Here are 9 important aspects to consider before starting your own Info Product creation.
1. Demand
Internet Marketers often associate the term “niche” with this topic, but in a nutshell, what you really want to ask yourself is, “who are my customers?”
In other words, who is looking for a demand and is willing to pay for it? And then, how many of them?
As in the case of creating your own Info Product for sale, you want to know what kind of information people are looking for, are willing to pay for it, and there are many of them.
If you have yet to research your own target market you want to cater to, I strongly recommend that you download a Good Keyword Research tool here. I have been using this one for quite a while and it works really well.
You will find out how you can quickly discover what people are already looking for in a very short time.
As you might already know, what you personally like or know may sometimes be of little importance (or even profits) when it comes to choosing your target market, unless what you know or do are what people are willing to pay to learn, find out, or acquire.
For example: If you are Self Help practitioner for over 10 years, then you can cash in on your Self Help wisdom by selling what you know and practice on various aspects of Self Help, such as time management, stress handling, and more, to people who are low in self esteem (many of these folks around, by the way, we’re all human).
On the other hand, it would be next-to-impossible to sell what you know on how to conquer the game of Tic Tac Toe.
While many people of different countries and cultures have at least played this game once in their child hoods, no one really cares about even losing in a game of 9 boxes.
You’ve guessed it – no one is willing to pay for what you know, even if you know how to win the game of Tic Tac Toe for sure.
2. Price
While you can put it down to pricing your product according to its quality, however way you judge it, you have to take the size of the market into consideration.
It’s obvious you purchased a copy of this manual so that you can cash in on your own Information Product Empire.
And assuming you want to make $10,000.00 (or even more), which way is the best? Low price, high volume? Or high price, low volume?
Little you might know, it has a lot to do with the size of your market.
Now, here’s a food for thought: if your market size is extravagantly huge, you can sell your product at a low price, but go for volume and still achieve your $10,000.00 goal (if that IS your goal).
This aspect is important, because if your market size is small, you cannot make much from up sells by pricing your product too low.
After all, your income potential will be capped by the small size of the market.
In this case, if your market size is smaller, you will do well to sell your product at a higher prize, maybe $97.00 per copy.
After all, you only need to sell more than 103 copies of your E-Book and make $10,000.00.
Of course, the higher you price your product, the more your customer will be expecting from your product’s quality delivery.
Tip: Ending your product price with “7” secures your product at a hot price spot. For examples: $27.00, $37.00, $47.00, $67.00, $97.00, $147.00, $167.00, $247.00, and so on.
Other hot spot prices include: $8.99, $9.95, $14.99, $19.95, $79.00.
3. Title
Thinking of your product’s title in advance gives you incredible focus.
And the more relevant your title is to your product’s contents, the more memorable it can become to your prospects.
Branding Tip: You can start a franchise/group of products in your name/company name.
This manual and the rest of the Modules of this package are good examples.
So, you’ve scored a few tips here:
Keep your product name as short and easy to remember as possible (as easy as being able to remember by its initials or short name).
This is optional, but if you want to instill a form of branding, you can include the name of your company/franchise/group of trademarked products.
Alternatively, you can even include your name in the title.
4. Contents
Here are some of the most commonly-used content-type formats in the E-Book marketplace (and even in your local bookshops):
How to Guide/Manual – This is by far one of the most popular types of Information Product, even in your local bookshops. This manual is an example of a “How to” product.
Another example you are probably familiar with is the Dummies series. Notice that their titles often come in this format: [Insert How to Topic] for Dummies.
Stories – You can present your E-Book contents in story format, or compile a collection of short stories to form an E-Book.
This is recommended for you if you are creative person and a good storyteller in writing.
Tips – Titles such as “100 Tips on How to be a Super Salesperson”, “50 Tips on How to Date Women” and “99 Tips for MLM Success” fall under the tips category.
Expect that the reader already has at least minimal understanding on the topic itself.
Directory/Reference – Like a telephone directory, you create a lot of convenience for your readers because you did all the homework in advance.
An example of a directory can be “The Complete Directory of Online Drop Shippers”.
Interview – This is for you if you do not have what it takes to chalk out your own content, but know of an expert in a field who is willing to spend some time to be interviewed.
You can record your interview with him or her in both writing (transcript) and audio (audio/video).
5. Font
There are no boundaries for fonts other than using fonts that are readily installed in most PCs around the world.
Some of the best fonts to use are Arial, Times New Roman, Georgia, Verdana, and Courier New.
If you are encouraging your readers to print your E-Book and read, then you are recommended to write your E-Book in Times New Roman (such as this font now), as it is the best-red font in print.
If you are expecting your readers to read your E-Book on their monitors, then writing your material in Arial (Arial) is strongly recommended as it is the best read font on screen.
6. Number of pages
I have taken a survey on an online forum (lucky you), and I have learned that readers in general do expect the number of pages to go in an almost proportion with the price they pay!
For example, if your product is priced at $97.00, readers are expecting more pages of quality information (though not precisely how many, even 70-80 pages are ideal for $97.00 products).
I thought you would also be interested this informal survey’s results on PDF vs EXE E-Books:
“If you are to purchase one of the two Info Products, both priced at $30.00 each and of the same quality, one has more pages than the other, which one will you purchase?”
17 members polled for the $30.00 product that has more pages, appreciating elaborate explanation, while 2 other polled for the other one with the least pages, giving the reason that they prefer to absorb what they strictly need to know in the shortest time span.
The results were almost similar when the price of the products changed.
Oh and here’s something else I thought you also need to know: any Info Product with about 20 pages or less are usually considered “reports” while others with more than 20 pages are considered “E-Books”. 🙂
7. Page size
Keep your pages in Letter sized – always! This is true especially if your customers are mainly from the Western side of the world. Note that their papers are letter-sized.
8. Format
PDF! PDF! PDF! And don’t ever sell your E-Book(s) in EXE format. Why?
For one, PDF is the best-selling Info Product format in several areas of the Internet marketplace.
Secondly, many computer users prefer PDF E-Books over EXE formatted E-Books for various reasons such as below:
EXE programs often spell a suspicion of computer virus.
Price to price, computer users often value PDF E-Books higher than that of EXE programs.
To be able to create your E-Book in EXE format, you have to have a certain degree of HTML knowledge, which you might or might not have.
This is not the case with using Microsoft Word to create your E-Book as it more user-friendly and most of its functions are pretty much self explanatory.
Macintosh users cannot open EXE programs, thus the E-Book is available only to a smaller market.
While there are not many Macintosh users (I estimated 10% of the prospects are Mc users) in the Internet marketplace, I strongly suggest that you do not exclude these minority users from being your potential customers as some of them do have great buying power.
Given the many reasons above, it is only wise if you would sell your E-Book in PDF format.
9. Affiliate Program links
Again, this is closely associated with your target market and other businesses in the same niche. You want to earn beyond just making up front sales.
You also want to earn more from the same customers by having them purchase more from your recommendations in your E-Book.
One way is to create your own products or membership site, which will obviously consume more of your time and effort (and maybe money).
It will also require more of your expertise, which you might not have.
One other alternative is to join an affiliate program you can recommend in your E-Book for back end income.
For instance, your product can be aimed at a group of people who are interested in cooking oriental dishes.
You can include a recommendation/ad in your E-Book that leads to a membership site for chefs, run by someone else. You merely play your role as an affiliate here.
You get paid for your referral’s subscription, and it can be recurring if your affiliate program is a membership/service model!
If there are little affiliate programs available for your market, you either have to start your own or it’s a sign that shows how obscure your niche may be.
