Here’s a Quick Way to Build an Information Marketing System
March 12, 2010
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my 25+ years marketing and selling info products, it’s that you need systems. This may sound rigid and robotic, but, the truth is, you get more done. The argument against systems is that you lose creativity. For me, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some of the systems you MUST have if you’re going to build a successful information marketing business.
1. Product Creation
If you’re an information marketer, you need to have products to sell. Therefore you need to crank out a LOT of products. GOOD products. The key to doing this is a great outline. Don’t hold yourself up with trying to make them perfect. Remember, DONE is better than perfect!
2. Traffic Generation
Without people coming to your site or sites, you won’t be in business very long. That’s why you need traffic. BUT, don’t start generating traffic until you have worked on your conversion rates. If you get a lot of traffic and few people buy or opt in, the traffic is WASTED. Make sure that before you even think about traffic, that you look at conversion rates. Traffic is a big topic and I’ll talk about it in great detail in other blog posts.
3. Measurement
Measurement eliminates argument. This is one of two signs that I see every day. It, along with the other one, hangs in my garage. For you, as one who sells info products, this is fairly easy to do. And, it’s free. It comes from Google in the form of Google Analytics.
You put some code on your various web pages and presto, Google will compile your data. Why would they do this for free? They are hoping that you advertise with them. And, in the long run, you probably will. Analytics is fairly easy to set up, even without a technical background.
4. Customer Contact
There are two parts to customer contact systems that you need. First you need one system to keep you in touch with all of your customers and prospects on a regular basis. For me, that’s WebMarketingMagic. This system allows me to group my customers and prospects into two groups and maintain contact with them accordingly.
The second part is understanding what your customers need and want. Luckily, SurveyMonkey allows you to do a simple version of this for free. You can survey up to 100 people at NO charge. Unless you need incredibly precise numbers, this will do just fine.
5. Consistent Effort
I write blog posts for a more than one site, every day. Do I always WANT to do them? No. But, if I want success as an information marketer, I’ have to do it. YOU have to be consistent with YOUR efforts as well.
There you have a list of things you need to build information marketing systems. Now get going!
Internet Marketing Tools
March 10, 2010
As an information marketing afficionado, I’m always looking for the latest and greatest internet marketing tools. Not just for myself, but for all of the folks that read my ezine and rely on me for advice. This would include my proteges who I do a lot of work with in exchange for a piece of their action.
There are certain tools on the internet that everyone who sells info products should have. Here is my list. It’s not comprehensive, but I wanted to give you the top 4 that I use!
1. WebMarketingMagic – This program is the backbone to my online internet marketing system. Without this program I’d be out of business. It helps me run the entire back end of my info product business. In addition to allowing me to send out my ezines, it has an ad tracking program, an affiliate module, a split tracking system and a variety of other features that are crucial to anyone who markets anything online. If you don’t already have it, I suggest you visit the site and sign up for the free trial!
2. UltraCheapDomains – You can’t be a serious player on the internet without having a place to register domain names. I’m now up to over 500 domains. Most of them have content and are selling something. I suggest that if you want to register domains, THIS is the place to go. If you’re registering and maintaining more than 50 domains a year, it behooves you to go to Sell Domains for Profit and set up your own domain sales store.
3. Keyword Research – If you’re a serious marketer, you’ll have to have at least one if not two or three programs that help you with your keyword research. Unless you know what words people are using to search by, you’ll get nowhere FAST. I use both the Google Free Tool for looking up keywords and I also have a yearly subscription to WordTracker. These are both very worthwhile for you to do as well.
4. Spying on Competitors – Everyone who sells info products needs to know what their competition is doing. It is a long and time consuming process to do this by visiting each competitors site. Instead, go to a place I call, CoolSpyTool.com. This will give you a chance to find out as much as you possibly can about your competitors. This gives you the information you need to know about the people you compete against.
Those are the four basic internet marketing tools you must have as an information marketer. If you don’t, you’ll have serious problems marketing your business and succeeding in this increasingly competitive online environment.
7 Quick Tips for Creating How-to Information Products
March 9, 2010
Do you want a quick set of tips to creating info products? Well, here it is. The process of creating info products isn’t EASY, but it is SIMPLE. What do I mean by this? The process if relatively straightforward. The problem for most people is implementation. Knowing and doing are two different things!
