Successful Info Product Creation and Marketing [Part 3]

Hello again! Today we’re going to review the 3^rd part in our series about how to create an information product and market it. Up till now we’re covered a few important principles: The creation process and presentation.

So what are we covering in this section? In a word, Systems.

As I mentioned in a post about affiliate marketing, I’m a firm believer in systems thinking. But this also applies to how I structure my information product.

Applying a systems mindset to your information product is the only way to create a truly passive income. If you approach your business with a shotgun mindset you’ll get unpredictable results.

Systems thinking for an information product has a few key components which I’ll cover here:

#6- Your Email Newsletter

There’s an old marketing adage which says how a prospect needs 7 to 10 exposures to your message before he or she will make a product purchase.

I can’t say I’ve tested this theory. But I do agree that it’s important to keep pitching your product until they decide to buy.

The best way to continuously market to a prospect is to capture their contact information—specifically their email address. In fact, I think it’s more important to get their contact information than it is to initially market your information product.

Now I have to be honest here. Email marketing is another one of those lengthy topics which require a ton of information. So I can’t really go into details about how to implement it.

However I will say this…email marketing is the reason I earn a six-figure income with my online businesses. I can’t imagine what my life would like if I didn’t base my business around first capturing a person’s contact information.

Furthermore, I advise you to purchase a program that lets you manage your emails in an efficient system. I use the Aweber email marketing solution and highly recommend you do the same.

Now there are many ways to get a person’s contact information. You could use what’s known as a “squeeze page.” You can include a subscription block on your blog. Or you could have an opt-in block directly on your salespage.

Before I move on, I want to emphasize the importance of email marketing. If you get a person on your list, you can continue to pitch your product until they make a purchase or unsubscribe.

It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your offer.

#7- The Value of Multiple Offers

I want to let you on a little secret… Most of the money I make isn’t from the direct sales of my information product. Instead I’ve integrated a pretty simple system of “multiple offers” to generate additional income from my paying customers.

Most of my sales come from people promoting my product as an affiliate. And to “sweeten the deal” for them, I offer them 75% of the profits. So on the “silver level” version of my product, I’m only getting $8.99 per sale. Obviously I’m not exactly living the pimp lifestyle with that amount of money.

The benefit of giving away most of my upfront profit is to get a paying customer into my marketing funnel. Once they’re on my list, I use a mix of different techniques to generate a substantial income.

Here are a few techniques you can use:

Upsells- You can quickly increase your profits by offering a premium version of your information product.

On my site I offer the “silver” version of my course with four bonus reports for $39.97. And when they click the order button they’re automatically brought to a “gold” version with an additional three bonus reports and four audios which I sell for $59.97.

About 40% of my customers will opt for the gold version. So with this one page, I quickly bump up the profit margin per customer.

When creating an information product, you want to give your customer the option of learning more about your topic. Like I said yesterday, you can quickly add value to your product by including peripheral information that helps your customer maximize the results they receive from purchasing what you have to offer.

Thank You Page– Your “Thank You Page” will be your most important piece of virtual real estate. Most people experience a heightened emotional state when they make a product purchase (or opt-in to a list).

One of the ways to use this to their benefit is to offer a related (full-length) information product that they can purchase. This could be another product you’ve created or one of your favorite affiliate programs that’s solves a completely different, but tightly focused problem the customer is experiencing.

For instance, let’s talk about the How to Drive Blog Traffic from Twitter product example I mentioned in the last few lessons. You could easily refer your customers to a How to Drive Blog Traffic from Facebook product on your Thank You Page. This is a related course, but it doesn’t interfere with the customer receiving value from their original purchase.

Recurring Revenue- This is an excellent source of income. Recurring revenue happens when a customer joins a membership program. It’s a great way to create profit for your product because you’re earning a passive income every single month instead of always worrying about finding new customers.

To be honest, I don’t have a recurring revenue stream for my info product. But in hindsight, I would have definitely created some sort of continuity program.

With that being said, there are many products I’ve promoted as an affiliate which have a membership program. And it’s a pretty cool feeling to see money show up every month for a sale you made 9 months ago.

Back-End Affiliate Profits– Like I said, I make most of my profit after the customer buys my product. Once a person makes a purchase, they’re put into my email customer database. At that point, they’ll receive a steady stream of content-filled autoresponders that contain offers related to various affiliate programs.

This system is highly effective because you’re laser-targeting a group of people who are paying customers. These aren’t the tire-kickers you would find on a list full of freebie seekers. Instead, you’re marketing to people who have shown they’re willing to pay for the kind of information you’re promoting.

The “Sleaze” Factor– Before I move on to the next section, I want to discuss something I call The “Sleaze” Factor. On one hand, the marketing tactics I just mentioned are incredibly effective. On the other, they can be used to manipulate people into buying crap that they really don’t need.

I’m all for making money, but the guiding principle you should follow is having the belief that any product you recommend should benefit the customer. So don’t pitch stuff just because it increases your revenue.

#8- Payment Processing

I am the very definition of a non-tech guy. I like simple solutions without having to go through the headaches of worrying about multiple steps.

So when it comes to processing payments for your information product, I recommend one solution: Clickbank.

In all likelihood, there are tons of programs that offer payment processing at lower rates. And I’m sure you can find some super-fancy streamlined solution if you looked hard enough. But my feeling is Clickbank is brain-dead simple enough to integrate into your site. Plus they have a marketplace section that makes it easy for potential affiliates to discover your information product (I’ll cover this in the next lesson.)

Clickbank handles everything— Credit/debit card processing, affiliate tracking, refunds, and commission payments. It’s like magic. Every two weeks, money just shows up in my bank account. I don’t have to waste my time handling low value activities which don’t advance my business. They handle the entire process.

Final Thoughts…

Well, we’re nearing the end of this tutorial on successful info product creation and marketing. Hopefully you learned a little bit about the value of systems thinking when it comes to your product.

On Monday we’re going to cover the next (and final) section.  In that post, we’ll review a few key points about marketing your info product.

Take Action. Get Results.