Featured Tips by Mark Tse
Many information marketers have the erroneous belief that
if they find a market with too many competitors, they
shouldn’t write an ebook for that audience.
To the contrary, competition can be beneficial for a
variety of reasons including –
* Researching.
If there IS a lot of competition, you can reasonably expect
there this to be a lucrative marketplace. Generally
speaking, a large product and service line means there is
large consumer interest and demand. I encourage you to
LOOK for markets with lots of competition as it’s a
shortcut to researching where revenue is available.
* Partnering.
The more competition there is, the more likely you can find
other like-minded marketers to partner with in cross
promotion efforts, co-op advertising, and other related
joint ventures. This is especially true if your ebook is
“related” to other ebooks without DIRECTLY competing with
them. (I.E. Raising metabolism is “related” to cutting
calories in that they are both agents of weight loss.)
* Educating.
Another reason why competition is good is simply because
your target audience is educated, at least in part, on
someone else’s dime. That is, the marketing materials of
your competitors educates the market on why the products
are necessary or beneficial. A good example is this: many
marketers “educated” consumers on the need for using audio
and video on their web sites, opening the door to a variety
of related products and services to be sold.
So, competition isn’t always a bad thing. It can be a good
thing for these reasons and a handful of others.
But …
The challenge comes in when you want to stand out among the
competition so YOU can get marketplace interest.
There are many ways to stand out by creating your own “USP”
(Unique sales proposition) that could be covered here, but
I want to mention is this –
Create a demographical version of your ebook.
Let me give you an example –
Let’s suppose you are going to write an ebook entitled,
“Weight Loss Secrets”. So, you write it and then you
create a “demographical version” that is entitled, “Weight
Loss For Christians”.
Other examples might include –
* Time Management For Homeschoolers
* The Internet Marketer’s Diet
* The Senior Citizen’s Guide To Investing
* How Ace Your First Teacher Interview
* How To Get A Hot Date: College Student Edition
* Fundraising For Youth Groups
All you would need to do in order to create this
“demographical version” of your ebook is take the same
exact ebook you’ve written (your “regular” version) and add
some specific references and ideas that relate to the
particular demographic you’ve chosen.
* If you decide to create “How to Get A Hot Date: College
Student Edition”, then you’d add in a few references to
specific places a college student can find a date that
wouldn’t apply to your regular audience (I.E. Frat party),
as well as pick-up lines, first-date ideas, practices and
other content that apply only to college students.
In other words, you share the same content, but you speak
THEIR specific language and provide ideas that THEY can put
into practice in their setting.
The PRINCIPLES of finding dates may be the same across the
board, but the PRACTICES of finding dates are completely
different for college students and widowed senior citizens!
And if you can get creative in your content, you can make
your demographical version even more appealing.
Your “regular” version may have 5 main practices for time
management. But in your “demographic version” those
practices become 5 “Homeschooling Habits”.
So, what’s in this for YOU as the author?
Let’s take a look at a couple of noteworthy advantages -
Firstly, you STAND OUT among your competition. As a
Christian, I can tell you that if 20 ebooks were available
on weight loss and one of them specifically mentioned being
for believers, I’d immediately take a look at that one.
Secondly, you EXPAND OUT among your competition. Now you
can market your ebook to TWO entirely different audiences.
For example: You can look for “weight loss” ezines and buy
advertising in them. But, you can also look for
“Christian” ezines (that have NOTHING to do with weight
loss) and buy advertising in them. This allows you to
reach audiences that you likely would have never been able
to reach!
Then, it’s simple a matter of doing it again for other
demographics.
Rinse. Repeat. Reprofit.
Start with ONE demographic and move on to many others …
* Christians
* Homemakers
* Senior citizens
* Students
* First-timers
* Newlyweds
* Office Workers
* Teachers
* WAHMs
The list could go on and on.
Most information products can be custom-tailored for
different demographic groups to STAND OUT among the
competitors … and open up the door to new contacts that
might never be reached through other means.
If you want to STAND out and EXPAND out then create one or
more “demographical versions” of your ebook.
Like a screaming child at the library, you’ll get
attention!
