Yes, I have Amazon sites that sell everything from cookware to robot vacuums and yes I have a few Adsense sites that do pretty well too…but by far (more than 80%) of or profit comes from information products, And…

Information products offer one of the few reliable, unlimited upside, leveraged income opportunities over any other business model.

What I mean by leveraged income is simply that you work for a few weeks and then continue to make money for years to come from that initial investment in time and effort.

Once question that often comes up though is "should you start with your own infoproduct or an affiliate product (someone else's infoproduct that you market for commission?"

That's a very fair question, nobody wants to spend weeks creating their infoproduct only to find out it bombs…

Certainly those who we see inside InfoMarketer'sZone have often struggled or bombed out once with their information product…but there is a way to change that.

LOW RISK INFOPRODUCT BUSINESS STRATEGY

We have been creating and marketing information products for over 12-years now, and even though we can be a little THICK, I can safely say I've learned my lesson about wasting time creating products that won't sell.

So, we got smart and now use a system that looks like this:

1. Test our idea and keywords using blogs or third party sites like Hubpages or Squidoo…the idea here is to test demand and hone in on keywords.  Let's say you have 3 ideas (affiliate products or your own infoproduct), one way to tell which one to follow is to test which of the 3 generate more traffic

2. Next, for the winner, I will begin by trying a few different affiliate products – the idea is to find the one that sells the best

3. I then go and reverse engineer why that product sells the best – sales letter, title, better positioned, reputation, etc…

4. Decide to create our own infoproduct IF we can do it better or improve the format or positioning, then we take all of this intelligence and create our own product

This method goes from lowest to most effort reducing the risk each step of the way – and from least to most profit…has worked for us very well in 4 different niche markets so far.

Inside InfoMarketer'sZone you will find a complete InfoProfit Formula designed around this exact model with all of the details, how-to, shortcuts and tools (free tools) to get the job done. 

Basically you get the benefit of years of trial and error to help you earn profit quickly and easily as you continue to test and grow your market instead of having to learn from failure.  All you need to do is watch the lessons and apply the techniques to grow your own information marketing business online.

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I like to call these people - "SMART!"

You see they understand that answering questions, solving problems and helping people reach their dreams can not only make them wealthy, but let me ask you…who the hell wouldn't want to give people exactly what they want at a deeply emotional level? 

Yes, writing books and marketing information products is FUN and DAMN financially satisfying.

Just one problem…how does someone new to a market get that market's attention, get them to like you and get them to spend big bucks on what you have to offer?

Hmmmm….

It used to be paid advertising, which meant only those with deep pockets could enter the game

Then it moved to email, but open rates today are BRUTAL

Next came websites and SEO – make it easy for them to find you. 

And now, the rules of the game have changed again…to having them find you…but in social situations rather than as some optimized webpage that pops up when your prospect searches Google.

So, this leads us to the 4 things that you MUST be doing to market your books, ebooks and infoproducts.

1. You MUST be passionate about your market and topics. 

In the detached world of advertising, websites and SEO you could get away with not being passionate because your prospects had very little chance to even know who you really were. 

So, many people faked it for a while, did OK, but eventually fell flat on their face anyway because they didn't have the "all-in" dedication that it takes to continually build your business. 

Today, times have changed and people do need to know who YOU are, so you better show them passion or they will cruise on right past you.

2. Embrace participation with your market. 

People want to like you, they want to know you, they want to believe in you – so give them a reason to.  Use blogs, videos, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other method you can to show your market you give a damn. 

3. Be involved

Stay ahead of the curve. 

Customers buy what you have because you give them a short-cut to the time, energy and pain it takes to learn something on their own. 

People are lazy, and you can capitalize on that by giving them exactly what they want.  To do that, you need to be constantly one step ahead of them in your market.  Being able to say I have done X, Y and Z and here's what happened is the most valuable type of information of all

4. Be consistent

I'm not a huge fan of scheduling my day down to the very last minute but I assure you, we know the 2-3 most important things we MUST get done everyday and we do them. 

You want at least 1-2 of these things to be actively engaging with your market – simple as that.

Be in love with your customers and your business, know exactly who they are and embrace getting closer to them, be active in your market and be consistent – these 4 golden nuggets applied to your ebook or infoproduct business will produce massive results.

