of those 100 visitors buy.
Let’s ALSO assume that 21 of the 100 people opted into your list.
Now let’s calculate our 4 items described below:
1. Number of unique visitors: 100
2. Conversion to sale rate: 3% (3 sales out of 100 visitors bought your product)
3. Conversion go opt-in: 21% (21 out of 100 visitors opted in)
4. Average Visitor Value: $3 per visitor (3 sales produced $300 total revenue. Divide that number by 100 visitors and you’ve got $3 per visitor)
Average visitor value is critical to your success because we live in a pay-per-click world. Knowing that each visitor is worth $3, I suggest you don’t pay MORE than $3 per click. This way you will do no WORSE than break-even on the “front-end”.
Many LARGE companies are willing to spend $10 a click when they only have a $5 visitor value? Why? Because they know that OVER TIME they will make $15-$20 from each visitor. As small entrepreneurs we don’t want to risk doing worse than break-even on the front end. If not, we may go broke.
CONTINUE TO SELL THEM MORE AND MORE . . . FOREVER!
The key to making really big money as an information marketer is to get people to KEEP buying from you once they’ve bought the first product or service. This can only happen if you have additional products to sell them.
Once they buy from you, we’ll want to have them buy more from you. I suggest you take a look at my product funnel which you can download at www.TheProductGuru.com.
The idea here is that before you start selling a bunch of products you better sure as heck know what you’re going to sell them next. This is where the REALLY big money is made in the info products marketing business.
After you get them to buy ALL or most of your products, you’re going to want to introduce them to others in the same field who sell products as well. You’ll be doing that in exchange for a commission. In this business, it’s an affiliate commission.
Why send people to your competition? Because they’ll eventually find them anyway. YOU might as well be the person who gets a piece of the action for referring them. People rarely stick with ONE guru. They tend to go to any and everyone they find for more and more information.
If you don’t introduce them to someone, they will find that person through some other means, so YOU should get the commission dollars.
IN CONCLUSION:
In order to be successful as an information marketer you have to follow the seven steps that I’ve outlined. If you do that I’m not guaranteeing your success but I CAN guarantee that your chances will be DRAMATICALLY better.
Never invest a lot of money creating a product before you can first figure out whether or not people will want it. Once you decide to create a product, make sure that you have the elements in place to track your results.
Remember to test everything. Testing will give you a blueprint for what does and doesn’t work. It will help you to build your information marketing empire.
Now, go forth and create an information product empire!!!!
* Fred’s upcoming book title
Info Product Coaching
August 11, 2008
If you’re looking for someone to coach you to create and market your own info products, I have some suggestions. There are a lot of people out there who claim they can help you to create, market and sell information products. For those looking for a good coach, this is a problem.
Here are some things to think about if you’re looking for someone to coach you in the field:
1. Find someone competent. This can be a problem. There are people out there who have NO BUSINESS coaching people in this field. Some have no experience. Others have no teaching ability. How do you find the right info product coach?
Ask the people you’re considering if: they have been successful marketing their own info products. If not, you have a problem. Ask them: Have you coached other people to success? If the answer is NO, take a pass. In my case, my most successful client has been Bob Bly.
2. Look for a person with integrity. Ask around. There are a lot of people with bad reputations that you don’t want to get anywhere near. Use Google to look for information about your potential coach. Don’t believe the testimonials that someone puts up. Those can be “massaged.”
Do your due diligence. Ask any and everyone you can find. Ask those people who are posted as their testimonials. Don’t even believe the people who you speak to in person. They can be set up. Ask for their numbers. If they refuse to give them, think again.
3. Find a personality match. No matter how successful an information marketer you work with it’s key that you work with someone you can get along with. If not, the process will be PAINFUL. One of the ways I’ve found to make sure that this doesn’t happen to me with my clients is to require them to attend a Fred Info Bootcamp. After spending a week with someone, both of us will know if we can get along in a longer term arrangement.
