Information Marketing is all about providing information in exchange for payment. Information marketing involves the creation of an information product, say an e-book, and selling it to people for a fee.
The most important aspect of Information marketing is the information product that you are selling. In order for you to successfully create an info product on any particular topic or sector, it has to be something of the following nature:
- Something that you know very well: A gift, talent or skill-set that you were born with or some skill you have developed over the years
- Something that you have been taught, have practiced and now very good at it.
- A problem –solving skill. Maybe you are particularly good at helping people solve a particular problem. You can leverage on this skill by packaging this service and selling to people.
Creating an information product is not a day’s work, nor is it a child’s play. Great work has to go into it. If you are particularly gifted in something, then you need to sit down and package this into an info product. But you need to be sure that what you are about to sell has the potential of solving people’s problems.
Before you go ahead creating an info product, ask yourself one question:
WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT?
How can you determine if your info product will be viable?
This single question will steer you in the right direction towards creating that mega info product that will get people scampering to get your product and you receiving an endless stream of credit alerts from your bank!
What do people want?
• One way of knowing this is by your gut-feeling. Sometimes, we can get an idea, and be very convinced that this idea is unique, and if implemented properly, will be very successful. You are convinced beyond doubt that it will work. This is what we call a gut instinct. Most times, if your conviction is very strong, its best we go ahead and implement our idea.
• Ask people directly. Another way of determining what people want is to ask them directly. How can you do this? For example, if you are selling on online or internet based product, then you know that most of your customers are online. So, go to an online forum, e.g. www.nairaland.com Create a topic thread, and list at least 3-options of similar products and ask them to drop their email addresses in order to receive free information on any of the options. However, everyone must state which product they are interested in when submitting their email addresses. There you have it. In a few days, you’d have tens of emails addresses to market to. These are your potential clients. But better still, you would know exactly what they want.
HOW TO GET STARTED
1. Begin by making a list of the things you can help people with, problems and challenges that you can help others solve.
2. Concentrate on how you have helped people solve a problem. By this we mean you should take a hold of what your technique or approach is. Then write it down.
3. In as much as talent or natural skill-set is important, it is also necessary that what ever you want to go into is highly lucrative. So what if you have identified a topic or niche that is highly lucrative but you don’t know how it works or you don’t know how to go about it? Simple:
4. LEARN IT! Engage the services of a professional, someone you know hasbeen in that sector for a long time, someone you know has considerable experience in that sector, who has actually been doing-it for a while. Let him tutor you. Let him teach you how. It might cost you, but that will be a very good investment. Ensure you learn from the best.
5. Begin to practicalize it. Begin to do what you have just learnt from the professional. Do it the best you can. This is a very important step. It is necessary that you do what you have just learnt, so you can assess how
viable it is, first hand. If you don’t try it out, and just begin to sell it, your customers might experience problems along the way, which you will have no idea of how to solve, because you’ve never tried it out.
6. Now you can sell it! After completing steps 4 and 5 above, you must be pretty confident in yourself by now. Now sit down, take your time and put pen to paper. Create your info product. Write a compelling e-book on the new business model you have just learnt.
STEP 1: CREATE YOUR INFO PRODUCT
If you have duly followed step by step up until now, then you must be ready to create your special info product now. If you have a computer, then open up Microsoft word and begin to type. If you don’t have a computer, then get a pen and some paper and begin to write your info product. Once you are through, you can then take it to a computer centre and have someone type for you, and save in Microsoft word format.
Then, you need to convert your typed product to a proper e-book or manual. You can do this by adding some extra stuff like a cover page, table of contents, page numbers and some graphics. If you don’t know how to do this, just have someone do it for you at the computer typesetting centre. If you have properly created the e-book, then you’ll need to package it for distribution, i.e. the way you want to send it to your customers when they have paid for it. A good format is in PDF. If you have a computer, you can download a Microsoft word to PDF converter from www.pdf995.com. Install it on your computer, then open your info product in Microsoft word, select Print, then under printers, select pdf995 printer and click print. Select the location you want it to save to, and you have your info-product in pdf format, ready for sale.
STEP 2: CREATE A WEBSITE TO SELL YOUR INFO PRODUCT
This step is actually optional. You may choose to setup a website to sell your info product, or you may not. A website however, improves the image of your info product. On the website, your customers will be able to get more information about the product, get to know what it is all about, and also get more details about you or the info-product from the website. You can setup a free website to sell your info product. To do this, simply go to www.blogger.com. Click on “Get Started” to create your free account. Next, enter your email address twice, without any errors, then enter your password for your blog website.
Next, you enter the name you want to appear at the bottom of all your posts. For example, anytime you write an article or post any thing on your website, you’ll have to sign it with this name. This is called the display name. Some people simply use ‘Admin’ as their display name. Fill the rest of the form correctly, and when you are done, click on the continue button to move to the next page.
