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to you, then you can click on the button below, or send an email to truetales@jbsmith.par32.com True Tales From An Infoproduct Entrepreneur Copyright 2002 - Jeff Smith Ever wonder what it takes to make money marketing your own information products? There's a TON of products out there that give you tips on marketing, selling, or creating your own information-based eBooks, Special Reports, audios, videos, etc... Some of these deliver the goods while many others do not. What you will NOT find in any of these products is a down-to-earth, honest and black-as-night list of what you REALLY need to have to succeed marketing your own information products. Here is a list that comes straight from personal experience. 1. Burning Desire. You need to start with a yearning to tell the world, or at least those who care, about what you know in a way that they will want to hear it. Your desire may come from a desire to write, it may come from a desire to improve someone's life with your knowledge or it may come from your desire to create an infoproduct publishing empire. Anything that has ever amounted to a hill of beans started with a passion to proceed. 2. Make Sure Your Idea Is "In-Demand" It's not good enough to market information that appeals to YOU - you need to find information that touches and helps other people get where they want to go. You've beat a medical or mental illness, then others will want to know how? You've run successful fundraising campaigns, share your techniques. You've survived divorce, let others know how. Maybe you have raised 4 kids - there is TONS you could share with the world. Put yourself in your customer's position - what would you have wanted to know if you could have asked someone? Need some help creating In-Demand ideas, visit: http://www.infoproductcreator.com 3. Develop Your Product Quickly Most of the people I know who had the desire and had a great idea, but are still working their full-time day jobs have given up on their dream because they were trying to be writers when all you need to be is a communicator. Develop a list of questions your customers want answered about your idea and get it done - focus on a few weeks at most, most of the infoproduct TOP GUNS complete their products in weeks, not months or years. 4. Create a Kick A** Title Your title will be your main marketing vehicle, will separate you from the crowd, will usually be the title of your website, and will dictate keyword selection in search engines. Use action words and focus on the most important benefit you can provide your customers. 5. More Words, Less Flash The old adage that words, not pictures sell is largely true on the internet. Your headline, sub-head, and first few paragraphs will make a HUGE difference to the success of your products. Don't be afraid to get help here from professional copywriters. Best of all, study successful copy - you can use methods (not plagiarize actual copy) from the best in the business. One of the best copywriters on this planet is Gary Halbert - you can luckily access much of his stuff for free at: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com 6. Go With Quality Web Hosting and Back Office Systems Your office on the internet is your website. Do you close in the middle of the day? Do you leave the office unattended for 3 or 4 days at a time? Do you kick people out just as they are ready to buy? Do you move your office every few months? Take time to select the proper webhost - if you don't it WILL come back to haunt you, and you'll have much more to lose later on - TRUST ME, I have the bruises to show. You'll also need to put in place strong autoresponders, (I currently use Proautoresponder http://jbsmith.proautoresponder.com ) ), and affiliate management systems (Highly recommend Ultimate Affiliate from Groundbreak: http://www.infoproductcreator.com/groundbreak/) 7. Reviews, Testimonials and Joint Ventures As soon as your product is in presentable shape, begin to selectively give it away to customers and leading ezine publishers/web page owners within your niche. You are looking for any or all of the following: constructive feedback which can lead to "fine tuning", reviews with testimonials so important to your sales page, and to open the door to potential joint venture partnerships which will make the difference between a "trickle" of sales and a "flood" of orders. Here's another tip - if you are looking for a testimonial from a TOP GUN, spend $30 or $40 on one of their products, then write them an email about how much you liked their work (assuming you did like it) with a request to review your product. It won't always work, but you'll get a much better response. 8. Focus on Building Your Prospect and Customer List Less than 3% of visitors will buy - even if they are well targeted. Many of the non-buyers can be converted to customers of your current product or other products if you focus on offering them value to stay on your announcement list. Add value through providing a series of e-course lessons, ongoing newsletter, news updates, etc... 9. Have a Thick Skin!! Understand that you WILL get criticism, product returns, many refusals for joint ventures, and even the odd piece of hate mail. Know that you will have software problems, webhost challenges, pc problems, and pretty much anything else that can go wrong, probably will. Internet infrastructure is still relatively new and is prone to hiccups - you'll need to take your lumps and move on. If you have trouble overcoming these challenges, then run now, for the sake of your own sanity. 10. Build For Next Year, not Next Month This ones a toughie, especially when you first start out. Dedicate yourself to your business for at least 12 months. All out massive action for 3 months will bring in some sales, but the REAL impact will be felt 6-12 months out when people re-visit your site, partners look you up to for alliances with, lists grow and begin to respond to your newsletters, and your business moves into a comfortable automatic mode. When you get to this point, KICK IT UP A NOTCH - you are on your way to building your own infoproduct empire, take it to the next level. It's not a bed of roses, but building your own infoproduct business can be incredibly rewarding, astonishingly fun, and best of all, you get to pee in your own bathroom, spend time with you kids when YOU want to and do business with some of the best people in the world. ***NEVER BEFORE SEEN*** Information On Making Big Money With Your Own Information Products. Discover SECRETS Top Income Generators Use To Position Their Knowledge For Maximum Profits. |