If you feel the least bit uncomfortable, it’s probably good to listen to that internal voice. Many people will ignore this important element of selecting a coach. I would NOT suggest you follow their lead.
If you’re interested in accelerating your progress in the field of selling info products, then get a coach. BUT, get a good one. One that is honest, knows their stuff and that you can get along with.
Information Marketing Mistakes
August 9, 2008
If you sell information products of any kind, you need to avoid some key mistakes that lots of people are making. I like to divide the mistakes into two categories: PRODUCT and PROCESS.
Product Area:
1. In the area of product, I implore you not to do what many info product marketers do. They put out products where there is really no substance, just a sales pitch. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Someone who markets info products sends you a pitch for what seems to be a great info product. You buy it. What do you get? A PITCH for their NEXT product. Ridiculous. Talk about a prescription for how to lose credibility with your list!
I suggest you actually deliver real value every time you produce a product. I know that this is a novel concept, but it makes a lot of sense. Give people what you told them you would and they will come back for more.
2. Info products that you produce should not just tell people WHAT to do, but HOW to do it. By telling people how to do something, your information products will already be in the top 3% of all the people producing products in your area. Why? Because people don’t generally do that. Make sure you don’t fall into the same trap.
Process:
1. In the area of process when it comes to marketing and selling information, there are also numerous mistakes being made. The first one is not having a line of information products at various price points that cover the different modalities of learning.
You should try and create products that go from under $10 to $1000 or even $5000 depending on what you sell. Make sure you also produce written, audio, video and experiential events for your customers. Different info product customers will gravitate to different modes of learning. Have all of your bases covered.
There you have it. Some of the biggest mistakes made in the information marketing field. If you want to learn HOW to market and produce info products, I recommend that you attend the Fred Info Bootcamp!
Public Speaking for Info Product Marketers
August 6, 2008
If you’re an information product marketer, then you NEED to know how to speak in front of groups. Unfortunately, 99% of all speaker training is “trapped” in an old model.
The VAST majority of speaker training revolves around teaching people a system. No matter what system you learn, it will be very difficult for you to look natural. The best speaking training revolves around showing people how to be themselves.
Think about it for a minute. The speakers that you have found most interesting and engaging. What did they all have in common? If you’re like most people, the answer is they appeared to be completely THEMSELVES when they were on stage.
The single most important key to learning this skill has to do with improvising. If you learn and understand how to improvise you are well on your way to learning how to speak like a pro. I’ve speaking professionally for almost 25 years. I’ve also been doing improv comedy for about 20 of those years.
Whenever I speak, I always get people asking me: “How to you speak so NATURALLY?” My answer is always: Improv!
I’ve put together a one week program where people, no matter what field they are in can learn to speak like a pro. No taught gestures, no prepared movements, no memorizing a prepared text. Those things just don’t work if you’re trying to look natural.
In a couple of months I’ll be doing my first formal speaker training. It will be held at my house in Las Vegas and limited to a maximum of 6 people.
If you’re serious about learning how to speak like a true speaking professional, you need to attend this event.
The site that explains all about it is: THE SPEAKING SCHOOL.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Taking Care of Your Voice
August 5, 2008
As an information marketing business owner, you’ll need to take care of your voice. If you do seminars or record your own audio programs, your voice will be an integral part of your products.
That being the case, you’ll want to make sure and follow some simple rules to “protect” your voice from harm. I advise you to take care of your voice and follow these rules.
1. Drink water when you speak.
Whether you are speaking to a group or to just one other person in an interview situation, it’s important for you to drink water. Water is to your throat what oil is to a car engine. It’s a lubricant. You’d never want to run your car without oil or your voice without water. Never use HOT or COLD water. Keep it room temperature to properly take care of your voice.
2. Don’t drink alcohol or caffeine.
Drinking alcohol and things like coffee will have a deleterious effect on your voice in both the short and long term. There are a lot of sophisticate medical explanations that I can give you, but in short, just don’t do it.
