How To Raise The Perceived Value Of Your Information Products

 Product Creation  No Responses »
Jul 282010
 

I just wrapped up watching the third video from Eben Pagan, as part of his Guru Blueprint launch. You can watch it here now -

Guru Blueprint by Eben Pagan

Guru Blueprint by Eben Pagan – Video 3: Content is CASH

(You will need to enter your name and email to access it.)

Eben’s first video focused on the potential of selling information, especially if you can marry the convergence between what you know and what people go looking for information about.

In his second video, he went into much more detail on what niches represent the best potential for income online, highlighting the mega-niches of “health”, “money” and “relationships”.

He also provided a great report that revealed 29 sub-niches within the three mega-niches that represent excellent profit potential (things like raw food, alternative weight loss methods, dating advice for population segments, or credit debt elimination, etc).

The Magic Formula For Premium Perception

The third video begins with a fairly rudimentary introduction to information product creation, where Eben shows you how to record a screen capture video to create a presentation. This was very basic stuff, but if you’re not familiar with screen recording programs, you will be very excited to see how easy it is.

The second half of the video was much more interesting for me because Eben presented a “formula” for converting your offer into content that is of premium perceived value, hence you can charge a premium price for it.

It’s pretty obvious if you have higher priced products you make more money. That’s not an absolute rule, but in most situations you will make a lot more money selling a $1,000 product over a $10 product. The challenge is how to justify and convince people that what you offer is valuable enough to warrant the premium price.

Prospects need to perceive that the outcome your product offers is of such value to them that they are willing to spend that much money on it.

This is also relevant for lower priced items, because the greater perception of value, the more product you will sell, especially given a competitive market.

If you’re product is perceived as incredible then you’re going to sell more of it – but how can you do this?

Eben, in his usual clear presentation style, was able to teach the following process to demonstrate high perceived value.

Process One: Create a “Magic Formula” and then give it a name.

Eben laid out the following simple process to come up with a Magic Formula. Remember this applies to whatever you are selling in your chosen niche (if you’re still not sure about your niche, Eben’s second video is a must-watch).

These are the steps…

  1. What is the solution to your prospects problem?
  2. What are the three specific action steps your prospect needs to do to solve their problem?
  3. Name your system using the phrase “The three-step system (for example, “The three-step system for… eliminating your credit card debt in half the time“)

Coming up with steps is compelling because it chunks down the system into a sequence that everyone can grasp, and then giving it a name increases the perceived value significantly. This is similar to what I wrote about if you create a “language identifier” and what that does to your perception as a leading expert.

Process Two: Link the formula to the three most important human values.

This is really killer stuff, so read carefully…

Humans need to have the value of something (your offer) explained to them and connected to what we value most in life. Eben recommends you focus on the following as the most important life values when it comes to your information products –

  1. Money
  2. Time
  3. Work

Eben explained how three of the most important human values are “money”, “time” and “work”. In other words we want more time, or less time doing things we don’t like, more money and less work.

Simple right?

The clever bit is how you link it to your Magic formula.

You need to ask yourself how you can save your prospects these three elements based on what you currently do for your people.

For example, if the problem your prospects have is too much fat and you solve it with a special diet that reduces fat quickly, then your system can… “show how to reduce fat in half the time of leading diets, without wasting money on useless supplements, and you don’t have to do anything special besides eat the food provided to you… or something like that.

Eben recommend you use a special phrase to link all this together, but you will have to watch the video to learn what that is ;-) .

Perception Is Critical

Perception, not reality, is what matters in marketing, whether you like it or not. That doesn’t mean you have to lie, but you can learn how to phrase the best parts of your product using language that enhances it’s perception.

This really is all about good copywriting, and good copywriting is all about understanding the psychology behind, well, us – human beings.

If you don’t understand what I explained in this article or you want a more detailed visual breakdown, go watch the third video from Eben, and include the first two as well in case you missed them -

Enjoy these free videos and if you want more, look out for the opening of Eben’s program next week.

I’ll offer a bonus for this program to reward you for buying through my affiliate link, however you will need to be on my email list to find out what the bonus is and claim it.

 Posted by at 12:13 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Creating High Value Information Products

 Product Creation  No Responses »
Jul 282010
 

Creating High Value Information Products

Written By: Jorge on May 29, 2010 No Comment

One of the first blog posts I wrote on this site was about information marketing being the new commodity. Reason for it, and possibly the most appealing part about this business model is that you work once and get paid forever.

