Marketing Effects

Today I want to spend a little time talking about how to create your first information product.

I’m not going to spend any time convincing you on why you’d want to create an information product - I’ll save that for another post.

Once you’ve got your idea picked out for what you’re going to do your product about, it’s time to go ahead and create an outline for everything you want to cover. You can do this by sitting down and just writing everything down on a piece of paper or using any word processing program on your computer. I’m also a fan of using notecards for this task. You can also use mindmapping software like Bubbl.us (completely free online) Mindjet Mindmanager (PC), or NovaMind (Mac).

No matter what you’re going to do, you’re going to want to do this outline or mindmapping first. Basically, get all your ideas written down somewhere.

Next, it’s time to start creating your product. So let’s cover the 7 ways to do that:

1) Sit down and write a book or ebook
If you like to write then this is the easiest way to get started. Just open up your favorite Word Processor and start working from the outline you created. You could actually create an entire ebook in just one day if you were really dedicated to it.

2) Outsource the writing
I have a full time writer that works for me now and I’m thinking about getting another - I just have so much content I want created that I don’t have the time or inclination to do myself. Of course, I don’t recommend getting a full time writer right away. It’s easy to outsource the project to a writer on sites like Elance.com, Guru.com, and Rentacoder.com. I usually try to stick to writers with high ratings and those whose first language is English. I find that it needs less corrections and proofreading if I stick to American writers - it costs a little more, but you can have them write an entire eBook for you for as little $200 and even really good eBook writers rarely cost more than $1500-$2000. You’re more likely to get exactly what you want it you give them your outline and even tell them the writing style you’d like them to use, but if you don’t want to go through the trouble, just give them the topic and tell them about how many pages you want and they’ll do all the research and create the product for you.

3) Interview an expert

Have a topic picked out, but not an expert in the area yourself? No problem. There are plenty of experts out there that you can interview. For example, there are probably plenty of authors out there looking for more exposure. Find one of them that you can interview in exchange for letting them plug their book at the end. It’s a win win and you get your product created without having to become an expert on the topic yourself.

4) Host a teleseminar

Here’s another great way to create a product. Ask your potential customers exactly what their top questions are on a certain topic, then host a teleseminar for those people and answer all those questions. Then sell the recording of the teleseminar to other people. This type of content is extremely valuable to people because you’re answering the exact questions they have on their mind.

5) Record a video

Just take a look at Youtube’s meteoric rise over the past 3 years to come out of nowhere to become the #2 most popular site on the Internet and you’ll get an idea of how popular videos are.

And the great thing is that people value video content higher than they do ebooks so if your topic lends itself to being an intstructional video, then do it.

6) License what you need

Here’s an easy way to get a product without having to do any work yourself. Just get it from someone else. There are plenty of products out there where you can purchase resell rights, private label rights, or purchase a license to sell the product. Just type in the topic of the product you want to create, and add “resell rights”, “private label rights” or “license” into your favorite search engine and the odds are good you’ll find a product already written about the product where the author is willing to sell your a license where can sell the product.

7) Get the content from other experts
I’ve purchased several products that were created just like this. Essentially you go out and find several experts on a topic and have them contribute their expertise to your upcoming product. This can be done as a series of interviews, as short chapters to a book, and on and on.

All you do is compile the content and *presto* instant product with very little work on your end.

So there you have it - 7 easy ways to start creating an information product. Remember, the most important thing to do is to take action. Follow the Nike motto - “just do it.”

Let me know what you think by posting in the comments below.

This post is probably going to have the shortest useful life of any blog post I’ve ever made.

The product is being released in less than two hours, and I expect it to sell out in less than 30 minutes.

Anyway, believe it or not, I’m not one of the gazillions of people promoting Mass Control. I haven’t seen a preview copy of it anyway, but I’m like you, I want it!

So there’s no affiliate link from me here. Rather, I’m going to let you know who’s giving away the best bonuses for this product. While the product itself is awesome, you may as well get something extra out of it, right?