First, you need to think about in which area or niche should you create products. Should you work in an area where there is very little competition? Possible, but if there is a lot less competition, it means that few people may be interested in your topic. Try and find the middle. That area between what is hugely popular and that which is relatively unknown.
Second, you need to write the copy to sell your product. Writing the copy will give you an understanding of what has to be in the product itself when complete. If you don’t know how to write copy that well, take a look at someone like Sabrina Brick. Consider getting a super fast tweak.
Third, you need to create the product itself. Use the copy you created to put together a detailed outline. After you have the outline, have someone interview you (if it’s an audio product) and go through each of the outline elements.
Fourth, you need to design a website to sell your product. I’ll assume you’ve already reserved a domain name, but if you haven’t go to UltraCheapDomains.com. This is one of my sites, but the prices are extremely reasonable and lot of people who sell info products reserve their domain names at this site.
Fifth, you need to drive traffic to your site. Without traffic to your site, no one will buy anything. If people don’t buy anything at your site, as a backup, try and get them to give you their email address. This should be your fallback position if people don’t buy.
Sixth, get those who visit your site to BUY. That’s what is called conversion. Conversion refers to how many people come to your site and what percentage of those people end up either buying or opting in to your list. Once they opt in, then you have to work on getting people to buy.
Seventh and last, you have to get people to come back after they buy your first product and buy again and again from you. To get this to happen, you have to give them a GREAT product. One that’s worth a LOT more than what they paid for it.
Follow these 7 steps and you’re on your way to creating some GREAT how-to information products!
How to Write an Information Marketing Plan
March 8, 2010
If you want to succeed as an info products marketer, you need to have a plan. Not a plan in your head, but a very specific written plan. This post is all about how to write an information marketing plan.
Here are the steps you’ll need to follow:
1. Make it written. It’s funny how people get more done when they write down what they are going to do. This is true regardless of the field you’re in. It’s always great to THINK about what you want to do, but when you commit it to paper, it seems to get done more often. Don’t look at this element and think to yourself: “yeah, right!” This is a mandatory element of success.
2. Make it Specific. Yes, you need to put it in writing, but the plan you create must be specific. Don’t just write: DO MARKETING FOR YOUR SITE. Instead write something like: Do 3 written blog posts and 3 video blog posts every week. You will get a lot more done the greater the amount of specificity to your plan.
3. Make it Achievable. Don’t put anything down in writing that you KNOW you won’t be able to do. Your plan must be done in such a way that you know with 100% certainty that you can in fact do it. This is not a DREAM sheet, it is a daily to-do list of things that must actually get done if you’re going to be a success selling info products.
4. Vary the tasks. Give yourself things to do that aren’t all the same. If you’re like me, you hate repetitive tasks. If you liked them you’d probably be working on an assembly line and not selling info products. Your information marketing plan, like exercise should have variety. Because when you have a lot of different things to do, it makes it easier to do all of them.
5. Track your results. Getting things done is fine. But, if you don’t know if your efforts are actually paying off, then it’s all worthless. You need to have systems set up to track your efforts. What are you using? Nothing? Then start by attaching Google Analytics to all of your sites. This will give you hard data to see what’s working and what is not.
Do the 5 things when you put together your information marketing plan and you’ll be well on the way to success selling your info products.
Information Marketing Refunds
March 2, 2010
Whenever I get someone who asks for a refund I get angry. REALLY angry! Why? Because I know that my products are good and that people don’t have the “right” to ask for a refund. Looking at the matter objectively, I’m right! No one who does a great job creating and selling info products wants to have anyone ask for a refund.
The problem is that my thinking is based on the concept of a RATIONAL WORLD. The world, nor are people rational. They aren’t. Anytime you get a refund there will be a certain number of people who really deserve getting their money back. Many others do not.
My solution is this. I have turned over the process of processing refunds to someone else. I don’t even see the requests anymore. For the 10% of people who truly deserve a refund, in my humble opinion, I would feel OK about seeing their emails and putting through the necessary paperwork.
My problem is that the large majority of people do NOT deserve refunds for my products. Since the vast majority of them are digital, people don’t feel like their stealing and it’s far to easy for them to get a refund.
In the “old days” it was much more difficult. They received a PHYSICAL package and they had to wrap it up, find packaging, and send it back. Refund rates, across the board, were lower. It was a huge hassle to people who wanted their money back.