Even better, you don’t have to be the expert on the subject matter to create a good information product (more on this below)…

Here’s the three step system I’ve used to create and package high value information products that sell themselves on autopilot.

1) Identify a niche market by finding a common problem people have and that you can provide the solution to the problem.

2) Create a product with the information needed to solve the problem and structure it in  a simple to implement step-by-step system

3) Name the product (package it) so it sounds more appealing, new, and unique.

The absolute easiest way to identify a niche market is to find other products that are already selling as I explained in my niche market research article.

Assuming you’ve read that post, step number two is turning what you are teaching people into a system that others can follow. So if you are teaching hair coloring for example… and you are trying to solve a common problem which could be “How To Go From Blonde To Red Hair Without Damaging Your Hair” as part of your hair coloring training program, then here’s how you would go about this:

Step number one could be to identify the hair color using a special color wheel. Step number two could be to identify target color in that same color wheel. Final step would be to determine if it’s possible to go to the desired color or if a two step hair coloring session would be necessary.

However many steps it’s necessary to do what you are teaching, although less is better and three seems to be a magical number.

Once you have your information product layed out in this format, it is time to give it a name and package it so it sells for more.

Because you’ve layed out the program in a step by step system, you can now rightfully call it your own “3 step system to ____________” in the example above it would be “3 Step System to Go From Blonde To Red Without Ending Up Pink”

Now the reason this works is the same basic principle behind printed money.

See, to people in the United States (and some around the world) the difference between a one dollar bill and a one hundred dollar bill is clear. It’s simply a hundred times more.

If you were to come across an illiterate villager in the Appalachian mountains and you were to show them these two bills, they would more than likely not be able to tell you the difference in those two bills.

To them, they are both made out of the same paper, same ink and look pretty much alike. They can’t read the numbers and because they don’t use any type of currency they don’t understand the value of money the way that you do. However, to us it’s clear that what separates these two bills is the message in the bill. One says it’s a hundred dollars and the other it’s just a one dollar bill.

When it comes to information products, what separates a book that sells for 10 or 100 times more than other books is the message.

What is your equivalent of the $100 message in your product. In this example, it’s not just a hair coloring training program (a $1 product), it is a 3 Step System To Avoid Pink Hair When Going Red (a $100 product).

Most product do the mistake of talking about the author and the accomplishments of the expert. How they have a Ph.D. and have been studying the topic and won many awards because of it. They do this because they think that’s the way to gain a prospect’s trust, but they are failing to address the prospect’s real needs.

See a prospect doesn’t care what the author has done, they care about the problem or the result they are trying to accomplish.

Now, a question I get very often is, how do I do this if I’m not an expert on anything?

Well, there’s two ways…

If you’ve done your homework and you researched the market, you should have a series of questions or problems the market has. Usually one is the big one and then there’s a bunch of different ones which are the equivalent of the frequently asked questions in just about any market.

Your product should be centered around the big one and include the frequently asked questions. The reason why information marketing works, is because people are too lazy to read and figure things out.

All it takes is to grab your list of questions and problems, head over to the library and instead of reading full books on the topic, try to find the answer by browsing books. Many times you can read the chapter names and that can help you find these answers quick. You can literally do this in 2-3 hours.

Then all you gotta do is take your new knowledge and package it up into a book, video or audio program. Total time, should be about 2-3 weeks to do a good job.

If you are too lazy to do this, then you probably are not going to do well in this business and there is nothing I can do to help. However, let’s suppose you are not too lazy, but just are too busy because you have multiple projects going on…

Well, the second way to go about this is to take your list of questions and problems your niche market is experiencing and partner up with an expert in the industry to create a product. There are many people out there who have written books and know their subject matter extremely well, but they can’t sell any of their books, because they have packaged them just like the $1 dollar bill. Even if they were to be selling some books, they are still in need of money, because publishers don’t really pay them that much and it takes a long time to get the royalties.

Alternatively, you could do half the work and get the answers yourself and hire a copy writer to put together an ebook that covers the answers you’ve come up with.

Either way, you have no excuse not to take action.

 Posted by at 12:01 am  Tagged with:

30 Ways To Package Your Information Products For Maximum Value

 book writing, Product Creation  No Responses »
Jul 272010
 

When ever you plan on creating a new info product, you have to think of it in terms of CONTENT. The content is your product. The way you package and present it is just window dressing. Here are the 30 most effective and profitable information product types which you can use as a guide to package your own products:

1. E-Books

Just open up a Word Document and convert that into a PDF file. Great when used as a frontend to a backend large ticket item

2. Books

Content converted to a PDF file and then sent to a printer. If you want to self-publish your book, you can use print on demand services like Lulu.com or get a traditional publisher like I did with eMillions. You can print just one book or 25,000. It’s a great way to get started with a physical book.

