As you set out of the quest to start your own business, aspiring entrepreneurs are faced with the question of what markets they will serve and what products or services they will bring to those markets. One of the more exciting and lucrative options you have is creating and marketing your own digital products such as ebooks, online courses, paid membership (continuity) sites, coaching or consulting programs.
Imagine spending your time teaching, sharing and helping people achieve new things in their lives…and to be paid for that privilege.
In fact, helping people with information, answering questions, tips or experience is something we do naturally each day. Try monitoring your activities over a given day and find out how many times you answer a question or offer up help to someone…from the most insignificant question about where to eat or what movie to see to more complex information about how someone can overcome a complex health challenge, fix a relationship or change one’s life for the better.
At its most basic, that is what being a digital product entrepreneur really is…teaching, sharing and coaching people to help improve their lives for the better.
Over the last few years we have helped hundreds of others turn the dream of having their own products in a given market into reality…and changed their lives forever doing it! Much of this happens through Information Marketer’s Zone, but a good portion happens via this blog and our content too.
Not A Bad Way To Make A Living!
You’re not wrong if you think that would be a pretty cool way to make a living. Sure beats sitting in endless meetings, stressing yourself out to improve someone else’s standing in your job or trying to sell another widget along with thousands of others selling the exact same thing.
Added to the satisfaction and fun of an online digital product business comes the ability to start and grow this kind of online business from anywhere with an internet connection, generate very high profit margins and brand yourself and your company as one of the top-tier competitors in your chosen market.
After all, it is not a coincidence that the majority of influencers, entrepreneurs and personalities you see online derive some (if not the majority) of their income from digital products…not only have they become financially successful but they have achieved the most valuable thing of all in today’s business world…ATTENTION.
So the only question you really need to answer then is “What does it take to move from informal teaching or helping to formally packaging your knowledge and tips into a product providing the basis of an online business that can change your life.
It turns out, there are 4 main steps to turning information into a sellable product you can sell online.
1. Pick Your Market & In-Demand Desire For Help
You help dozens of people each day with a wide range of questions, concerns and desires…what you want to do is selectively focus on one BIG, emotionally-charged desire that enough people in your chosen market want giving you the market you need to grow your business and influencers
There are a few ways you can decide on your market and BIG questions upon which to focus your online business:
- Patterns of questions you KNOW from experience is consistent, in-demand and emotionally charged in a given market
- You study markets especially around the questions and frustrations they express until you find a pattern of red-hot desire
- Reverse engineer successful digital products (books, ebooks, courses, coaching programs, etc…) to determine underlying desire
- You “experiment” around ideas you think will work with content until you hit on the desire that blows up
Truth be told we have used ALL of these techniques successfully, I am a bigger fan of reverse engineering successful products to determine their underlying desire, but honestly you can use any one (or ideally combine a couple of them to really ensure your topic and market are solid) as a way of getting a handle on who you will sell to, why and how.
2. Product Creation & Testing
The next phase involves product creation & testing. This phase can be very intimidating for many who feel they are not adequate writers, do not have any experience creating courses or teaching and who are unsure of exactly what to package for optimal impact on their market.
Fear not, the process is actually quite simple starting with a product outline (chapters if a written product, modules if a course, sections if a talk, lessons if you are coaching or consulting, etc…) The key is to start with the ultimate desired outcome as the end point and work backward outlining the steps, learnings and actions required to achieve the ultimate outcome.
In this sense, you are NOT so much writing a book, developing an information product as you are teaching a lesson or course aimed at coaching your ideal customer along a path that improves their likelihood of achieving their desired outcome as you go.
3. Building Attention & Brand
In parallel with creating your product, you will want to start entering, engaging and forming a relationship with your market. Here are a few steps we teach to our Information Marketer’s Zone members to successfully ramp up their online marketing and branding:
- Create content each day…aim for 10 pieces of content, a mix of written, video, audio until you “find your ideal voice” The objective here is to both get better at reaching and connecting with your audience, but also to test which content angles get the most response
- Start testing offers, these could be clicking on other content, signing up to an email list, engaging with you on social or your blog or converting on a paid offer (a coaching call or affiliate product for example)
- As you find content that works and offers that convert, you want to move those into paid campaigns (Facebook or Instagram ads for example) – unless you have thousands to spend here I recommend you take the time to work the first two bullets first, otherwise you can throw advertising into the mix earlier understanding you will sacrifice some return for faster experimentation
- Eventually, you want to work your top prospects into an “early beta” or “first mover” group that you can test your unfinished product as you develop…this helps you refine and fill out your product prior to launch
- Finally, you want to set a 2-3 week launch process where you develop specific content around pre-selling your upcoming product launch, this involves a specific content campaign with a pre-designed sales funnel. When you reach this phase, we can certainly help you or pick up some training from Jeff Walker – the KING of product launches.
4. Rinse And Repeast – Product & Content Strategy
If you have followed the instructions above, have launched your first product then you will begin to receive market feedback, will have engaged with some early adopters in your audience and will no-doubt have ideas for further products or services (if not outright demand) taking you from a one-product micro-business into the possibility of a multi-product, diversified online business venture.
At this phase you concern yourself with concepts like overall branding, product strategy, upsells/cross-sells, optimizing conversions and scaling your team to continue to grow while maintaining solid momentum and support in your internet business.
There are a new set of challenges that present themselves at this phase, but equally exciting (and essential) is growing your revenue per customer to a point where you give yourself more opportunity to advertise and scale your message. When you reach this phase you are entering into a leadership position in your marketplace and give the top-runners a run for their money.
Why so many online business entrepreneurs are scared off with the notion of having their own digital products as the basis of their income mystifies me…you would never catch our business generating anywhere near the majority of income from other people’s products or services…there are too many variables NOT in your control when you follow this path.
It could be that you fear the process of creating your own products, the time commitment may seem too onerous or you may just not understand HOW to accomplish such a thing…regardless of the fear you should now see that it really just takes a vision and decision on your part and that the realization of your dream is really within reach.
If you want to fast-track your entry into the fun and lucrative world of digital product marketing then explore the Fast-Track program, tools, weekly updates and mentoring inside Information Marketer’s Zone…we would love to work with you.
