Those Not-So-Beaut Information Products
Every man and his dog will tell you that the Internet is an
information medium and this is precisely why one of the greatest
commodities you can sell online is information.
Many of you reading this article will already have been suckered
into believing that you can run a real "business" selling ebooks
from your site and may have even spent countless hours creating
a you-beaut site to showcase the ebooks and various other forms
of informational products you have for sale. Why have your sales
been so disappointing?
Quite simply, you're wasting your time.
Granted, the Internet IS an information medium. Granted,
information products DO sell very nicely indeed online. But not
if all you're doing is selling someone else's product in
isolation. You will not generate an income from promoting the
latest Internet marketing guru's "insider secrets" marketing
course. Sure, you may make a sale here or there but you'll also
be spending a fortune in advertising. Don't believe them when
they tell you you will make thousands promoting their products,
if that's ALL you're doing. Despite what the "gurus" would have
you believe, it just ain't gonna happen!
Why?
Because people need to have a reason to seek out your site.
How do you give people a reason to seek out your site?
Provide them with the information they're looking for. In other
words, in order to sell information products from your site (or
anything else for that matter) you must first create a
content-rich site that contains the sort of information the
target audience for what you sell is looking for. Then, and ONLY
then, will you have even the chance to sell the information
product.
There are a number of products out there that have done
EXTREMELY well for their authors by being bundled with resale
rights. In other words, if you buy the product, you then have
the right to resell it to others. These products typically sell
you on the notion that you, just like the author, can make
thousands of dollars each month reselling the book.
There's just one teensy bit of information the author neglects
to mention. Although he "gives you" a website, just like the one
you visited when you bought the book, if you want it you must
host it with the author. For a monthly fee.
The product contains links to other products and sources that
you can't change. Guess who gets the commission every time one
of these links is used to make a purchase? You? Hah! Author
again.
And forget about choosing who you use for your payment
processor. 9 times out of 10 you're forced to use a payment
processor designated by the author because, of course, he's
negotiated the best possible deal. For you. Yeah right. He gets
a commission of every sale you make.
THAT'S how the author makes HIS fortune. By lining up an army of
patsies, most of whom will be lucky to sell a single copy of the
product. But because he has THOUSANDS of you out there, he still
makes a fortune. If each of the thousands of resellers sells
only one copy, he still makes commissions on thousands of sales.
You don't get that opportunity.
And one other piece of vital information. You need to be one of
the very first marketing these products to generate any income
from them at all. They have a VERY short shelf-life.
Now, these types of products certainly have their place. I
promote one of them from my site, in fact. But I don't promote
it as something to generate an income with. I promote it instead
because of what it can teach you about internet marketing in a
very short time. And I say so.
Information products can do very well online, indeed. But not
these sort. Think instead in terms of creating your own
content-rich site that attracts targeted traffic (the more
specialized your niche the better) and then write your own
e-books and sell them from your site. Establish an affiliate
program to get others to sell your book for you. There is a
veritable army of people out there looking for a product to
sell, and any product, so it sometimes seems, will do. In time,
they will wake up and smell the coffee but until then, put that
salesforce to work for YOU. Just don't promise them the moon
though, OK?
Think also in terms of publishing a newsletter on the subject of
your choice. Not only does this help spread the word about your
website, vital to all-important traffic generation, your
newsletter can become quite a lucrative source of advertising
revenue once your subscriber base reaches a decent size (of
several thousand).
Or you might decide instead (or as well) to launch a
subscription-based newsletter to generate subscription income as
well as advertising revenues.
Another approach is to create a members-only area of your web
site and charge a monthly fee for access.
All of these ideas involve information products. Start thinking
outside the paradigm of "selling an information product from
your site". Your site *IS* an information product! So is your
newsletter. And utilized effectively, they're MUCH more likely
to result in a steady, reliable and secure source of income for
YOU, not just another internet marketing "guru".