Anyway, here are some of the best I’ve found so far:

Russell Brunson
Bonus: Commission Bump DVD - 3 product launch case studies, with resale rights, sales letters included - 2 tickets to the IM myth workshop - click here for Russell’s link.

Jeff Dedrick
Bonus: An interview where you get to ask any question you like on how to create your own product - A live webinar on how they used Mass Control to generate $20,000 in 4 days - Mass Control Plan for 2008 with videos - How to use mass control for affiliate promotions - Private coaching membership - a bunch more stuff, they may be giving away a kitchen sink, not sure. www.frankkernmasscontrolbonus.com

Carl Galletti:
Bonus: tickets to this year’s internet marketing superconference - videos and audios of superconference 8 & 9. Transcripts of superconference 8 - traffic mastery audios - copywriter protege audios - power copywriting - the ultimate entrepreneur - resale rights to a bunch of stuff - and a lot of other stuff that i don’t have time to type here or I wouldn’t black jack downloadtélécharger un poker gratuitesacheter jeu pokerregle du poker texas holdempoker online francaisjeux casino poker gratuitesjeux poker omaha gratuitespoker en ligne sans argentles regles du pokerjeu de poker pcle jeu de poker en réseaupoker texas en lignejeu de poker sur internetboite de jeu pokertelecharger de pokerpoker gratuites pour macjouez au poker en lignejeu poker online gratuitestournoi poker casinotelecharger poker onlinepoker gratuites cadeauachat jeu pokerpoker virtuel,poker avec argent virtuel,jouer au poker argent virtuelregles texas holdemdes règles poker texas holdemstrategie texas holdemjouer au poker gratuitementjeu au pokersites de poker en ligneclay texas holdemworld poker series tournamentregle du texas holdemgagner poker onlinepoker gratuites holdla règle du jeu du pokertelecharger poker francaisholdem poker en ligne gratuitesparty poker netjeu flash gratuitestexas holdem poker 2007stud pokerjeux seven card stud gratuitespoker online freerollsites poker en lignetelecharger jeu poker gratuitestelecharger poker pcgratuites jeux yahoopoker tour regletournois de poker en lignejeu de poker en francais even finish this post before the launch http://www.carlgalletti.com/mcbonuses/

John Reese:
Bonus: A copy of his much anticipated Traffic Secrets 2.0 - www.income.com/masscontrol.html

Those are the best one’s I’ve seen. I don’t get anything for referring you to them, just thought I’d let you know which ones are best.

If you want to get Mass Control, then you’ll want to be sitting on the website when it officially launches at 12:00 or you honestly do risk missing out. I’ll update this post with how long it took to sell out later today.

Update:
Well, I was wrong about it’d sell out. It actually took 53 minutes - likely due to the fact that they were having major server issues. I had early ordering access and it still took me 20 minutes to get my order to go through so that’s probably why it took so long. Anyway, congrats to those of you who did get your order in. If you use it, you’re almost certain to make a bunch of money this year.

If you missed out, well, I think Frank is planning on sticking around the Internet marketing niche this time so hopefully it would be another 3 1/2 years before he releases his next product.

~Gary

Why Would Anyone Reveal Their Money Making Secrets In An eBook?

A couple days ago I sent out an email to a list of eBay sellers promoting a product on how to import products from overseas.

If you want to read the entire email, you can do so here. You’ll notice that I actually kept it fairly hype free since that’s not really my style.

I didn’t get a lot of response from it, however, I did get one reply from a man I’ll call “David.”

Here’s what he said, “Hi Gary,

Why would someone that is making $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 be selling how to e-books.

I know they got tired of counting the cash.”

Obviously, he’s pretty skeptical that some making over $200,000 a year would sell a $40 eBook.

So why would someone who is making over $200,000 a year in the importing business start selling eBooks that reveal all their secrets for a mere $40?

Here’s the simple answer: To make more money!

I know that most people out there would be thrilled to be making $200,000/year, heck most people would be thrilled to just be making $100,000/year. However, that’s not how high achievers think. Once they are making good money they start to think, “Okay, this is great. Now what can I do to make even MORE money? And how can I make that money for less work?”

