Creating Info Products on the Fly
NOTE FROM BEN: This blog post is part of a full course on how to create an information product. If you have not read the previous posts, please click here to start from the beginning.
Types of Info Products You Can Create
Informational products come in three specific forms. There are the written variety (eBooks), audio tapes or CD?s and there are video products that are either in the form of a DVD or available directly online. The topics of informational products are as varied as the people who buy them. There are informational products sold everyday on every subject you can possibly imagine and probably on a lot of subjects you would rather never imagine.
People buy information. Information is a commodity that is valued in every industrialized society on the planet. No matter what vehicle you choose to use to present your informational product (eBook, audio or video), topics fall into general categories and the vehicle you choose needs to be the best one to present your information to your audience.
One type of informational product that is probably the very most popular is the how-to product. If you know how to do anything at all, there are people out there who want to know how to do it, as well. People are interesting in everything from building bird houses to scuba diving to starting their own internet business and they are willing to pay for the information about how to do the thing they desire to learn. An eBook works well for teaching many how-to-do things but if the subject being taught requires learning an action (sports, dancing, or playing a musical instrument for example) then a video is the better choice.
Inspirational or motivational information products are also good sellers online. Products that are filled with success stories and case studies give people hope?and hope is always in demand, especially in today?s economy.
Products that give up-to-date information about chronic diseases are always in demand. Every day people are diagnosed with some kind of disease they have no information about and they want to know everything they can learn about it and they want to hear how other people deal with it.
Choose a topic that will help people solve a problem or make their lives better in some way and you will have a winning informational product for which there will be a ready made market. Remember, the top three types of products that I have found to sell best are: How to Make Money Online, Weight Loss & Fitness, and Relationship Advice.
Churning Out In-Demand Info Products in a Zap
The fact of the matter is that no matter how long it takes you to create an informational product, you aren?t going to make a red cent on it until it is sold. You might spend months or years creating a product but no matter how wonderful it is, you aren?t going to be able to pay the rent or buy the groceries until you sell the product. So even if you have a pet project that is going to take awhile to get to market, it will serve you well to figure out how to create a product that can be taken to market quickly and efficiently.
The first thing that you DO need to worry about is the topic of this info product that you are planning to zap up in a hurry. It needs to cover subject matter that is of vital interest to a large segment of the buying public. The information contained in it must be easily located (remember, you are doing this in a very short period of time) and the information needs to also be easy to access.
The term ?information? is being used loosely here. Information can mean a lot of things?interviews with well known people, for example, is information. The first thing that you DON?T need to worry about is how you are going to get this information written or produced. You don?t have to do everything yourself. Work can be outsourced?successful Internet Marketers, myself included, outsource on a regular basis. If you have a topic and a brief outline of the subject matter you want to have covered, there are ghost writers that can produce an eBook in a few days.
There are also companies that specialize in producing audio and video products; as well as programmers and webmasters who can get these products online in a matter of hours. Sources for informational products that can be zapped up practically overnight are available in the public domain. This information if there and free for the taking.
Interviews with people who were once headliners but have fallen off the front page are big sellers in the informational product market. As a rule, these people are eager to be heard and usually grant interviews without much hassle. People who were in the headlines always have stories to tell and they are more than willing to share experiences and give you insight that can easily be turned into an informational product that will have a large eager-to-buy pool of customers.
Short how-to eBooks about a subject that you are well versed in, and that will not require any research, is another idea for a quickly assembled informational product. Since you already know how to do whatever it is, all you have to do is get it written down or get a ghost writer to write it down for you and with no research time invested, you can have an informational product ready to market in almost nothing flat. While it is absolutely true that quality in informational products matters, it is more important to just get something written down. Worry about editing after you have written your first draft.
The truth is that once you have a good idea for a topic, you can get from idea to product in two week?s time or less. By employing the ideas set forth in this course, you can have not one, but many informational products on the market in a fairly short period of time.