This is not to say that ALL refunds for my products are unjustified. Some are, but frankly I don’t even want to hear about them. It just makes me nauseous. I guess that their is a psychological issue at play here. I don’t ever want to feel personally rejected and no matter how certain I am about the quality of my work, refund requests BOTHER ME.
Here is what I suggest for you.
Don’t take it personally. In most cases refunds are not about you. If your refund rates get above 5%, look into your products themselves. There MAY be a problem.
Also, if you’re like me and have thin skin, then let someone else be in charge of issuing any refunds for any products.
Good luck!
Information Products Quality
February 23, 2010
There are a lot of people who sell info products who don’t give a damn about the quality of the information that they produce. As long as it sells and they make a quick buck, they’re happy! Information marketing is more than that. It’s about developing a long term relationship with your customers. To do that, QUALITY is a key ingredient. Here are the things you need to keep in mind as it relates to the quality of your info products.
1. Quality of a information product is defined by how USEABLE and FOLLOWABLE a product is. If people get a product that they can quickly and easily implement, they will fell it’s a high quality product. Make sure your info product meets that requirement.
2. Quality of your information is also based on how UP TO DATE it is. When you send out a product that still refers to the “Jimmy Carter” years as current, you know you have a problem. Unless you tell people that the product has been around for a long time and it’s information is JUST as applicable today as it was in 1977, then you’re fine.
3. Quality relates to speed of delivery. People make they assumption that if you don’t have your act together with getting people what they ordered in a timely manner, that the product quality is inferior. This may not be true, but perception is reality.
4. Quality is deduced from a lack of MISTAKES in the product that you sell. If people go through your information and find a lot of factual errors. they will assume that it is of POOR quality. And they should!
5. Quality is about tone. People don’t like being talked down to. Treat people like adults in your info products and they will give it higher quality marks.
6. Quality is about results. The ultimate determination by your buyers of whether or not your product is high quality is almost entirely based on THEIR results. If they get stellar results, your product, good or bad will get the praise. The same thing is true on the flip side. If your product gives them poor results. they will assume that YOUR product was the cause.
Make sure that you maintain high quality information products by making sure what you sell has all of these items. And, Good Luck!
Information Products Bulletin
February 22, 2010
Here is an information products bulletin. There is only one way to make it BIG in the selling of info products. That is to give people what they want. I don’t care how good a product you have or claim to have, unless your customers are in the “mood” to buy, nothing will be sold and no money will be made.
How do you make sure that you are producing info products that people will buy? You need to ASK THEM! This seems so painfully simple, but asking people what they want, producing it and then selling them to the people you asked seems like such a simple formula.
Do you need to be asking people in a FORMAL survey situation? Not at all. You can be asking people in a variety of ways. Some of them formal, but many of them informal.
Whenever I get a customer or potential customer who sends me an email, I always answer them and ask them a question. It may appear that I’m just a nice and caring guy (which I am) but I’m also very interested in finding out through this informal means, what I should be producing next.
Every time I’m a speaker at a seminar or event, I always sit with some of the attendees, NOT the other speakers. Why? Because I want to find out what people are interested in buying. This is the best FOCUS GROUP you can have. A group of highly motivated people who have paid money to attend an event who will give you a very solid idea of what you should produce and sell to them.
If you are really motivated, it’s also a good idea to pick up the phone and make some outbound calls to both prospects and customers to find out what they need. Then see if you can produce a product or service that will give them the ANSWERS that they need.
So the information products bulletin is this: LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS! Don’t think that you know what people will buy. Ask them and then produce what they tell you they want and need. This will give you the highest probability of success.
Nothing is better than producing information products knowing in advance that they will be sold. That’s the absolute best way to do business.
Follow these guidelines and your sales of info products will go way up. I look forward to seeing you at the next event or seminar I do to hear YOUR feedback!
How to Sell Information Products on the Internet
February 21, 2010
I’ve been selling information products for over 25 years. For half of that time, all of that marketing was done OFF line. How things have changed because of the internet! There are so many things I can do now that were impossible before all of us started selling on the web.
In the “old days” we used to sell primarily using direct mail. The nice thing about using direct mail was that everything was trackable. Similar to what we can do now with something like Google Anlaytics, we were able to know our numbers very well.
For an OLDTIMER like me, here are some of the reason why I love selling info products on the internet.