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Learn how Mike:

• Substituted year of corporate employment with his own online business
• Was able to move to the wonderful island of Lanzarotti in the beautiful Canary Islands to carry on his business
• Now has a wonderful "Guru" network of bloggers and online marketers
• Regularly turns his passions into money-making businesses

Listen as Mike talks with us from his home (you may even hear the birds singing in the background!)

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But is that really the right business model for turning information and training into high value for your customer and profit for your info product business?

As part of a broad business plan, the question I ask people who come to us looking for help grow their online information marketing business is "What is your complete monetization plan?"

In other words, is that ALL you are going to sell to your customer is a $10 ebook or is part of a more elaborate sales funnel that drives additional, higher profit, back-end sales?

The truth is that very few (if anyone) makes a living selling a $10 ebook, if there is no additional plan for monetizing your internet traffic and low-end customers, then you may build a $500/month info product business, but you certainly will not build a $5,000-$10,000/month information marketing business…if that is your goal.

Why A $10 Ebook Can Backfire On You

1. The value makes it look cheap which disuades people from buying (even if the material is good).  Let's say you have researched natural methods of lowering cholesteral and put that into a 50-page ebook…now if you REALLY had some interesting and valuable content to share with your market – will your prospect believe you have value at a price of $10?  Especially in today's market where 99% of low-priced informational ebooks are either unprofessional, spammy or useless, your prospect most likely already has dismissed your offer based on seeing such a low price. 

2. The price is too low to attract partners, even if you give them 80% of the profits, the commission is not great so you won't get many people promoting for you and thus you lose the leverage affiliates and market authority holders can give you…UNLESS it is tied to an upsell or back-end where they will get paid as well

3. When people look to sell stuff cheap it tells me they don't know how to add real value to a marketplace…now this may be an exception, but in the hundreds of people we have coached, that's my overall observation.

What I would recommend is that you come up with a higher-end package of information (in the $67-$97 range is good) which can be the material from your ebook bundled with an audio series or video series, day-by-day checklist, additional written content (Ex. for cholesteral, perhaps a recipe book and exercise guide), interview or two with experts, etc… will all let you get to a higher price point that will be more attractive to partners and overall, will have more margin and make you look more trustworthy and more important in your market. 

In that sense, I would look at your ebook as being a "piece" of your ultimate product offering. 

Then, you work on an up-front sales funnel that provides a focused campaign to draw traffic and convert them into warm leads and ultimately – customers.

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I've been lucky enough to know dozens and dozens of successful online entrepreneurs and without fail, every one of them has their own information product…some rely on those information products for the majority of their income, others use them as a critical foundation upon which they build other income streams from affiliate marketing, consulting, seminars or other monetization methods.

Having your own info product…

• Gives you a reliable, controlled, consistent and leveraged income stream that can last for years
• Allows you to attract an army of affiliate partners that automatically send you highly targeted traffic for FREE (other than a portion of the profit you make on each sale)
• Brands you in your marketplace as a player, an expert – a person and business that delivers high value and deserves higher compensation than others
• Gives you a fundamental foundation for a 7-figure training and information delivery business where the growth is virtually unlimited

But how do you make sure your effort is rewarded?

Developing InfoProducts With Guaranteed Buyers!

Is it really possible to take the uncertainty out of picking a niche market and product idea that will sell?

After all, without following the system outlined below, we have found that the average new info product marketer fails up to 5-times before they find success…now that is painful, expensive and frustrating!

Happily – there is a way to virtually eliminate the uncertainty from this process of picking an info product market and topic — we have taught this method in great depth in InfoMarketer'sZone with unwavering success

Great product ideas come from consumer desire to be, have or do something tomorrow that they are not or do not have today. 

People want to lose weight, drive the golf ball farther, get more dating action, get a job promotion, be more confident, handle stress better, overcome embarrasing health conditions, etc…

What that means is great product ideas come from understanding the challenges and frustrations people struggle with day-by-day that stand in the way of BIG goals.

As a group, new mothers want BADLY to find a job that gets that back into the workforce, but does not threaten the strong bond they have with their children – if you could offer them a solution to that problem you would have a killer product. 

The next phase of finding great ideas is looking to see if there are already products selling to address the frustration and desire you identify.  Or you can work the other way around and find top selling products then reverse engineer WHY they are selling – which brings you back around to the desire and demand again.  I have used both techniques and they work equally well.