The only way you make money from any informational product is when it is sold!
The Elements of a Top Quality Info Product
What exactly is the purpose of an info product other than to impart information? Or, is there one? Well, yes, there is another objective. It is to impart information and do it in a way that the information is easily and quickly absorbed by the buyer of that information. The creator of info products should have respect for the time of the buyer of the product. Everybody gets the same number of hours in a day and each person considers their allotted time valuable. Wasting a person?s time is, in a way, disrespectful.
It isn?t written anywhere that an eBook needs to be forty or fifty pages long. That many pages of single spaced type takes a long time to read and even longer to absorb and put into action. Most of the time people who buy informational eBooks do so for the purpose of gaining knowledge or solving a problem and they usually want to do either in the shortest period of time possible. They really don?t want to wade through irrelevant information that is there for the sole purpose of making the eBook fifty pages long.
An eBook should be only twenty to forty pages long depending upon the information contained in it and sometimes eBooks can be a lot shorter than twenty pages and still be effective. The whole point of an eBook is to convey information and do it in as efficient manner as possible. As long as the product offers a solution to a problem, informs the reader or makes his life better in some way, it has done what it was designed to do.
People buy eBooks for the sole purpose of gaining the information in them. Their time is valuable and you should remember that sometimes people are desperate for information or, at the very least, have a limited amount of time to read and absorb the information in them.
Branding Your Info Product
?Yee Haw!? Years ago the way cattle were marked so that they could be identified was by ?branding? them with a symbol that represented their owner. here was a red hot branding iron involved?OUCH! That method is rarely used now ear tags are more the norm. The idea of branding an animal was for the purpose of identification. The idea of ?branding? a product is a little more complicated but the idea is the same.
You recognize many brands of many different products by their logo?s, colors and fonts. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on advertising so that the buying public will recognize a particular brand of a general product. We have all heard the term ?branding? and ?branding campaign? used in the Internet marketing arena, but what exactly does it mean in that setting? According to Capcomarketing it means, ?An ad campaign that focuses on introducing, re-introducing or enforcing the brand for a particular product or organization.?
Branding is one of the most unappreciated aspects of web advertising because so many people focus on click-through rates. This is unfortunate because studies have shown internet advertising to be highly successful in building brand awareness. ?Interesting,? you say, ?but how does branding relate to my informational product??
The fact is that every day there are hundreds of eBooks published or offered online. Branding is one way to make yours stand out from the crowd. The objective is always to stand out, stand above and be recognized. The purpose of branding your informational product is to establish yourself as an expert on the field that your info product is about.
There are several things that you can do that will help you establish a recognizable brand for your informational products. One such thing is to have a logo made that is yours alone. Think Coca Cola or Nike! You would recognize those brand logos anywhere. If you are a graphic designer you can, of course, design your own logo.
If you are like most of us, you will need to find a graphic designer to make one for you. Think of it as a one-time expense that will have value for you forever. Use this logo on all of your informational products and be sure that when it is reproduced the logo will be included in the reproduction.
Another way of branding your informational product is to use your own picture as a part of the work. This will help to establish you as the guru and any reproduction of the work should include the picture.
Use a slogan often enough that it becomes associated with your informational products. A slogan needs to be short and to the point. Think of the Nike slogan ?Just Do It!? It works for them and a slogan can help you brand your products, as well. This slogan should be used as a part of your informational product as often as possible.
You can still have no idea how to brand your informational product, the one thing that you can do free of charge and every time is to put your name in the title of your informational product. ?John Doe Teaches You How-to Whatever? is an effective way to brand an eBook or a CD or DVD.
As small Internet business owners, we just don?t have those beautiful multi-million advertising budgets that the bug guys have but we can use some of the same tactics that have made them big guys and branding is one of those tactics. Brand your informational products to help establish yourself as an expert in your field and thereby increase you income.
