I have created a new and improved version of K Money Mastery which is called, Mastering Book Publishing!
Out of all the methods that I've outlined in the previous parts of this series (Kindle Publishing, Blogging, Affiliate Marketing), selling my own information products has been the most profitable. By selling my own information products online, I've been able to funnel the visitors and traffic that my blog receives into my very own product that I sell. Instead of being an affiliate for someone else and only receiving a commission, I get 100% of the profits and continue to build MY business, instead of someone else's.
You're essentially selling information in some form. It's a product that helps people in some way or solves a problem. It meets the need of the marketplace and consumer. A Kindle book can be considered an information product, as well as my Mastering Book Publishing program. When you sell your own information product, you're able to have 100% control of your business. It has one of the highest potentials for growth and profits, especially since you're able to get affiliates to promote YOU.
For my own information products, I have hundreds of affiliates that promote my products and receive a commission from me for every sale. They're doing the work to send me customers, while building my brand and business.
In this video blog, I share the ways that I make money online through selling my own information products and give you many ideas to get started on creating and selling your own information product.
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
Do you want my proven step-by-step system for publishing books on Amazon? CLICK HERE to purchase my new and improved Mastering Book Publishing course!
This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!
How I Got Into Selling My Own Information Products
Believe it or not, creating and selling my own information products was the initial way that I got into internet marketing. When I was younger, I owned and ran a dating coaching company called Lifestyle Transformations in Vancouver, British Columbia. I put on my own seminars and bootcamps that helped men overcome anxiety and become confident to meet women and date successfully.
During that time, I got caught up in the exchanging my “time for money” trap. Every month we needed more and more clients and customers in order to make a certain amount of money and it was challenging.
I was beginning to realize that I needed to leverage myself in some way. I was able to see the other people in the industry were creating and selling e-books and all types of information products online. The most notable person was David DeAngelo, who built a multi-million dollar business in the dating industry selling information products to men on dating advice.
“I'm going to write an e-book!”, I thought.
And I did. It took me a year to write the darn thing. Kindle publishing wasn't something that was available back then and I didn't know squat about online marketing, so there was a challenging learning curve for me. I didn't realize all of the pieces involved and the skills required in order to pull this off successfully, but I was committed.
Once I finally had my e-book to sell, I then had to create a blog or website to sell it on. I then had to learn copywriting so that I could write my own sales copy that could help sell the e-book to anyone that showed up on the webpage. I had to create graphics for the e-book, put together the entire sales funnel and payment processing system, set up squeeze pages and auto-responder sequences, and eventually learn to drive traffic to it.
When I finally launched it, I made it available to my coaching clients and participants from my seminars. I ended up making a little over a $1,000 from my launch, which was exciting to me at the time. Looking back, it definitely wasn't worth the copious amount of time and effort that I put into it to make a measly $1,000. However, the experience gave me incredible knowledge and experience with internet marketing.
I ended up going through multiple courses during that time to learn everything. I earned something much more valuable than $1,000 and that was EXPERIENCE. The process that I went through was invaluable and is now something that has helped me make hundreds of thousands of dollars today.
I made some very crucial mistakes when I launched my dating e-book, the biggest being not doing the proper market research before launching the e-book. When I had the idea of this dating e-book, I thought to myself, “This is brilliant – everyone would want this!” I later learned this is one of the biggest mistakes that everyone makes.
I've since learned that it's not what I THINK everyone wants, it's what they ACTUALLY want is what is important. I learned since to actually survey my list of followers and visitors to FIND OUT EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT (not what I think they want) and then to give that to them! That's all marketing really is: meeting needs and solving peoples problems at a profit.
A few years later, I took another stab at selling my own information products. I created a blog first and got into the home remedy niche. I ended up hiring writers to write all of the content on this blog and focused on search engine optimization. Within a few months, I was able to have this blog getting over 100 visitors per day. With those visitors, I then got them to subscribe to a newsletter and began building an e-mail list. I then did one of the most important steps… I SURVEYED THEM.
I sent out a simple survey and began asking them these questions:
- What are your goals around (niche)?
- What are your biggest challenges and frustrations around (niche)?
- If I were to create a product to help you solve these challenges and frustrations, would you buy it?
- If so, what would you want this product to contain?
- Would you be interested in an e-book, audio program, or video program?
- How much would you be willing to pay for this product?
Your followers will tell you everything you need to know.
They will tell you what they want.
After that, the only thing you need to do is then GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
Pretty simple, right? Your followers have now told you their goals, needs, challenges and frustrations. This is gold, as you now just have to create a product and sales letter that covers all of this for them. They even gave you the language and magic words to use to better communicate with them. They've told you whether or not they'd be interested in this product, what they want in it, and how much they'd pay. Now you just have to give that to them.
Since following this formula, I've had success with every product that I've created since. People will line up to buy something from you and it's an easy sale, since there is really no selling involved… you're just giving them what they want!
I ended up launching 6 products on Clickbank in the home remedy niche and this is what made me financially free at 24 years old. I was making thousands every month and it was the “real” beginning of my internet marketing career.