Finally, once you have evidence and motive behind demand and a strong sense for money changing hands (other products selling) you want to come up with your own differentiator or angle on the market to set yourself apart — which needs to be tested against the market to make sure you haven't strayed too far from what is working for other products.

One final point – this must be an objective process, you can't give the market what YOU THINK they need until you have clearly identified what it is they WANT. 

If I had to pick one of the most common mistakes new info product marketers make is to confuse their opinion of what solution a given market needs with what it is they want.  In other words, give them what they NEED by marketing what they WANT not the other way around. 

Leave us a comment and tell us where you are with your info product idea…

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So many people assume that writing and marketing their onw info products is hard…how do you come up with a market, an idea, time to develop it and the knowledge that goes into writing or developing the proudct? 

In reality, the process is quite simple…

• You listen and monitor your market identifying HOT demand often shared in the form of questions, frustrations or comments on goals, objectives or other products they are buying
• Market validation…you want to validate that the idea you have is a) in demand b) is fueling uying activity for information and c) is BIG enough that you can develop multiple, ongoing products and services around
• You create your unique angle - how can you add value to what is already offered?  This could be through simplifying the information, organizing it into systems that are easier to apply, providing additional examples and case studies, extending the information through additional details, etc…
• Market your unique angle and how it solves the original demand you identified through listening

The main challenge most information product marketers have that we see inside InfoMarketer'sZone is that they…

• Don't know which market they are targeting OR do not know how to identify HOT topics (using what we call buying triggers)
• They are not listening or digging deep enough into their market to find the real demand – it is ALWAYS there, you just need to find it
• They don't validate that the demand they have discovered is leading to buying activity – just because there is demand doesn't mean big money is being spent
• Fail to brand themselves or their product through a unique angle which means they get lost in the competition
• Do a poor job of marketing because they don't market to the customer's "special place" – there is  a specific mindset information seekers have when they look for answers to their questions, you must know exactly what that is, then you can emotionally attach yourself to them and the money will flow automatically

But remember…it all starts with listening.

Listening leads to cash – without that you get a big goose egg!

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I remember years ago investing thousands of dollars in recording equipment that would involve signal separators for my phone, recording and editing software, mixers and other various types of offline analog and then digital audio recorders.   At times when you want that true studio sound for your info product, some of this equipment is still necessary today, but in most cases recording a call with the person you have chosen to interview will do.

I just spent the morning recording two audio sessions we will be adding to InfoMarketer'sZone \in the next few days…and I did it using two powerful tools that cost me nothing.

1. The first is Skype, which as you likely already know, allows you to make a call directly from your PC or mobile device (with a Skype client) to other Skype users for nothing. While Skype is not completely foolproof (you may recall the outage they experienced just a couple of weeks ago and sometimes the quality can suffer depending on your own internet connection and network connections between you are your interviewee), by a large it is a superb platform for recording a great interview

2. There are a variety of Skype recording software applications out there…many are either free (with some limitations) or cost less than $50.   For my interview today I used a recorder called Callburner, they have a free 14-day trial and support all of their features for free if both parties have the application installed.  If you want to record someone without the application installed after the 14-day period, then the cost of the software is a one-time fee of $49 US.  Not bad for all of the features.

Once you record the call, Callburner saves it directly to mp3 format where you can immediately begin selling your new recording or you can edit it with an audio editing application such as Audacity (also free by the way!)

Callburner also gives you the option of saving your recording in .wav format – a much bigger file, but higher quality if you intend to further edit or burn to CD or DVD.

What about Skype video you say?  Well, there is also a great video recording application called Vodburner – so now you can record video calls to help really set your infoproduct out from the crowd.

Finally, consider outsourcing the transcription of your audio or video recording and creating a digital text product to accompany.

So, head over to InfoProduct Creation Blueprint now, use it to help begin picking the right market and topic and learn how to conduct an interview – within days you can have your own audio, video and written product to sell online…a great way to begin the year!

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Basically, an information product is a "How To" product that helps your reader be, do or have something they desperately seek.

Make no mistake, this is a Billion dollar marketplace and in the last few years, the dynamics have changed BIG TIME in your favor.

Individuals with little or no writing, business or publishing knowledge, experience or contacts can now access everything they need to write, package, publish and market their own information products – most of it available for free online. 

Indeed, we have members of InfoMarketer'sZone that have gone from nothing more than a desire to start their own business to 6-figure information marketing with initial profits coming just weeks after launching their very own internet business.