While it’s hard to get rich just selling one eBook to people, there are plenty of good reasons to have one.

1) It establishes you as an expert in the industry which can lead to speaking and consulting engagements – which pay quite well.
2) Selling information is less work than selling physical products. When the information is digital, there’s no fulfillment process. Once the system is setup, you just answer support questions and the rest takes care of itself on autopilot.
3) No inventory. When you sell an eBook, there’s no inventory to stock. You can make money without needing a lot of space to stock and store your inventory.
4) Backend. It’s well known that people trying to make money online are voracious buyers. They buy and buy and buy. So while he may only make a little bit of money on his $40 ebook after paying affiliates and other fees, he now has a list of proven buyers. He can offer other higher priced services (like personal coaching) and products (like home study courses) to his list later.

So next time you wonder why someone would reveal their money making secrets, keep in mind that it’s not for altruistic reasons. The bottom line is that they’re looking to make money, and by telling you’re their best stuff, word gets around that they’re materials really work, and they make even more sales.

Sure, you get a warm fuzzy feeling when somebody sends you an email or gives you a call and thanks you for helping them out. However, if there wasn’t some profit motivation in there somewhere, people wouldn’t reveal their secrets.

Since I like to practice what I preach, the profit motivation of this blog post is to have you take a look at this cool course on how to create your own information products. I’ve already told you why they rock, and I’ve actually got 9 products slated for release in 2008 myself. While there are plenty of products out there on this topic, I like this one best because of how it’s setup. Everyday it gives you one step to do. And it covers all the little details that people typically get hung up on, a big plus, and the reason why I purchased it myself.

Take a look at it – it’s called Info-Product Dashboard – I’m highly recommending this product to you if you’d like to make some more money this year.

When it comes to teaching people how to blog, it’s starting to become a pretty crowded market.

So when Mark Joyner decided to come out with his own blogging product from Simpleology, I was quite surprised.

Why?

Because Mark Joyner certainly isn’t someone known for his blogging knowledge. He has a blog, but has publicly mentioned many times he doesn’t know a heck of a lot about it the whole blogging thing.

I’m in the process of reviewing it simply because he has several other oustanding products, so it’s quite possible that this product is quite good, but I’ll let you know in a few days the rest of my thoughts on this product.

In the meantime, feel free to check it out for yourself.

Is Rob Benwell’s Blogging To The Bank 2.0 really a book that can teach you how to create highly profitable blogs that suck in thousands of targeted visitors everyday?

That’s what I wanted to find out.

I’ve read lots of information from people on how to make money with blogs. I’ve even recorded my own 1hr and 42min video on the topic myself, so I know a little bit about how to get traffic to blogs and how to make money from it. I was curious if this product was going to be a system that anybody could take and make a blog a profitable one or if it was just about of vanilla information that was outdated and useless.

So I bit the bullet, downloaded the product and read it. Afterall, he does make over $30,000/month using this system so I figured it was at least worth a read.

Blogging to the Bank 2.0 started out with some very important information - his five blogging commandments. They’re pretty basic, nothing earth shattering, but then again if you screw them up, you won’t have high traffic, profitable blogs - so be sure to read them and commit them to memory.

Then he gets to the fun stuff, his step by step blueprint for highly profitable long term niche blog. He teaches you how to research profitable niches for your blog (very important) and shows several how to do this research for free.

Then he moves on to setting up a blog, which is a section I didn’t read since I already know how to do that.

The most important section he talks about is the content section. He talks about creating content, getting content created for you, and provides a guide for outsourcing this part of your blogging (which you’ll need to know if you intend to have a lot of blogs)

He then covers some info on optimizing your blog, and some tips on how to use Web 2.0 to drive traffic to your blog.

Despite all the great step by step info covered in the book, there were some major points about getting traffic and links with blogs that were completely glossed over or were out of date. That part disappointed me a little. Overall, however, the product is a great system for someone who wants to make great money online to start with.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you’re building up high quality blogs, you’re building up a valuable asset that you could decide to sell down the road unlike some other systems where you’re simply flooding the Internet with garbage.