Since creating my blog, Project Life Mastery, I have launched my own information product called Mastering Book Publishing which is the easiest way that I make money online. It was a huge success when I launched it and continues to be a huge success, because I'm giving my followers and visitors what THEY want.
I now continue to follow this formula with future products that I'm releasing. I always survey people, find out what they want and then give it to them. The key, however, is first having the visitors and followers that you can survey and launch your product to, which I'll be going into later.
Creating and selling your own information product isn't easy – in fact, it's one of the most challenging things to do online. There's a steep learning curve to it, as you're required to learn a lot of skills such as setting up a blog or website, writing high quality sales copy that converts, split testing, setting up the sales funnel, handling the customer support, and of course, actually creating a high quality product that helps people. Not only that, the biggest hurdle that most people face when launching their own information product is not having the traffic or visitors to sell it to. That's why I always recommend for people to start with Kindle Publishing or Blogging, as it's an easy way to get started and begin building a steady stream of visitors and followers that you could later potentially launch an information product to.
My Process For Creating And Selling Information Products Revealed
I've put together 10 steps that I follow as part of my process to creating and selling my own information products. Of course, there's many ways of doing it, but this is the process that I personally follow.
1. Find A Profitable Niche Or Market
- Think about what challenges you've faced or other problems that others have that you could potentially solve.
- What are your passions, hobbies and interests? This can help you get more ideas.
- Discover what the keywords are that people are searching for in the search engines. I use tools like Google Keyword Tool and Market Samurai.
2. Create A Blog In That Niche Or Market
- I
- Buy the domain name for your blog. Always use a .com if possible. I use GoDaddy (or you can use BlueHost and get a free one with hosting).
- Set up hosting for your blog, which will require a small monthly fee to host your blog. I use BlueHost or HostGator.
- Install WordPress (free) on your hosting platform and set it up.
- Watch this video blog I created on how to set up your blog in minutes (includes free domain name and WordPress blog).
- Follow the steps that I teach in this Part 3 of this video blog series on Blogging.
3. Create High Quality Content And Rank It In The Search Engines
- You can either write the content yourself (the best way of doing things), or outsource and hire someone else to do it.
- You want your content to be keyword optimized for what people are searching for in Google (use Market Samurai to find the best keywords).
- Content is king. The more content you have out there, the more likely you are to get traffic in the search engines.
- Consider creating YouTube videos and a podcast to get even more exposure and to build your following.
- Share your content through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc…
4. Create An Opt-In To Begin Collecting E-Mails And Build A Following
- Give away a free report, e-book, audio or video to get people to enter their e-mail address.
- I use LeadPages for my squeeze pages and Aweber to collect and manage my e-mail lists.
- Set up a Facebook fan page and Twitter account to begin building followers on as well.
- This will allow you to be able to communicate with your following and build a relationship with them.
5. Survey Your List Of Followers To Find Out What They Want
- I use SurveyMonkey or Wufoo to send out a simple survey.
- I ask them what their goals and frustrations are. I find out what they want and what kind of product they'd be interested in. They'll tell you everything you need to know.
6. Create The Product And Make It As High Quality As Possible
- If writing an e-book, you can use Microsoft Word or Pages, and then convert the document as a PDF that you could sell.
- For creating an audio program, make sure to have a high quality microphone (I use the Yeti mic) and have a recording software (I use GarageBand on my Mac). You can then save them as MP3's that you could sell.
- For creating a video program, make sure to have high quality recording equipment and software. I use the Canon EOS Rebel T4i and Sennheiser EW112 for recording videos of myself. For recording screen captures, I use Camtasia and the Yeti USB Microphone. I also use iMovie on my Mac for video editing. If you have a PC, you can use Windows Movie Maker. You can then save them as video files that you could sell.
- You'll need to host your content somewhere for people to download it from. If it's an e-book, you can host it on your own hosting (like Bluehost). If audio or video, I'd recommend to use Amazon S3 or Vimeo.
- I then put the products in a secured members area using a WordPress plugin called Wishlist Member.
7. Create The Sales Page That You'll Sell Your Product On
- I use a WordPress theme called OptimizePress to create all of my sales letters.
- Create a high quality sales letter that will convert potential customers into buyers. You can either write it yourself or hire someone else to do it for you.
- Get graphics and covers made for your product to make it visually appealing.
- Add testimonials and social proof on your sales page.
- Price your product and set up a “buy now” button.
8. Integrate Your Sales Page With A Payment Processor
- You'll be able to integrate your product with them and set it up so people are directed to get access to your product once they purchase.
- You can alternatively sell your product on a website like Udemy, but they take a hefty fee for each sale and you're building their website instead of your own. But it might be worthwhile to put your product up there also.
9. Set Up The Back-End Sales Funnel
- The way you will maximize profits from each customer is by setting up the back-end sales funnel.
- Create an upsell or something else you can offer potential customers that compliments the program or continues to add value to them.
- Including “coaching” or any type of “done for you service” is something that people always benefit from.