Getting Your Product a Digital Cover
?You can?t tell a book by its cover? is a phrase that adults repeat to children that tell them not to judge people by how they look. It?s good advice. However, the cover of a real book is what causes people to purchase that book out in the real world. Real world books aren?t just pages of type?they come wrapped in a cover that is attractive, appealing to the eye and designed to encourage people to buy the book. eBooks are no different. The eBook is digital, and it needs an attractive and appealing cover designed to encourage people to buy it that is also digital.
Just a page with a title isn?t going to attract many buyers to your eBook no matter how great the title is or how informative the content. If you want to be as cheap as possible, you can download some software and create a digital eBook cover yourself On the other hand, if you are like me, you don?t necessarily have the best graphic design skills. That?s ok though!
To get an eBook cover created for almost nothing, head over to Fiverr.com and search for ?ebook cover?. You will find plenty of people offering Fiverr Gigs to create an eBook cover for only $5. Just send them your logo you had previously designed (which can also be done on Fiverr.com!) and the title of your eBook and you will have a fantastic eBook cover created in less than a week! Believe me, this will be the best $5 you ever spend!
How to Protect the Value of Your Info Product
How much time, effort, energy, blood, sweat and tears do you invest in a digital informational product before it is ready to be introduced into the market place? Not just a little, that?s for sure! Protecting the value of your informational product is certainly the prudent thing to do. It used to be that the creator of any work had to register it with the Office of Copyright in order for it to be protected.
On March 1, 1989 the United States decided to adhere to the Berne Commission and this is no longer the case. An original work is determined to be copyrighted when it is created. It is perfectly legal to use the copyright symbol (?), the word, ?copyright? or the abbreviation, ?Copr? on your eBooks or other informational products. This serves as notice that your work is, in fact, copyrighted and that you intend to protect it.
In the resource box of your digital informational product, be sure that you include your full name, the year it was created and/or modified and the copyright symbol. Your contact information, as well as, a link to your website should also be in the resource box.
A statement that gives permission for use of the article or eBook should include the stipulation that all information in the resource box be included. You work hard and long to produce an informational product whether it is an eBook, a CD or a DVD. That hard work needs to be protected so that you, and you alone, retain the value of your product.
Determining Your Info Product?s Terms of Use
You and you alone should determine your informational product?s terms of use statement. Your informational product is considered to be ?Intellectual Property? and it is automatically copyrighted when you have completed it. It is your decision about how your informational product can be used.
Most of the time the only thing that is needed is a statement saying that the work cannot be used unless it is used in it entirety and that includes all links, copyright information, your full name and your contact information. If registration on your website is a requirement for purchasing your product, then you should have a privacy statement available to be read. This statement should assure customers that information they provide in order to download your eBook will be kept confidential.
Your customers need to be assured that their email addresses will not be shared and that they will not have an inbox full of spam because they bought your product. That is what you give them. What they give you is a promise that they won?t use your product for any purpose other than the purpose it was intended for. They need to guarantee you that they will not reproduce the product and resell it for their personal gain even if they include all of the information in your resource box. You also need to make any disclaimers that you feel are necessary.
A ?Term?s of Use? statement can be many pages long and filled with a lot of legalese or it can be a simple statement that consists of only a few lines such as: ?This E-Book is for your personal use only. It is not to be reproduced without the express consent of the owner. The information contain in this eBook is not to be considered legal or medical advice.?
Now that you have learned what you need to create your info product, let?s get started on learning how to take your product to market!
Be sure to visit WarriorBen.com tomorrow for the next installment of this course!
5 Day Information Product Creation Course
I have split this 5 day course over a series of 6 blog posts. (The Introduction is the 6th post, for those who were wondering) For your convenience, you can easily access any of the posts by clicking on the links below. I sincerely hope you find value in this series of posts!
Related posts:
- 5 Day Info Product Creation Course *** Day 1
- 5 Day Info Product Creation Course *** Day 2
- 5 Day Info Product Creation Course *** Introduction
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