If you decide to invest in Blogging to the Bank 2.0 (which I’d recommend despite a couple of small deficiencies) one thing you’re going to want to learn more about is how to build links to your blog and how to drive massive traffic to it, and Blogging to the Bank 2.0 doesn’t do a great job in explaining that so what I’m going to do if you get Blogging to the Bank through the link on this site is include two videos that I’ve recorded on building links and traffic to blogs. The first video is called “The Power of Blogs” - it’s 1hr 42min of tips on how to properly optimize, build links, and generate “buzz” using blogs.

The second video you’ll get takes this generating “buzz” concept to the next level - it’s my “Complete Guide To Linkbait.” If you want to learn the real secrets to getting thousands of links in a very short time and getting 10,000 visitors in a single day, then the Complete Guide to Linkbait is a must watch video.

I’m going to include them as a free bonus to anyone who buys Blogging to the Bank from this site since I feel it’s an excellent product for someone who wants to be a great full time living online.

Instructions to Claim Your Two Bonuses

1) To get your two bonus videos that

will help you dramatically increase the traffic your blog gets - The Power Of Blogs and the Complete Guide To Linkbait - order Blogging to the Bank 2.0 by clicking this link.

2) Email me at mfxbonus@marketingeffects.com and send me a copy of your Clickbank order receipt

3) Enter “Blogging To The Bank” as the subject of the email

4) Upon verification of your purchase, I’ll send you “The Power of blogs” and “The Complete Guide To Linkbait” for FREE.

NOTE: You must order Blogging to the Bank through my link on this website in order to get the bonuses.

If you have any questions, as always be sure to post them in the comments for me below.

Gary

When it comes to having a profitable website, there’s one critical element you need - without it, you can’t make money.

And that’s traffic.

Specifically, you need high quality targeted traffic if you want your site to be profitable.

So let’s cover some ways to get that traffic.

Email
If you have a list of people who’ve signed up for your newsletter or if you have a list of people who’ve purchased from you in the past, then to get them to come back, just send them an offer via email.
This can be a highly effective way to create revenue on demand, the only problem is that if you have a new website or a small list, then this tactic probably won’t be all that effective for you.
email list, which brings me to my next way to get traffic…

Joint Venture
You may not have a list or people yet but you can be sure that somebody out there does. Team up with them, and offer them a cut of the sales for recommending your product. Most people overlook this method, but it’s extremely effective so if you’re serious about making money, learn how to use joint ventures.

PPC
This is a favorite method of many people since you have so much control over the traffic. The one problem with pay per click advertising is that it’s becoming expensive as more and more competition enters the arena, but if you can make it work, you’re set.

Banner Ads
Here’s another classic way of advertising your website. A lot of people claim that banner ads simply aren’t effective, and if they’re not targeted to the right audience, they’re not. However, getting banner ads on niche sites can work like gangbusters, and they’re cheap so don’t overlook this method.

Search Engines
One of my favorite methods is to get traffic from the search engines. Probably because it’s free, these people are seeking you out so you know they’re targeted, and because they buy.

When it comes to getting free traffic from the search engines, there’s a couple things you need to keep in mind.
1) You need to update your site frequently, and add new content on a regular basics.
2) You need links. You absolutely, positively, have to have links pointing to your website, and they need to be the right kind of links.

I could go on and on about this for hours, but instead, I’m going to point you to this new video series that will guide you through the process of building links and getting free traffic from the search engines.

It’s called Mission Unlinkable, and I’d highly recommend you consider these videos if getting more traffic to your website is something you want to do.

So you’ve got your website up and running and you’ve got your newsletter up and running. You’ve just got one problem - you don’t have anybody subscribing to your newsletter.

So how do you go about getting your visitors to go from just visiting your site to opting into your newsletter?

Well, it used to be as simple as putting little box on your website that said, sign up for our free newsletter, and if you did that, people would sign up. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. People used to think it was cool to get email, but now we’re all bombarded with so much spam that we’re not going to part with our email address so easily.

So the next logical step after just asking people to opt-in stopped working was to bribe them. Perhaps with a free report, free chapters from your ebook, videos and tutorials, or even podcasts - essentially, you give them something of value in exchange for them giving you their valuable email address.

