Affiliate Marketing and Using/Creating Private Label Rights (PLR) content: we’ve covered each of those business models this month so far with a number of posts on each.
Product Creation is what I’d love to cover for you this week.
Where would we be in life if there were no product creators? Would we not have a wheel and so transport? No power, fuel or food as we know it. And books, no books so less ease of access to education.
Every business benefits from creating products, even service businesses. I’m not talking necessarily physical products – for the purposes of this post I’m referring to digital products.
Digital products can be created for the purpose of lead generation or revenue generation.
In the case of leads, most people accept that an email address is the currency to access many things on the web. Whether it’s receiving a publication of some sort, viewing a video, listening to an audio … in lots of situations now one exchanges personal data for the product. The incidence of false data entry is high and many marketers attempt to minimise this by delivering product access via the email entered.
A lead generation product can be anything of value to your audience. Often that is a short report, a guide, checklist, instructional video, audio interview – an item that is low cost to produce but is perceived high value to receive.
A revenue generator can be a similar or different product which ideally is aligned with the lead generating offer. It may go deeper into the topic of the lead-gen, it may supplement it by extending the range of information provided, it may facilitate the implementation of the lead-gen product content. Think of a coach. A lead-gen may be a “Top 25 Ways to Reach Your Goals With Ease” short report. A revenue product might be “How to Identify and Articulate Goals to Turn Your Dreams into Reality, Fast”. This may be delivered by video or audio or a longer report or eBook. An upgrade to that, to generate more sales, might be a 1-on-1 series of coaching sessions to work with the coach and create those goals. Or perhaps a webinar teaching about goal setting. Maybe an ecourse on the topic.
The ideal with selling products is to link the products so you have a natural progression of offers for your audience. You can certainly have disparate products but if you can align them, it is easier to sell them. Make it easy for your customers to buy from you.
What I love about product creation is that you can create products no matter what your budget. If you have the funds you can have some high quality videos with wonderful post-production effects, delivered through expensive membership site software. If you’re bootstrapping, then you can achieve the same type of product using Google Hangouts and a password-protected page on your website. If you’re totally skint and don’t have your own website, then delivering via email to a private link of the hangout video on YouTube is only going to cost you internet bandwidth – unless you use someone else’s like the local cafe or library 🙂
A mistake many make is to not think through their product line before starting to create a free or paid product.
Your mission then is to
1. think about your audience,
2. identify what they perceive as valuable content (which may different to what you think they want) and
3. map out a free offer and 3 products that logically flow from the free offer that would be saleable. Think ‘good, better, best’ in terms of these 3 products you will offer as upsells.
The clearer you get on (1), the more accurate you are on (2), the better you will do on (3). End result? More money in the bank. And that’s what we want, isn’t it?
What an excellent idea. Something to definitely have in mind. Though I think that it is always a good idea to jump in then edit, otherwise you might never get things going.
Whatever works for you, so long as it’s done 🙂
Very helpful Mel, This is something I need to work on for my blog – a free offer and then a paid product from there. For the sake of time, I would probably do Free – Good – Better and leave the Best one off for now.
You don’t have to produce them all upfront, just know what they will be. Get the free plus one product underway if you can! Look forward to seeing you’re free offer!
Love the timing with this. I kind of jumped in head first this week (after dipping my toe in the water for far too long) I started to do one thing and then said to myself “Nope, I’m writing an opt in report”. I just did it. I didn’t plan it, didn’t outline it, I just started writing. It’s not perfect, and there are some revisions I am making this weekend, but it was a start and I find myself wanting to not just add to it and improve it, but to create the product I’ve been dreaming of. Jumping in and doing it the first time was right for me, but the next one will definitely be planned out more. I just think it’s important to not get hung up on the planning (says the one that has been hung up on it for a while now). Looking forward to more. 🙂
Planning doesn’t need to be lengthy. Just map out the product ideas then get them done! You’re already underway – fabulous! Don’t over finesse the freebie though – put the effort into the first paid product.
I have a book put together and have been resisting finishing it- figuring out what to offer as the “freebie” may be what’s hanging me up. But, I’m not anywhere near ready to make 3 products as part of that funnel. However, I could certainly find 2 other products to promote as part of the funnel.
No need to make them just yet – simply know what they will be. A freebie plus two paid products gives you something to move buyers onto then you can build out #3. Perhaps your freebie could be the first chapter? Or a mindmap of the book? Or a brief slides how of key points?
I agree with Amanda – it’s not necessary to have a full-fledged funnel in place to make money. Sometimes, it’s just better to TEST small so you can be certain that the market actually wants your product.
No sense in spending MONTHS to get the best product out there to only find out the market doesn’t want it.
Make your first product fast… include the necessary data and then go BIGGER the next time around (after you survey the peeps and find out what they feel is missing or need to round out the learning).
A plan is good, but there’s nothing that says you have to roll the entire wheel when you can make bank on a simple TURN. 🙂
True. And there’s nothing in my post that said you should produce the whole funnel, just map it out! I think you’ve jumped to future instalments :). Thanks for your input Bonnie.
You know I’ve always thought that the good-better-best line should end again with the word better. Somewhat like your advice to look beyond the end, as there’s always room for improvement or product add-ons.
Interesting point. Of course there can be further products added on or entirely new product lines. 3 seems to be a number that people can manage to get going but if there’s demand, create more 🙂
Mel,
All great tips! I’ve never thought along the lines of having a product to scale like you’ve demonstrated here – good, better, best. I always find it hard to give the basics, because I’m a very detailed and thorough person.
I enjoy creating products but have a difficulty when it comes to marketing and promoting. Thanks for such good information.
No reason you couldn’t package up some of those video lessons into a bundle. Beginners intermediate and advanced spring to mind 🙂
Excellent tips, as usual Mel. I love the tip about thinking ahead. It is a common mistake people make when they focus on the one product.
Thanks Alexandria. When is your writing site review product due? 😉
All good tips! I know it can be a lot easier to focus on one thing at a time for product creation. For your first product it can be a lot less intimidating if you don’t even think about upsells until later.
I hear what you’re saying, Amanda, although my experience tells me it’s best to have a plan – more on this later 🙂
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