3. Don’t talk when you don’t need to.
When you are not speaking, try and give your voice plenty of time to rest. There was a time when I was on the road speaking over 100 times a year. During that time it became very important NOT to speak when not on stage. This will give your vocal cords time to rest.
4. Never yell.
It’s one of the worst things you can do for your voice. Never do it. If you like to go to college sporting events, be careful. You may be tempting yourself with your favorite team!
There you have it. Those of are some of the most important things you need to know to take care of your voice. Take care of your voice and your voice will take care of you.
Selling Info Products
August 4, 2008
Selling info products can be fun. To be done correctly, it will require some work on your part. I have always been taught that marketing is everything you do to get the phone to ring. Selling begins when you pick up the phone.
That language is now a bit dated.
In the selling of info products, particularly online we could change the definition to: marketing is everything you do to drive traffic to your site. Selling begins once they land on your site.
Selling info products now is very different than it was 10 years ago. Most intelligent marketers who are selling info products still use both methods, but the bulk of their efforts lie in the online marketing world.
In order to know how well you’re doing in the selling of your info products, you need a means of tracking your efforts. This is best done with Google Analytics. It’s a free service provided by Google to give you some key statistics you’ll want to track to analyze your efforts.
You’ll first want to know how many unique visitors are coming to your site. You’ll also want to know what percentage of those folks you are closing to take ACTION. That can be both the purchasing of a product and the opting in to receive your emails.
Your final element that you’ll want to track is your AVV. Your average visitor value. This will allow you to figure out how much each customer is worth who comes to your site.
This is incredibly valuable as we now live in a PAY PER CLICK world. Knowing how much a customer is worth will allow you to know how much you should be wiling to pay to get them to your site.
I would suggest that you never pay more to get them there than what they are worth. So if the average visitor value to your site is $1, never pay more than a dollar per click.
Big companies may be willing to LOSE money (initially) to get someone to a site, but that should NOT be done with someone like you or me.
Information Product Marketing
August 1, 2008
Just because you have or have created an information product doesn’t mean it’s going to sell. Once it’s done you have to concentrate on how to market your information products. Without marketing, you won’t make any money.
The BIG question is HOW?
The answer is it DEPENDS on what you’re selling AND your own skill sets. Different types of information products will require different types of marketing.
You’ll also NOT want to concentrate on those methods of marketing that are uncomfortable or don’t come easy to you.
There are basically two types of ways to market information products: PAID and UNPAID.
Paid marketing techniques include using Google Adwords and other forms of pay per click advertising.
Unpaid marketing for your information products include writing articles, blogging and giving speeches and seminars.
If you’re not the type to enjoy public speaking then the last two mentioned above probably won’t work for you.
As you accumulate all the possible methods of marketing for your information products, you’ll want to concentrate your efforts where there is a fit between what will work and what works for YOU.
Information Marketing Articles
July 31, 2008
Articles are an excellent way for you to market and promote your own info products. Information marketing articles are a perfect tool for the info product seller who wants to maximize their
There are a ton of information marketing articles out there. Many don’t give you a whole lot. most articles on the topic are geared to help the author accomplish their goals rather than helping the reader get what he or she wants.
I think this is the wrong way to go about things.
Instead, I would have you read information marketing articles that actually give you solid useable content about how to do things.
I have always had the philosophy that if you give people what you promise them and what they truly need, you’re going to get what you need in return. There are very few information marketing articles that provide you with anything but fluff.
That’s the big problem.
I only wish that the search engines could screen out this kind of material and make it difficult or impossible for people to produce a lot of junk and get rated highly in the search engines. At this point in time, that’s not yet possible.
To screen out which information marketing articles you should take seriously, do the following:
1. Read the article and ask yourself: Is this person trying to help ME or THEM?
2. When you’re done, ask yourself: Can I now DO something that I couldn’t before?
3. Ask Yourself: Am I closer to achieving MY goals as a result of reading this article?
The answers you get to those questions will help you figure out whose articles on information marketing you should continue to read in the future. I teach this and other concepts at the Fred Info Bootcamp. I’d love to have you attend!
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