But are you ready for some more bad news? Yeah - people are so skeptical now that even if you promise to give them something of value for their email address, they’re still reluctant to give it to you. They’ve likely been given crappy reports that were thrown together in a few minutes before from some marketer who was just trying to get their email address and didn’t actually care about providing value.

So since just asking them to opt-in doesn’t work very well, are we just supposed to give up on building an email list?

Heck no - what you need to do is prove yourself first. Give people some valuable content BEFORE you ask them to give you their email address. That can be as simple as writing great articles or blog posts or recording videos that really do provide value to the visitor even if they don’t opt-in.

Essentially, what you’re doing is what famous Internet Marketer, John Reese, calls a reverse squeeze page.

I’ll admit that I’ve been using these for a couple years now even though I didn’t know that they had a name. I just thought it was a good way to get people to opt-in, and as long as you’re providing quality content - it is.

Keep in mind, however, if your site is crap, then people are unlikely to opt-in because they just think you’re going to send them more crap or even worse, spam them. Reverse squeeze pages will not work on sites with crappy content. If you want to see an example of a reverse squeeze page in action, you can visit my snake site, boatips.com and see how I provide content before I ask for the subscriber to opt-in on all my article pages.

One of my favorite methods for implementing reverse squeeze pages is to offer a free report at the bottom of an article or blog post. So yes, they’re getting free content on my site, then they’re getting a free report from me, so there’s a whole lot of free stuff being given away before I ever ask for money.

And you know what, even the first few emails I send them are likely to contain just content, or maybe a very soft sell for a product included with a lot of valuable content, so that even if they don’t buy the product, they got value by reading the newsletter.

If your subscribers know that every email you send them is going to be a promotion for something, they’re going to start deleting your emails before ever reading. On the other hand, if you’re providing valuable content in every email you send, then people will actually look forward to seeing your emails, and won’t mind if you take a few moments to recommend a product to them.

And that covers getting people to opt-in to your site - give reverse squeeze pages a try and see how it works for yourself.

One thing I think that a lot of business owners, especially home based business, need to learn how to do better is improve productivity.

Being productive can mean the difference between working 30 hours a week and making a lot of money or thinking your “working” 70 hours a week and barely getting by.

You see, a lot of business owners spend their time in a state of chronic distraction. They are constantly talking on Instant Messenger, checking their email, talking on the phone, and doing a whole lot of other things that make them feel like they’re working, but are not helping them make any money.

Here are a few tips on how to increase your productivity.

First, you need to plan your day before you start it. As the great motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, said “Don’t start the day until it’s pretty well finished.”

What he means by that is you should have your entire day planned in advance so that you know what you’re going to be doing for that day. I like to plan my day the night before, but you can take it even farther and plan weeks or even months in advance.

Planning your day may sound obvious to some but so many people wake up and sit down at their desk to start working for the day with no plan of what they’re going to do that day. For many people, this bad habit carries over from their days as an employee. And the business owner can’t afford to have this bad habit.

I know that in my own business if I ever have a day where I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write down everything I need to get done that day, I get less than half of what I would have gotten done if I’d have taken the time to plan the day.

The next tip on how to be more productive is simply to plan more work for the day. Have you ever heard the saying, “If you need something done, give it to the busiest person you know.”

This may seem counterintuitive but it’s absolutely true. You see, busy people need to be more self disciplined with their time and will find a way to get something done by carefully planning.

Conversely, a person who isn’t very busy and has a lot of time will tend to procrastinate and do nothing since they think they have all the time in the world and can just do it later. So while they have the time, they don’t have the same work ethic as the busy person.

I know that when I plan a lot of work for a single day, I’m far more productive, sometimes getting done in one day what used to take me a week simply because I have so much to do that I need to keep a little extra “spring in my step” in order to get everything on my list done that day.

Now you can take this too far and plan so much work that you’ll never be able to finish it in one day, and that can be very demotivating. I’d recommend planning what seems like a lot of work, but not so much that you won’t be able to finish it no matter what you do in a day.