- You can set this up with Clickbank or JVZoo as well, so it's a One-Click Upsell (they won't have to enter their credit card information again).
- Set up an autoresponder e-mail series once your customers sign-up to be able to follow-up with them.
10. Launch Your Product To Your Followers
- Before launching your new product to your followers, build up some hype and anticipation. Get them excited about it.
- Find some potential affiliates or joint-venture partners that could help promote your product during your launch. If you use Clickbank or JVZoo, they have a built-in affiliate program. It's a good idea to set up an affiliate page for them also to help them out with the process (provide affiliate tools and resources for them).
- When you launch your product, give them an irresistible offer. Throw in some bonuses or give them a limited time discount if they purchase now. Give them some perks or benefits, which will help you increase the conversions of your launch.
There you have it! This is the step-by-step process that I follow to successfully create and sell an information product.
Once you have successfully launched your product, after that it's all about getting more traffic and visitors to your sales page. You just have to scale it up as much as you can. You always want to constantly be split testing your sales page so that it can convert as high as possible. I use Visual Website Optimizer for split testing, as making small changes to your headline or price or offer can make your offer convert better.
You also want to continuously improve your product and find ways to add more value to your customers. I always go above and beyond what my product offers and often surprise them with extra bonuses. If your customers have a positive buying experience from you, then they are less likely to refund your product and will be more likely to purchase more products from you in the future.
From there, you can also continue to optimize your back-end sales funnel (upsells or more products that can help them). You will want to begin attracting affiliates to promote and sell your product also. You'll also want to explore many other strategies for driving traffic, such as Facebook Ads. However, in order to build stable, continuous sales to your product, you'll want to ensure to continue creating high quality content on your blog, as this is what will ensure that your sales don't ever drop off after your launch.
The Best Way To Get Started With Information Product Marketing
There’s several ways you can get started with information product marketing, but I’d recommend the best to be to invest in a high quality course or program that can teach you how to do it. Below are a few of the courses and programs that I've followed that have helped me learn the process of creating and selling my own information products.
Here’s a few courses that can help you get started:
I’ve personally been through all of these courses and they’re all great. They will teach you general internet marketing and go into creating and selling your own information products, as well as affiliate marketing as well. You don't need to go through all of them – just pick one to get started.
Of course, you could always try to learn things on your own, but I don’t recommend it. It will save you so much time if you just invest a bit of money to learn how to do things the right way and you won’t have to go through the many failures that I personally went through, because I was too stubborn to invest in myself.
However, understand there are some investment costs in selling your own information products and some softwares/tools that you’ll require. Below, you’ll find a list of the resources that I recommend that I personally use to set up my blogs and make money creating and selling my own information products.
Here’s a list of the resources I use for information product marketing:
- GoDaddy – The #1 domain name registration service. All of my domains are purchased through them. Domains as low as $9.99/year.
- BlueHost – Most of my websites are hosted on Bluehost. Hosting starts at $4.95/month. Easy to use, 1-click automatic WordPress installation, and amazing customer support. (See my blog post on how to create a blog and get a free domain name with Bluehost)
- WordPress – Free blogging platform that is easily customizable with wonderful support. All of my blogs and websites (including this one) use WordPress.
- OptimizePress – This is the WordPress theme that I use for my Kindle Money Mastery program, which allows me to set up sales letters and squeeze pages very easily.
- Wishlist Member – This is the WordPress plugin that I use for creating a membership site and selling my products in.
- Market Samurai – The best keyword research tool available. This software will help you be able to discover what niche or website to get into and do all the research required to be successful. They have free video tutorials on their website.
- Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool – A free tool that will help you to do basic keyword research and find out the popularity for certain keywords, as well as the competition.
- Unique Article Wizard – The best article marketing and article submission service that creates backlinks to your website to increase Google and search engine rankings.
- AWeber – The top email opt-in service and email marketing/broadcasting tool. This is what I use to build my e-mail list and newsletter.
- Google Analytics – Google’s free website tracking and analytics tool. Allows you to track all the stats and activity going on in your website.
- Odesk – You can hire web designers, programmers, graphic designers, or anyone to do any virtual work for you abroad really inexpensively.
- Fiverr – Get work done for only $5.
- Visual Website Optimizer – I use this for split testing different elements on my sales pages.
- SurveyMonkey – This is what I use to survey my list and followers.
- Camtasia – This is the software that I use to record screen capture videos for some of my videos and programs.
- Canon EOS Rebel T4i – The DSLR camera that I use for recording my videos.
- Sennheiser EW 112 – This is the wireless mic setup that I use for recording my videos.
- Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone – This is the USB microphone I use for recording screen captures or interviews from my computer.
- Vimeo – I use this for hosting all of my videos in my members area.
For a more complete list of resources that I recommend, click here.
To view the other video blogs of this series on Exactly How I Make Over $40,000 Per Month Online, click below:
Do you want my proven step-by-step system for publishing books on Amazon? CLICK HERE to purchase my new and improved Mastering Book Publishing course!