The thing that I love is the fact that now I sell digital products almost exclusively. There was nothing that I hated more than seeing a UPS truck going in the wrong direction. That would mean that someone had taken the time and effort to pack up and send a product back. I can’t tell you how much this angered me. Every once in a while the return was legitimate, but more often, someone had taken the product and copied it before they sent it back.
Digital products make me feel better. IF someone returns a product, there is no physical product to return. All they do is email me and request a refund. There is no physical product to return. I feel less “taken” when I suspect that people have been playing games with me.
The second thing I love about selling products online is that tracking is a lot easier. You could track everything when we were doing direct mail, but it took a lot more effort. Google analytics has made that much easier.
The third and biggest thing for me has been that my business has now become 100% portable. The only thing that still requires physical delivery are DVDs and videos. That won’t be the case for too much longer. As soon as everyone has a super fast internet connection, videos will also be digitally deliverable and practically so.
As much as some people may pine for the OLD DAYS, I’m glad that those who sell info products are now in a position to do their business virtually anywhere. This makes the business a lot more fun and interesting. You can be sitting under a palm tree on a Caribbean Island or on top of a mountain somewhere.
Selling information product on the internet is the way to go!
Information Products Suppliers
February 21, 2010
There are a lot of people, like me, who create info products for others to sell. This being the case, you can legitimately call me and the others who do this SUPPLIERS. I have no problem with someone using this term for me. I’m sure that many of my information marketing colleagues wouldn’t care either.
As someone who creates a lot of info products, I try and make my products great. I also try and make them easy for others to sell. How? By making sure that the products I create are simple and easy to follow for those who buy them. Also, I try to price them so that they are attractive to those who would consider selling them.
In my case, I do quite a bit of licensing. There are two sides to those of us who supply information products to others. One is the product itself and the other is the pricing of those same products. I like to offer those who buy my products three different types of licensing options.
All of them are valid options. I’ll talk about licensing in another post. For now, let’s talk about the product itself and pricing in general terms. People who don’t produce products themselves are always excited to find great products to sell to their own lists. These are products that give the users a very specific blueprint on how to do something.
People who buy info products from people like me are very interested in what the key metrics are. The first and most critical metric is your closing ratio and average visitor value. For illustration, let’s say the product we are talking about is a digital product that costs $100. If for every 100 visitors you average 4 sales, your closing ratio is 4% and your average visitor value is $4/visitor.
Anyone who is selling products want to find products that produce the highest visitor value. This number dependent on a few factors. The first factor is how good the copy on the site is. The better the copy, the higher the average visitor value. If you have an inexpensive product, you need to close a lot higher percentage to get a higher visitor value.
The MOST critical element in this whole equation has to do with how well the product MATCHES the list that you have. The better the match, the more you’ll sell.
Keep these various items in mind as you consider the info products that you buy from others to sell to your list.
Great Information Products
February 19, 2010
Great information products are those which both entertain and inform. Whenever I’m asked to critique an info product, I am always amazed at how 95% of them have just ONE of these things working in their favor. They are either extremely entertaining or packed with content. usually NOT both.
Your key to success as someone who sells info products is to make sure that you deliver both of these elements when you do YOUR info product. Great information products are those that sell a lot of units. It’s kind of similar to a great movie. If a movie is to be truly great, it has to have great material and sell a lot of tickets. No one can make the claim that their information product is truly great unless tons of people are buying or have bought it.
As someone who has been marketing and selling info products for many years, I take a lot of pride in the products that I produce. I’m not saying that everyone of my products has been great, but certainly ALL of them have been good. It’ funny how you KNOW when a product you’ve produced is great. You can just feel it.
Information marketing is a business that many people attempt on a whim. Many of them dip their toes in the water having heard that you can make a lot of money in the business. And, if done correctly, that’s 100% accurate. BUT, the key to making really good money in the information products business is to continually deliver HIGH quality products to your niches. This comes from great research, understanding the needs and wants of your market AND the X factor.
What is the X Factor in information marketing?
That’s the little something extra that you bring to the table with your products and services. This is what makes both a truly great information product and a great info product marketer.
You can no longer afford to be just “good enough” in your niche. You have to deliver more than what they expect and do it with panache! The key to my longevity in this business is understanding what my market niche wants and needs. I do this by keeping my ear to the ground constantly. Listening to what people are saying and what they want.
There is no shortcut to delivering great info products, there is only hard work and dedication to the market you serve.
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