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This article is written by Mark Tse. Mark shares free tips, articles and downloads about Internet Marketing. You can visit his blog and read his latest posts here:
www.marktse.com/blog/
The best way to make money online, bar none, is to have your own product to sell. Of course, it helps if that product is something needed, and if your niche is willing to shell out money for it. There are some important factors to look at when creating a product. Let’s take a look at how you can come up with your own wildly profitable product to sell online.
First and foremost, the biggest mistake most product creators make is creating a product first and attempting to find an audience second. You should actually go about this in reverse. Find a market, with an audience of thousands of people who want something, and then create a product to fit their needs. This is a simple tip, but the most important one as far as having a product that is profitable. Thousands of unwanted products sit online everyday and never make a sale. This problem could have been remedied with a little research first.
Secondly, try to find not only a market that wants something, but a market that wants it desperately! Information products do especially well on this point, and many of the most successful products are merely those that were marketed correctly to a desperate audience. As you may know, internet marketers are desperate to make money online. When was the last time you spent $97 on an e-book to help you do so? Teens and adults who suffer from excessive acne are desperate to learn about what lifestyle changes or miracle cures are available to clear up their skin. Someone worried about a pregnancy, a wedding, or a divorce would be desperate to get quick access to answers to the questions they have. Pick a desperate audience and supply them with the answers they want, and your product will be a winner!
Finally, be prepared to step outside your comfort zone. Maybe you found a market for some information that is simply not within your knowledge zone. Spend a couple of days researching that topic, via Google, online forums, professional help articles, and through any other means at your disposal. What you will find is that in most cases, you can gather the data you need from many different sources and then piece it together into one cohesive product fairly easily. It’s not that most buyers couldn’t do the same thing, but they’re paying for the convenience of instant answers and not needing to research ad nauseum. If two days of research yields you ten years of product profits, isn’t that a worthy investment?
So keep in mind, the most important part of product creation is to discover a product that needs to be created! Find a market that is looking for something, and fulfill that need. Then begin your online marketing efforts, and watch the cash flow in! I wish you luck in your endeavours.
Information products, generally known as reports or e-books, are one of the most profitable products you can sell online. There are many reasons for this – development price, printing costs (or rather lack of printing costs) and ease of distribution. Internet users have become very accustomed to e-books and short reports as a form of online product, and are more than happy to pay for the information they want. As everyone has something they know more about than others, this puts you at an advantage. Let’s learn more about how you can profit by creating an information product.
Here are the basics to creating an information product. First, pick a main topic, something you’re at least somewhat familiar with. Next, search online and find any forums, communities, or question boards that deal with your topic (or a subset of your topic). Read through some of the questions that are asked, and attempt to nail down a specific problem that many people need the answers to. Research the topic more, discover the answers and other, related information that may be of use to these people. Open Microsoft Word (or something similar) and write your report, e-book, or whatever you’re creating. If you are a programmer, you may actually be tackling problems by creating a program to do so. Complete your product, place a sales page online, and drive the people who want the answers in your product to your site.
If you are creating an e-book or short report, you may well wish to create it in Adobe .PDF format. This is simple enough, as there are several free or inexpensive options. I use PDF995 (www.pdf995.com), which is free, easy to use, contains no watermarks or penalties for not registering, and creates a professional product. If you already own Adobe Acrobat, so much the better! Users are far more accustomed to downloading a PDF than a DOC file, and many people don’t have Microsoft Word, nor realize that there is a free DOC reader available online.
If you are creating a software package, debug it until the point where you can’t break it to save your life. You may not get a second chance to maintain your buyers, and if your program crashes or appears unstable, many of them may immediately request a refund. They may also be wary of any products you release in the future. Make sure your program is stable, works properly and answers the basic needs of your target users.
Finally, always offer a refund policy. Many people will not buy without one, as they don’t know you from John Doe and have no way to know if you are peddling gold or peddling crap. A refund guarantees, in their minds, that there is no risk involved with purchasing your product. In my experience, refund requests are nonexistent, although if you do not satisfy your customer with your product, I’m sure refunds would be more frequent. However, even really terrible products have a relatively low refund rate, so always offer one.
Good luck with your product creation, and I wish you success!
