Tips for Creating an Information Product

Information products are one of the hottest selling items on the
Internet. And for good reason. Where else can you get timely,
relevant information that is exactly what you want...even at 2 am
in the morning?

The problem with information in books at the bookstore is that
many times it is not specific enough. I don't want to know
everything there is to know about audio engineering, I just want
to know how to record a talk, edit it and burn it to a CD to sell
on my web site. Try finding that at your local Barnes and Noble!
But it is relatively easy to find an ebook about that topic on
the Internet. Even better, a video!



Another problem with buying information at the book store is that
any information is at least one year old. That's how long it
takes to edit a book, send it to a publisher, get it printed and
finally placed on the shelves in your local book store. By
contrast, an ebook or other information product will usually have
the latest, cutting edge info on your topic because they are so
easily updated.

Information products can include anything from ebooks, videos and
special reports to complete home study courses that go "thud"
when the mail man drops it on your customer's front porch. But
information products can also include teleseminars, membership
sites and paid newsletter subscriptions.

Tip 1: Ask your prospective customers what they want.

I know this sounds obvious, but what you think your customers
want and what they really want can be two different things. You
have a lot of knowledge about your topic...that's why you are
creating an information product. But your customers do not have
your level of knowledge and are probably asking different
questions than you are.

So, while you are collecting their first name and email, add a
custom field that asks their biggest question about your topic.
After about 100 email subscribers, you will have a really good
idea what it is they are looking for! And you can use that
information to write your sales letter as well.

Tip 2: Think of the trade your customers are making.

When purchasing your information product, your customer is
trading his dollars for your information. Therefore, make it an
easy trade for him. I will trade $47 for information that makes
me $4700 every day of the week! That is why "how to make money"
ebooks sell so well.

I will also trade $47 for information that saves me 2 days
learning how to do something. That is a no-brainer! I am less
likely to trade $47 for cute stories, recipes or how to sew my
own clothes. Get the picture? Make the trade very easy for your
customer!

Tip 3: Try to include one or more of these angles in any
information product. Will the information in your product:

- make people money?
- save people money?
- save people time?
- save people pain (physical, emotional or financial)?

If you can include one or more of these angles in an information
product, you will have a real winner on your hands!

Tip 4: Break your long ebook into parts.

If you have a 150 page ebook, consider breaking it up into three
50 page ebooks. Everyone likes to get more value and it feels
more satisfying to get three different ebooks rather than one fat
one. It feels like you are getting more for your money.

Tip 5: Add enough bonuses to make the purchase a "no-brainer"!

After you create an information product, go out an find about 5
to 6 related products that you can offer as bonuses. If I am
buying a $47 ebook and you offer me $500 in downloadable bonuses,
it makes the buying decision very easy. I recommend downloadable
bonuses because they are easy to deliver and don't cost you
anything. This is also a good excuse to get their email for your
owner's list - you need their email to deliver their bonuses.

Tip 6: Sell first to those who have already bought from you.

Online business owners are like cows many times. We always think
the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. We are
always looking for NEW customers when our best customers are the
ones that have already demonstrated their loyalty by buying our
product!

We need to ask them what else they want. Another great way to
monetize existing customers is a membership site. So much per
month for access to special info, a monthly conference call or
even a private newsletter. Can you say residual income?

So, start with a niche. Ask that niche what they want. And then
start creating information products that satisfy the itch they
are ALREADY telling you they have. It is a blast and you will
achieve expert status in your niche in no time at all!

by:Stephen Beck

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The Do's and Don'ts of Starting a Business

by:Bill Albright
This article about How to Start a Business highlights the top ten do's and don'ts of starting any kind of business. Starting a business is not complicated if you are aware of what to do, and more importantly, what to avoid. It is my hope that these two lists will work together and serve as a guideline when you start your own business, no matter what industry you're in.

Top 10 DO's of Starting a Business

In the planning stages of any new business, optimism usually gives the new business owner plenty of drive, but it can be very easy to become misdirected. This top 10 list was developed for business owners to stay on course and maintain proper direction in the beginning stages. Every business is a little different, however, so you may need to make a slight modification to these Top 10 DO'S of Starting a Business when you apply them to your own business model.


1. Live frugally and begin saving up money to put into your own business.
2. Learn how to start your intended type of business by working for someone else in the same line of business first.
3. Consider the benefits of starting a business on the side of your main-paying job first, such as after hours, so you can still eat and pay rent while learning how to be successful in your business.
4. Consider the advantages of starting a family business. (24/7 help, cheap labor, employee trust, etc...)
5. Objectively measure your skills and training against potential competition before your start your own business.
6. If you're starting a business manufacturing a product, consider subcontracting to low-cost suppliers. (China can make anything for less money than you can.)
7. Test market your product or service before putting any substantial money into the business, even when just expanding.
8. Make your own "pros" and "cons" list, describing all the positive and negative changes to you and to your bottom line, including everything you can think of related to the specific business you are considering starting.
9. Talk to lots of people in your intended industry for advice before starting a business. -Sometimes sub-suppliers to your industry have good advice, too.
10. Make a serious comparative analysis of all opportunities you are considering.