3. Newsletters

Content ‘sections’ (articles) that are either used in an offline newsletter or an online ezine. A book of content could give you enough content for a year’s worth of newsletters.

4. Blogs

Just like what I’m doing right now for The University Kid. Alternatively, you can call it an “online magazine” and your credibility instantly boosts up.

5. Audio Books

Record yourself (or someone else) reading your book content. Yes, just read it and record it. Voila – you’ve got an audio book. A tool like Audacity (free) works fine.

6. Podcast

Record yourself talking about your subject matter. You can read part of your book. Like reading sections or chapters of the content. You can just talk about it. You’ve done the research. You’re now an expert. Just talk about what you know. You can use the free software product given later to record your podcast.

7. Audio Program

Multiple audio CDs in one program. Whenever you gather content for an idea you’ll always have more content than you can fit into a book or e-book. A one CD ‘audio book’ could become an full blown ‘audio program’ by breaking it into separate CDs for each chapter and adding additional content.

8. Vlogcast

This is just like a blog or a podcast except it’s recording the content as a video instead of text or audio. Although you will have to invest in a camera (either digital video camera or webcam) the software to edit and package the video is completely free – I’ll tell you about it later.

9. Video Program

Just like the Audio Program except the content is recorded as a video. For example, you could read the book into the camera or you could be recorded teaching the material to a group. Break the content up into sections and place each section on a separate DVD.

10. Workbooks

Examine your content and create a book or report specifically designed to ‘teach’ the material. Present the information in a summarized format and have questions for each book chapter/section.

11. Multi-Media Kit

Put your book, audio book and/or DVD or you reading your book together.

12. Coaching Program

Present your content via the phone or email depending on how you’ve structured your coaching program.

13. Teleseminars

Present your content via the telephone – normally in an interview type format. However, I have listened to a few teleseminars that was just the expert speaking the entire time. It’s called expert by association.

14. Teleworkshops

Present your content via telephone in a “workbook” type scenario. Make it a smaller group with an interactive layout.

15. Home Study Course

Combine books, audio programs, video programs, workbooks, etc. into one product. Anyone who can create enough content for an e-book has enough content to convert their content into a Home Study Course and have a high-end product to promote. Usually you can sell those for $497 a pop

16. Membership Site

Include your text, audio and video content in a secure website where your clients pay you each month for access to the material. The great opportunity here is it is residual income that continues each month.

17. Radio Show

With the power of the internet anyone can have their own radio show. You can record the content and have it played at various times or you can do a live show. Same content as a podcast.

18. TV Show

Internet TV (IPTV) is coming very quickly. Just like internet radio – within 1-2 years anyone can build their own TV show on the internet. In fact, you could even use YouTube as your video distribution platform.

19. Syndicated Column

As an expert in your field, you may be asked to submit your articles to a newspaper. Or you can post your articles on your own website and others can syndicate the content via RSS feeds.

20. Articles

Crop your book content into smaller sections – and you’ve got a ton of articles you can use online or offline. You could submit it to article directories (and get tons of backlinks) or as guest posts on authority blogs in your niche.

21. Mini Books or Reports

You guessed it… if you have a book with 5 chapters, you could make it into 5 “special reports”. This is a great way if you want to distribute free viral e-books and spread the word out about your brand.

22. CD/DVD Training

Use your audio CDs and/or video DVDs to create a monthly training subscription service. Think like “Video Professor”. You’ve already got the content created – get clients to pay you monthly for it.

23. Magazine

A magazine is nothing but a large Newsletter. The great thing about a magazine… you can get advertisers to pay you money each month to be listed in your magazine.

24. Software

Convert your content into an executable file. You don’t have to be a software developer. I used HTML and Flash to package text, audio and video into an EXE. Once an EXE I called it software and it could be promoted with a higher perceived value.

25. Keynote Speaking

Summarize your content into PowerPoint slides to speak from when asked to be an expert presenter.

26. Resell Rights

Provide others the ability to resell your product(s) and keep 100% of the profits. Pro: Higher perceived value. Con: You lose control of your product. If you want income – this is a great way to do it. If you have a product you don’t want to lose control of – do not do this.