Just to give you an example of a topic that generates huge market demand, where an author decided to fulfill that desire for information with his own book on the topic – "How To Raise A Smart And Happy Child" – take a look at his interview here. 

To be sure, most parents are willing to spend vast sums of money to help make sure they are raising their kids properly…part of that has to do with reducing pain from past mistakes (either their own parenting mistakes or those of their parents) and part of the motivation is due to having well behaved, well adjusted (ie. kids that won't cause you financial or social pain in the future) kids. 

As information marketers, we can learn some very valuable lessons from John Medina's new book:

1. Strong title that  combines a compelling benefit (How To Raise a Smart And Happy Child From Zero To Five") with a leading statement on what makes this book different (Brain Rules For Baby) which obviously zero's in on brain development, but also makes it sound definitive by using the word "Rules".  Information product titles are incredibly important, yet so many stumble right out of the gate by not spending enough time crafting a powerful title
2. How he focuses on a subset of the target market (instead of all parents, he focuses on the 0-5 years) – this helps focus his information, but more important, helps communicate more effeciently with his target market
3. How he positions his information as 'different' in the face of vast competition by being somewhat 'controversial' even though most of what he sais has been said or printed elsewhere.  (This is a brilliant tactic and shows us how to be unique even in highly competitive information markets)
4. How he creates a "SYSTEM" around his advice for how to properly punish a child – labeling your technology or system is a proven way to carve a unique position in your marketplace and "brand" your information for added value

Not only do we have more than a dozen information products across 4 niche markets, we have a team that studies the most successful information products and associated marketing techniques on the market today – you can benefit from that information at InfoMarketer'sZone…the one place where you will get the latest, top advice on what is working for turning information into money on the internet.

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We are hitting the age of the ebook…even more accurately…we are hitting the age of the self-published ebook. 

Packaging information into books, ebooks, reports, membership sites and the like has always been a $Billion market, but now that ebook readers and high powered smart devices are in the hands of the mainstream population – the opportunity is literally doubling and tripling overnight. 

What are some of the markets where people are constantly spending Millions on information?

• Personal development and improvement
• Weight Loss
• Muscle Building
• Help starting a business
• Improving their career or financial position
• Fixes for various emotional and physical health challenges
• Relationships (dating, keeping existing relationships, divorce, etc…)
• Parenting (tons of micro-niches in this broad niche)
• Dealing with aging parents (as baby boomers enter their twilight years)
• Organics and alternative approaches to living (organic gardening, alternative health care, etc…)
• Spirituality
• Magic and the Occult

Within these macro-niches there are hundreds of sub-niches – we share the actual techniques for discovering, testing and measuring the viability of a given niche within InfoMarketer'sZone, but let's be clear – there are tens of thousands of potential niche markets here with hundreds of thousands of possible topics and angles. 

HOW DO YOU TURN 60-PAGE OF INFORMATION INTO MONEY?

Okay, now to the good part, how to turn information you have, research or have found for you into 6 and 7-figure information publishing business.

First, you have two major types of information publishing business models, the first is a content supplier (behind the scenes where you feed the existing front-line content sellers) while the second is becoming a major front-line player in that market yourself…or more clearly:

1. Sell your information immmediately to all of those who are already doing business in this niche by offering your material as licensed content – resell, PLR, private sale, etc.. With some of the big players in this niche, you could be the "back-end" to someone else's already established front-end supplying content.  

For example, a website owner that has  a list of over 200,000 hungry subscribers who get regular updates on dating advice from that publisher is always looking for great information that he can offer his subscribers – he may pay you one large sum up-front for exclusive access to your content (we have done this in some cases in the past) OR you may decide that you give 100 of the top players access to your content for less (say $100 each) and quickly make $10,000 or even more depending on your content. 

2. OR — you may want to become a front-line player where you build your own list, your own online presence, your own affiliate base and your own group of products.  Obviously this will take more work and perhaps a little longer, but results in a cookie cutter approach that you can use to roll out product and after product and continually earn money from your list — it also builds you a business with equity that you could sell in the future should you have/want to. 

The benefit of this model is that you become a branded expert, you lay the foundation for additional products and services and can easily turn this into a 7-figure information publishing business in the next couple of years.

At this point, you may wonder about some of the topic areas I listed above – you may have a concern that there is too much competition.