If you mess up a few times and find there’s just too much to do, then play around with it until you can get your list done in a day but have very little time to waste in the process.

If you have less time to waste and screw around with during your work day, you’ll see your productivity soaring – just give it a try for a few weeks and watch how much more you get done.

Sorry for the long layoff between posts here - kinda got caught up with some other stuff - oops.

Anyway, here’s your next marketing lesson, and it’s an important one, so pay attention

I want to step back from the nuts and bolts side of internet marketing and talk about that that space between your ears again. Specifically, about focus.

A lack of focus is something I see all the time, and I’ll even admit to having that problem a few years ago.

I’d see a new opportunity,
get really excited,
spend some money thinking I’d make a ton back,
a few weeks later get bored, and find some latest and greatest, best opportunity ever deal.
And the cycle would repeat itself.

And if my goals were to go bankrupt, that would have been an ideal course to follow since I was always spending money but rarely making any back.

I had become a serial entrepreneur jumping from one opportunity to the next, planting little money trees everywhere, but never sticking with one long enough for it to take root and start returning money. You see, money does grow on trees, but just like a tree, they don’t start producing right away. You gotta plant them, water them, tend to them, wait a little, then they just start throwin’ off cash. However, most people take a look at their money tree opportunity and just as it’s about ready to really start producing, they give up and go find something else.

Sometimes it pains me to think how much more I’d have made if I’d have just stuck with building up an awesome little empire of sites when I first got online, But I digress…

What you need to focus on is finding ONE system that you can follow, dedicate yourself to following it for a certain period of time, and then evaluate it. And I would recommend a bare minimum of 3 months to evaluate, 6 months is better, 12 months is best. If you’ve been following something for a year and you still haven’t seen results, then feel free to dump it and move along.

During that evaluation period, put on some blinders so you’re not tempted to go try something new. Really focus on making that one system you’re following work.

The key, of course, is not only focusing, but in finding a good system to work with or you’ll be trying to grow money trees from carrot seeds, and that just won’t work. Don’t be afraid to spend some money to find a good system. Seek the opinions of others who you’re certain are making good money (a lot of people pretend), and ask them what they’d recommend. Then get goin’, stop trying to make money from 10 other ways, and really focus. I think you’ll find that the results are very rewarding.

Thanks for watching this MarketingEffects.com Internet Marketing Lesson. I’m Gary Ruplinger and I’ll see you next time.

In this lesson, I cover what to look for in an autoresponder service.

In my last lesson I covered what an autoresponder was - now let’s cover how to choose an autoresponder service.

Here’s a few things to look for in an autoresponder service.

1) The Ability To Run Multiple Campaigns. Having just one autoresponder just isn’t going to cut it even if you have only one website since you’re likely going to have more than one campaign running and you’ll likely want to segment your customers so you can target your offers better.

2) The ability to personalize messages - Its been years since I’ve seen an autoresponder that doesn’t do this, because it’s so important. This feature allows you to address the person on your list by name, provided you’ve collected that info. So rather than addressing the subscriber as Dear Reader, you can address them as Dear John, or whatever their name is. Your messages will be opened more often, and you’ll ultimately make more money because of it.

3) The Ability To Test - This is very important, although it’s a chronically underused feature. But it’s important to be able to test so you can make your message more effective. Good autoresponder services will allow you to split test different messages to see which get better results. You definitely want this feature - and you definitely want to use it. Just remember, testing is your friend.

4) Tracking. You want to make sure that the you can track things like how many people actually opened your message and even how many people clicked on the links in your message. Just like with testing, if you’re not tracking your messages, you’re really just stumbling around in the dark.

5) High Delivery Rates - Many services publish the rate at which their emails are successfully delivered. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re read, but at least they’re getting through. You want to make sure that your autoresponder service can actually get your message to your subscriber or there’s no point in doing business with them. Look for deliverability rates well above 90%.

So what are some good autoresponder services? A few good ones are Aweber, GetResponse and EmailAces. My favorite is Aweber, but that’s just a personal preference, take a look at them all and decide which is best for you.