Next, you will need to supply your GSM/mobile number in order to verify your account. Enter your number as shown below. You will then receive a voice call from google, telling you your verification code. Write this down and enter it in the next page. Once you click verify, your account will be verified and active. Next. You will need to enter the name of your website. This is your blog title. If, for example, your info product is on “How to open and verify paypal account in Nigeria”, then this will be your blog title. Next, enter your blog address and press continue. This will be the address of your website. Again, using the same example as that above, you can enter “verifypaypalnigeria” as your blog address. This will make your full website to be: Http://verifypaypalnigeria.blogspot.com. Next, select your theme. This is how you want your website to look or appear. You can always change your theme later on from the control panel. Select the first theme and click continue.
Your blog website should be ready now. To begin adding content, click on “Start blogging”. To add content to your website, just enter the title and the text of your content, then click on “PUBLISH”.
Another option is to install wordpress and use a wordpress theme. This is a bit more complicated so we will be treating this as a topic on its own, in one of the coming weeks. So, if you have followed through, congrats! Your website should be up and running now.
STEP 3: DETERMINE A GOOD PRICE FOR YOUR INFO PRODUCT AND OPEN A
BANK ACCOUNT
This is the next most important step. You need to ensure that your info product is optimally priced. In pure terms, if 100 pay N2,000 for your info product, you make N200,000. But if you price it at N4,000 and only 20 people buy your product, you make only N80,000. So, determine the price of your info product prudently, so you can make more money from it eventually. Next, you need a means of payment.
This is where the bank account comes into play. It will serve as the means via which you can collect payments, so it should be accessible by every one interested in your product. Use a bank that is well distributed across Nigeria, especially when it comes to branch distribution. GTBank is a very good option.Once you have successfully priced info product and opened a bank account through which you can receive payments, you need to update your blog website with this information.
Let your customers know the price of your info product and the bank details where they can pay for it. Once a customer pays for your info product, and you have confirmed the payment, you can then send the info product to the customer via email. Simply compose a new mail, add the info product to the email as an attachment and send to your customer.
That’s it. What is now left is for you to bring your info product to the attention of all those who may be interested in it. To actually make money from info product marketing, this is about the most important step, because this is the marketing aspect of the whole process.
STEP 4: MARKETING YOUR INFO PRODUCT
Marketing your info product is the most important aspect of the whole process, because this determines your sales. You have to bring your product to the attention of everyone who may be interested. So, you need to aggressively market your info product.We will enumerate below, the fastest means via which you can bring your info product to the attention of your customers or would-be customers.
ONLINE FORUMS
Online forums serve as a good and low cost means to reach a wide audience. You need to sign up for at least the forums listed below. You can then create threads to advertise your product. Also, add your website link (www.yourinfoproduct.blogspot.com) to your forum signature. When you post any new article or comment on other people’s threads, you website link will be displayed. This will help to bring further exposure for your product. The major requirement here is that the forum should be an active one. Here
are some Nigerian forums that you can try:
http://nairaland.com
http://nigeriabestforum.com
http://naijahotjobs.com
http://abujacityforum.com etc.
Check Google to get more forums. On the international side, here are some
forums that are very active:
NEWSPAPER CLASSIFIEDS
A lot of people now read newspapers and so this would be a very good avenue for you to advertise your info product. A spot of classified advertising space in some of Nigeria’s newspapers cost between N7,500 to N15,000. So you have to choose the one you feel has a very wide readerships, cutting across all ages
and sectors. This will ensure you get maximum publicity for your info product.
FACEBOOK PUBLICITY
According to facebook, there are over 3 million Nigerians using facebook. Not bad if you ask us. So, you need to put this population to your advantage.Create a facebook page for your info product and update it with important information about your product. Add your phone numbers and website address so your visitors can get in touch with you. Paste your facebook page address on your own personal facebook wall and like your facebook page. Also get your facebook friends to like your facebook page and continuously paste your website address on your wall from time to time.
TWITTER TRAFFIC
It is a fact that twitter is one of the fastest means of driving traffic to a website. The major requirement therefore is that for you to be able to enjoy this privilege, you need to build a good list of friends, at least in their thousands, before you can get people to start clicking your advert.
This is because twitter is a very busy place and as such, information rolls in and out of it in seconds. Let’s see how you can get started with this.
(1) Create a twitter account at twitter.com
(2) Build your friends list. There’s a special website that will help you generate 100 twitter friends every day. If you use this website, you will generate 3,000 friends in a month, and if you add 100 friends every day, in two months, you will have 6000 friends. In six months, you will generate 15,000 friends and by this time, you will become a big boy on the internet. The website is http://hitfollow.com. This is not the only website that can help you generate twitter friends, you can get others by searching Google for phrase like how to add twitter friends free etc. You can also try: http://letgetmorefollowers.com and http://greedytweet.com Here’s the site and this is what you should do when you are there. Remember, you must have signed up with twitter.com.
When you have made a good number of friends, you may now start posting your link on twitter. You can use something like: I just posted a message on my blog on how to do anything…..check out: www.yourinfoproduct.blogspot.com (add your link here)
All has been said already, all you need to do is get to work!
I got this wonderful post from one of the E books i bought recently so i decided to share it with you all. Hope this helps.
Please leave your comment to know your thoughts towards this post and like our facebook fan page by visiting www.facebook.com/boldnaija and follow @livewealth on twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment