I imagine that you can make an extra thousand a month with only a little bit more effort.
Once you find that your idea or product research has uncovered a hungry market, the next step is to roll out your marketing campaign to different marketing venues. If you can, find several potential market sites for your Information product or service in an area that you can provide outstanding service to.
A good place to start your advertising campaign is in the classifieds of your local papers; online at sites like Craig’s list.org or something as simple as placing ads on local bulletin boards in business’s you visit. These methods are low cost or free. You might want to consider saving most or all of the money this earns for you to upgrade to display type ads in several newspapers. These upgrades should bring in even more money and more importantly, greater interest in your product and business. Make sure that you properly advertise your Web site in these marketing campaigns.
You will probably want to consider long and hard before you take out a full page ad for your product. This can be a very frightening gamble. Imagine dropping $10,000 on a single, one time only full page ad. If it works, you may be feeling golden. If it doesn't work, you just burned up ten grand or more.
I am not going to discuss how to conduct a media campaign here because I do not have enough information to reasonably talk about your business. I would probably end up wasting my breath and more importantly, your time, trying to advise you about your business.
A bold idea which might really bear fruit for your product, service or good is to produce or pay someone to produce an info-mercial about you and what you are marketing. I suggest that you give this much thought and research to get the greatest result for your money. I have no doubt that this will be a costly undertaking. With the right info-mercial crew producing it, it could be a multi million dollar income generator.
With a productive idea, and many different media to use in marketing it, you can then branch out into the many related support products for your business. These support products are capable of bringing in millions of more dollars to your business. Do you have the vision to productively use the supporting products? Once you uncover a mother lode of ore, you can spend the rest of your lifetime digging it out.
But before you launch this new business, I just want to educate you to the fabulous benefits of being in the information business as compared to any other business that you might be tempted to get into.
- Unlimited world wide market- the World Wide Web (www.) provides access to your products twenty four hours a day, everyday.
- Easy to research most if not all relevant information right on the web.
- It is easy to create your product using only your computer and a program such as Micro soft word or one of the Mac word processing programs.
- It is easy and cheap to test using and email campaign or online advertising in ezines.
- Easy and cheap to produce, inventory and correct right on your computer.
- Low cost start-up
- High perceived value for well written products
- High mark up for only a few hours of your time that can and will sell repeatedly.
- Mobility: Operate from any mailbox in the physical or ether world.
- Low priced copyright protection from competitors at http://www.copyright.gov/
- Prestigious, impressive career. "I'm an author."
- Satisfying: A permanent record for future generations.
I can't think of a more satisfying career than producing and selling information products. They are easy, cheap and fun to create and produce. They are fun to sell, and can do tremendous good for the consumer.
There are 3 Essential and Learnable Skills that you need as an info-preneur.
Skill #1. Research and creation expertise : How to research, discover, acquire, organize your ideas.
It all starts with a core expertise. What is your core expertise? What do you know and do that we don't? Or who do you know that knows something that the rest of us need or want to know? You don't have to spend years learning a core expertise, take any idea or hobby you have learned during your life and write what you know about it. Find some expert who is under-marketed and take his or her idea to the marketplace. Be ethical and pay him for the expertise he provides information about for you. Just remember to organize this information in the communication age style...easy to learn, simple to use, fast results.
Skill #2. Packaging expertise: How to express, display, package, communicate yourself
Sometimes the line between success and failure is razor thin. I heard of an info-preneur who spent years and tens of thousands of dollars creating a product called Compact Classics. He had taken and condensed all of the great classic books in fiction and non-fiction into a two page format. Instead of taking weeks to read the original, you get the meat of the book in only two pages. There was only one problem. No one would buy it. It looked like his money was going down the drain; until it got repackaged and a new title. What was the new title?
It was: The Great American Bathroom Book.
The idea caught on and a millions dollars later, the idea is still pumping out cash. Fortunately, you can buy the same book with either title. If you are the high brow type, simply order the Compact Classics title. If you are the “average Joe” type, it's the Bathroom book. But neither market would have enjoyed the book if some savvy packager hadn't imagined a new way of marketing it.
Here are some core packaging skills you will need to develop, rent or acquire:
Find the best prices for materials or do it all digitally online.
Design interesting, eye catching digital packaging.
Create multiple files and folders in your computer to organize your materials
Skill #3. Marketing expertise: How to sell, distribute, disseminate, promote yourself and your product.
Marketing is probably the most essential skill. You can market junk with right marketing campaign. Quality work may end up doomed to remain stuck in your computer data banks unless you learn how to effectively market it.
Here are some core marketing skills which you will have to learn or acquire:
- Writing compelling copy to highlight the best features of your product.
- Learn to understand psychology and human nature.
- Spend enough time to learn the secrets of email advertising.
- Buy only the best and cheapest advertising.
- Systemize tracking your results.
- Database management is important.
- Take lessons on surfing the Internet.
How to find the millions in profits overlooked by most info-preneurs.
You don't need a lot of expertise in the above skills, but you do need to study the leading experts. Case study: Suppose you go to a local church meeting on parenting because you are having trouble with your teenagers. You find the room is filled to overflowing with parents just like you. You realize that you are not alone...there are hundreds or thousands of other parents in your same predicament. A light bulb comes on in your head, and then the neon sign also lights with: HERE IS A HUNGRY MARKET. You listen to the speaker and understand that his material is perfectly organized for the communication age...it appears to be fast, fun and simple. It promises swift results and is easy to learn or use. You go home and use a few of the techniques on your own teenagers. Voila! You have them maturing in a pleasantly proud manner. You call the parenting seminar leader and find he is just a small local operator. He is clueless about marketing, packaging or promoting. Go ahead, ask him if he would be willing to let you market him...on a non-exclusive basis. Tell him or her that it could mean a few extra thousand in his or her pocket. You reach a verbal agreement and then you visit a lawyer to write a contract. You assemble a preliminary ad campaign by first testing email and limited classified ads. The ads start to pull to show results. You design a web page or even better a website." You realize that you've got a real winner. You mass produce your secondary products...tapes, books, seminars...and roll out that marketing blitz. You make money, your expert makes money and your information empire is launched.
What made all of this possible? You recognized a great idea the firstest with the mostest. You moved quickly to get the rights to market it. You brought in a team to help you capitalize on it and all of you took wheelbarrows full of money to the bank. Most experts out there have no idea how to create, package and market their expertise. There are literally thousands them out there waiting to be "discovered." You might be one of them or even better you might know one of them. Have the bugler sound the charge as you capture him.