Top 10 DON'Ts of Starting a Business

Like the list above, the following are suggestions to consider when starting any type of business. They are designed to work hand-in-hand with the first list so that you can avoid the most common pitfalls of starting a new business.

1. Don't think about leaving your job until you have started to see some monetary results and fully completed your full start-up plans for the new business.
2. Don't consider starting a business in a field you do not enjoy.
3. Don't risk all of your assets. Limit your liabilities to a predetermined amount when starting a business. It can be a percentage of your worth of a dollar amount, but the point is to pick it from the start and to never cross that line.
4. Don't compete with your employer when you start your own business, especially when moonlighting!
5. Don't be in too much of a hurry to get your business started. When learning how to start most any business, there are no real penalties for missed opportunity.
6. Don't start a business that involves too high a risk, or has to major a hurdle. Take on ten 2-foot hurdles, never one 20-foot hurdle!
7. Never start a business in which you must have the lowest price to succeed, established competition can always under-price once it's in their best interest.
8. Don't be afraid to learn about the negative aspects of your intended business when you are first learning how to start it. You can't start a business with blinders on.
9. Don't let your entrepreneur self-confidence outweigh careful diligence.
10. Don't let the promise of a conceptual high reward deter reality testing. You can never guess what people will actually pay for anything until they do so.

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How To Make Money On Blogs

by:Andrew Nielsen
Making money from a blog requires skill, luck and work. In this article we describe how it can be done.

Let's first look at the sources of revenue which are available for blog authors.

Ads
By placing ads on a blog it is possible to generate revenue from visitors who click on the ads. The most common source for ads is Google's AdSense. By signing up to Google AdSense and placing a small piece of code on your blog, Google will display their ads on your blog. Advertisers who signed up for Googles AdWords program pay Google for each click on ads and Google shares this revenue with blog owners displaying the ads. Google does not disclose how the revenue is shared � they encourage you to sign up and try it out so you can see how much you generate and then decide if it is for you or not. Google places ads on webpages so they match the content on the page. A blog about traveling would therefore attract ads for airplane tickets, hotels etc. Since Google shares their revenue with you and since you want to generate a lot of revenue, you need to produce content for which ads pay well. There are tools available for determining for which keywords there is the most competition among advertisers � content for such keywords will be content that generates the highest revenue. The revenue generated per click can be anywhere from a few cents to several dollars, depending on the advertiser competition. Normally, relatively few visitors to a website or blog will click on ads. There are ways to optimize a blog or website for achieving higher click through rates. You will be able to find varied (and sometimes contradictory) advice on what is the best strategy. Follow the links below, to sign up for Google's AdSense and for tools for finding the keywords for which there is a lot of advertiser competition.


Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs are a type of partnership, where are seller of a product shares the revenue generated from a sale with the affiliate who sent the customer to the seller's website. The percentage of revenue given to the affiliate can be from a few percent to as much as 75 percent. Affiliate programs are often supported by the company handling the online payment, who then takes care of paying the commission to the affiliate the minute the customer makes payment. An owner of a blog can become an affiliate of one or more sellers and send visitors to the sellers' websites, thereby generating revenue for the owner of the blog. Affiliate links (i.e., links from the affiliate to the sellers' websites) are easier to disguise as normal links, than ads provided by Google. The affiliate can create the links, so the customer may not even notice that the affiliate is affiliated with the sellers' websites. For this reason, a higher click through rate can be achieved this way than through ads. You can expect that only a few percent of visitors following your links end up making a purchase. So also for this option, a large amount of traffic is needed to generate good revenue. Follow the links below to learn more about affiliate programs and how to find products to promote.

Getting traffic
No matter which option for revenue you choose, the key to generating serious money is to get serious amounts of visitors for the blog. This means that your blog needs to be interesting for the reader and not just look like something made for you to make money. For this reason, you need to keep the amount of ads and affiliate links to a minimum. You need to produce content which appeals to readers and to add new posts regularly to keep visitors coming back. Topics like politics, religion, gaming, gossip, arts, sports - to name just a few � seem to be popular topics. You need to select a topic which you yourself find interesting as this will make it easier for you to write articles that others will find engaging too. Blogs with a good amount of graphics seem to attract more visitors than blogs with a small amount of graphics. Besides having a blog which is interesting and make visitors return, you can get visitors using advertising, link building and other techniques used also for "normal" websites.

In this article we have explored some of the ways you can make money from blogs.

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