27. Private Label Rights

Provide others the ability to modify your content, brand it with their own name and resell it as their own. Pro: You can sell it at a higher price than Resell Rights. Con: It will no longer be your product after it’s rebranded

28. Licensing

Make an arrangement with a company to purchase a large quantity of your product. For example: A company may license your content for all their employees.

29. Foreign Rights

Convert your content into other languages. I’ve received many requests for my book eMillions to be translated into other languages from foreign publishers.

30. Consulting

A culmination of all your research and content presented as required by the person and/or company that hires you.

The key point when it comes to packaging is that you package your product to meet your NEED.

If you need a viral product – then use a viral package like podcast, special report, etc. If you need an entry-level product – then go with an e-book, book or audio book. If you need a high dollar product – then package products together like books, CDs, Workbooks, DVDs, etc.

There is NO difference between the content in an e-book, audio and video but depending on the way you package it you could receive a much higher profit because you’ve provided a much higher value to the client. If you can create an e-book then you can create ANY of the products/services shown above. They are just various ways to package the exact same content.

 Posted by at 11:57 pm  Tagged with:

Ideas for Products or Bonuses

 Marketing  No Responses »
Jul 262010
 

 Posted by at 10:26 am  Tagged with:

how to create products

 book writing, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 212010
 

Hello! :) BTW, Mike, good resource– thanks for coming up with it.
I could write it for you. :P (Just kidding–sort of. I do take writing jobs though, but I’m way better at helping other people write because that’s more or less what I do in my real-world job.)

First things first: don’t let the “writers” fool you. (I know, I’m a writer and I used to be like that.) Everyone can write, especially about something they know very well, and something they’re passionate about. Don’t worry about the little details or sounding stupid– proofreading will take care of that. The first pass is you–read it aloud and you’ll see what sounds unclear or wrong. Then you can have someone you trust go over it and point out what needs work. Don’t discount friends or family–they can be very helpful, especially if you choose the ones who aren’t afraid to tell you what’s wrong.

Start small. An article, blog posts and such. Take the PLR you get (they usually come in packages of articles), and sit down and rewrite them in your own words.
It takes practice, and you’ll need to be patient with yourself. And when you hear that voice in your head saying things like you can’t do it, or you’re just not smart enough for this — shush it down. You know that voice is just talking off its hat. (You can also argue with it, but make sure it’s an argument you can win. Me, I just try to make it sound like Donald Duck or someone I don’t like so I can laugh it off. )

An article, then another, then another. When you’ve got seven of them, you can put it together, and you’ve got your free report. When you have three of those seven-article reports, you’ve got a $7 ebook. When you have a seven $7 reports, you have a $47 ebook. These things grow.

The easier way is to read the PLR materials as is and record yourself and upload them as videos or audio.There’s really no reason to be afraid, I’m pretty sure you can do it. :)

 Posted by at 1:19 pm  Tagged with:

Marlon’s 21-Point “Product Creation In A Flash” Cheat Sheet

 Entrepreneurship, Marketing  No Responses »
Apr 292010
 

by Marlon Sanders

Let’s say that you’ve decided to take the plunge and do a big product launch.

You realize that you need a PRODUCT in order to do a product launch. So how are you gonna create your product?

Here’s my product creation in a flash cheat sheet:

1. My favorite way to create products fast is using audio interviews. Interview someone else over the phone or have them interview you. Record and transcribe. Just write out a list of 10-15 questions in advance, and you’re good to go.

2. You can record your calls using freeconferencecall.com. But my favorite way is to use Skype and one of the applications that will record skype calls. There’s one for the PC called “pamela.” The one I use on my Mac is called “instant call recorder.”

3. For transcription services, try elance.com, rentacoder.com, getafreelancer.com and odesk.com.

4. Your first job in marketing is to find out if your product concept or idea will sell. That’s why you want to get a beta version of your product out into the market to see if anyone will buy it. You can always go back and tweak it later.

5. Another great way to create info products fast is via screen capture video. You can use Camtasia or Camstudio and record slides you create with Microsoft Power Point or Open Office. Camstudio.org and JingProject.com are freebies.

6. Another twist I’ve used is to get 3 or 4 of your buddies, friends or JV partners together and do a product jointly. Typically, you all own rights to use the product as you desire.

7. If you hate the sound of your voice, then you have several options. You can write your products or hire someone else to do the audio. I’ve seen people write out scripts that go with Power Point slides and then have someone else record the presentation. This is more trouble but it does work. Alternatively, you can record your product then have it transcribed. And give the transcript to a writer who can turn it into a polished report. You can find writers on getafreelancer.com.

8. There’s a balance between getting a product out the door and meeting a minimum level of professionalism. You’ll know if your product is subpar because your refunds will go through the roof. If you ummmm and ahhhhhh every other word, that’s probably below the line of professionalism. If you’re editing out every single ummmmm or ahhhhhhh, you’re going overboard the other direction. Remember, no one at all may by the product. You may not sell one. So before you try to create the world’s greatest product, first find out if anyone will even buy a beta version of it.

9. Webinars are a good way to create info products because they have high perceived value and you can turn them into DVD products. A lot of people use http://www.gotowebinar.com for this purpose. My friend Lee Mcintyre from lee-mcintyre.com is a MASTER at turning webinars into dvd’s.

10. You can sell DVD’s online using http://www.kunaki.com. This is print-on-demand fulfillment. You do NOT need to print multiple copies using Kunaki.

11. Timebox your product creation. If you’re spending longer than 2-4 weeks to create your first product, you’re likely making a mistake. While my Product Dashboard is a 6-week program, the actual product creation part lasts only a day or two. The rest of the Dashboard helps you set up the product delivery, shopping cart and all the other elements of selling and delivering the product. http://www.productdashboard.com.

12. The disadvantage of Kunaki is that to my knowledge they don’t print and ship workbooks along with cd’s or dvd’s. This means that if you’re looking to create a full-blown home study course, you’ll need to find a product fulfillment company. Your expenses go up because you’ll have to maintain at least a small inventory with them. If you type “fulfillment” into Google, you’ll see a number of options. I dealt with the issues of creating bigger ticket info products in ActionGrid.com. If you’re just starting out, I recommend, you stick to Kunaki.com and work within their parameters.

13. People live under the illusion that all you have to do is create this incredibly valuable product and customers will beat your door down. What you find out later is that it’s the PERCEPTION of value more than ACTUAL value that determines purchases. And what customers perceive as having value is subject to change. This is what in the early stages of your business it’s advisable to keep your product creation cycles SHORT. Why? Because you simply don’t know what will or won’t sell.

14. Dead ducks don’t quack. What this means is that if you have a product that no one wants to buy, it doesn’t matter how perfect the product is, how flawless the proofreading is, how beautiful the cover is. You can put make up on it, dress it up, make it look pretty. But dead ducks don’t quack.

15. I’m a huge advocate of taking your 12 best product ideas and doing a 12-product survey before you create your first product. Having said that, it seems everyone gets stuck at this point. And it’s 100X better to get a product out and marketed than it is to delay things 2 years while you’re trying to find 30 people to take a survey! To me, if you can’t get 30-50 people in your target audience to take a survey, then you probably can’t get them to BUY a product from you. Still, it’s better to get a product out the door and test marketed than it is to do nothing because you can’t figure out how to get anyone to take your survey.

16. Beware of writing books. It takes most people six months to write a book. In that amount of time, you could’ve created and marketed 3 teleseminars, 3 webinars, and 2 to 4 short reports. You could’ve turned the teleseminars into CD’s, the webinars into DVD’s and had significant sales coming in. You could have test marketed your ideas to see if people would actually spend money for them. Books are great publicity vehicles but not good money vehicles.

17. Your biggest enemy in product creation is the paralysis of analysis. You’ll find out that execution trumps great ideas. Someone with mediocre ideas and great execution will make 100X more than the person with world class ideas and no execution. You can’t sell air… for long anyway.

18. Worry less about whether or not you have a great idea and more about whether or not you’re going to execute your idea swiftly and efficiently.

19. Product creation gets easier. The hardest product you’ll ever create is your first. I advocate that you look at your first few products as practice. This takes the pressure off coming up with “the perfect product” and removes the pressure to make it a huge hit.

20. Monitor the questions people ask in their customer service support tickets. You’ll find good product ideas in the questions that come up over and over.

21. If you can’t think of any good product ideas on your topic, go search Amazon.com. You’ll likely find a number of great ideas there. I often see books with great ideas but an author with no clue how to sell or market the book. You can either work out a deal with the author, or simply use the ideas to stimulate your thinking.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy.”

To get on his killer ezine list, to get cheat sheets and all kinds of other goodies every Saturday and during the week, to get simple, to-the-point Internet marketing know that works real world without all the hype, go to: http://www.marlonsnews.com and subscribe.

Click here to learn about Marlon’s newest point-and-click resource that’ll teach you the fastest, easiest way to create your own information products, so you can start trading products for dollars — instead of your time!

 Posted by at 10:57 pm  Tagged with:
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