You will have to take my word for it here…having worked with thousands of other information product entrepreneurs and believe me when I say that more competition is GOOD, less competition is BAD…for one simple reason.  More competition means that people are spending money for information, less competition means they are not very much. 

What will be critical to your success is…

1. Clearly hitting the online audience with the emotional triggers (product title, headline, sales copy) of why people desparately want to become lean, add muscle and lower body fat…there are a few different directions you can go there (fat burning, muscle building, health, etc…) you need to clearly decide on one and then…

2. Create a SYSTEM that helps to differentiate what you have to offer from the competition.  Sounds like you already know what it takes and have the proof which is great, but you have to have a simple way to explain to people why your approach is different OR at least simpler or more effective

3. Learn the in's and out's of internet marketing.  Keyword research is definitely a part of it, but so is knowing what to DO to most effectively target the keywords you identify as the sweet spot AND learning the basics of affiliate marketing will be important in this space as there are tons of big list holders and channels to market that love to promote hot products in this niche.  Literally some of them will spend thousands and thousands of dollars each month advertising if they know your product will sell.    To that end, it is likely worth working with a copywriter (if not having them write your sales page entirely, at least have them critique it which often costs less) so that you shorten your path to higher conversions and can move to an active, thriving affiliate model sooner

A very affordable way to learn every aspect of the information marketing business from idea generation & testing to product development through the very latest and most effective online marketing techniques is to leverage the ton of help and support over at InfoMarketer'sZone – used by thousands of other information product marketers to turn their ideas into profitable info product businesses…the techniques are pure gold.

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After all, most traffic generation techniques take time…list building can take months, so can getting listed highly on the search engines – even if you put a ton of effort in starting right now, the best you will see is a trickle of traffic for the next few weeks until things start to pick up. 

Even then, most traffic generation techniques work best for a short period of time, even SEO optimized content tends to have its peaks and valleys — so is there another method for generating a stampeded of traffic to your website almost immediatley? 

JV Partners and Affiliates – Fast, Effective and Profitable Traffic

When I started out without a list, my first product ever created and one single website on the internet, I found 3 influential partners that, within days, turned my first product into a massively successful ebook launch resulting in 100's of sales in the first few weeks that continued to grow each week after.

This was without spending a cent on advertising, lifting a finger to develop content all while focusing on building my next info product site…

Since then, I get asked allot by members of InfoMarketer'sZone and others how they can quickly grow their traffic and sales by getting influential JV's and partners. 

In a nutshell, here is the highly effective process we use:

1. We know how to locate high-value, influential and receptive JV partners.  We use clues that tell us they are authority figures (lots of people trust what they say and buy what they recommend) AND we detect how receptive they are to offering other high quality partner products.  In other words, we target the best and most likely candidates as partners which gives us a very high success rate

2. We contact these influential JV partners with a clear understanding of their business throwing in some praise for their content or position within the market – we focus on building a relationship, not as hard as you may think!

3. We then share with them our 30-second commercial – a compelling description of the value our product provides to the marketplace they understand so well – done correctly they will already be leaning in your direction

4. Then we offer them a complimentary review copy of your product – you respect their opinion and experience so much you would really like to have their input on the product. We typically get 90% that accept this offer.  Notice we do NOT mention the JV offer at this point – it is purely to get them reviewing your product

5. Follow up in 7 (and then 10 and 14 if necessary) days later to get their review (sometimes we will actually send them 2-3 questions about the product and have them respond.  If your product is good, you will get nearly 100% positive feedback, any negative feedback is good to help improve the product (also valuable feedback)

6. After receiving the positive feedback, you then email them back (or call them) with the brief, exciting details of their own exclusive partnership offer – a "first mover" JV offer where they get exceptional commission (at least 10% more than your normal affiliate program) as well as some tools they can use to get started right away. 

I've also setup programs where the partner will get higher commissions after reaching a certain revenue tier – that helps you keep after them so they continually promote instead of a one-time promotion.

Sometimes, in cases where you really want them as an affiliate, you do something for them – create unique content, create a teleseminar where they get to keep the rights and sell as a bonus or product, promote their product for them, etc…

It may sound like lots of work in the beginning, but the truth is that just a few of the right partners can massively increase your results – list building and profit generating.   Best of all, you can use the 45-day InfoProduct Profit System inside InfoMarketer'sZone and within days be making huge profit by signing on some eager, traffic producing JV partners.

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