Informational products come in many forms. An info product can be a digital book (an e-book), a digital report or a white paper, a piece of software, a web site or a newsletter. Any product that's informational or informative in nature can be considered an info product.
Here's why information is the best product to sell online:
- It's
fast to create, fast to market. Forget
a product development cycle that's years in the
making. Forget an intense design and costly
manufacturing process. I've literally created info
products in as little as two hours and had them
generating revenue shortly thereafter. If you have
an appealing topic and a computer, you have all
the tools you need to create an info product.
- There's
no inventory to stock. Forget filling
your garage with boxes of cheap watches and cases
of megavitamins that you'll never sell. When you
sell information, there's no inventory to stock.
Your product is digital (I like to call it
electronic air) and requires no space in your
garage, just a little space on your computer. One
of my most successful info products is a 30KB
e-book that requires almost no space at all.
- The
startup costs are low. When you sell
information, you can literally create a product
for next to nothing. If your product is an e-book,
the only investment required is the time it takes
to put words to digital paper. And if you become
an affiliate marketer of someone else's info
product, your investment can be zero.
- There's
an automated sales and delivery process.
Thanks to internet technology, you can sell info
products 24/7 and never lift a finger. In fact,
you don't even have to be awake or at home to make
money with an info product. I know many successful
info entrepreneurs who are getting rich despite
the fact that they work as little as one hour a
day. They check their website and their e-mail,
then go play golf or hang with the kids for the
rest of the day. You can completely automate the
sales and delivery process so your site does
everything for you. An automated site can give a
potential customer your sales pitch, take the
order and process the payment, deliver the product
by e-mail, and even follow up in a few days to
make sure the customer's satisfied and offer to
sell him additional products.
- Customers
get immediate access or delivery.
Online consumers are an impatient lot. They want
things now! These are the people who stand
in front of the microwave, impatiently tapping
their foot and frowning at their watch. Selling
information is the best way to give your customers
immediate satisfaction. As mentioned earlier, an
automated site can process the order and payment,
then immediately e-mail the product's download
link to your customer.
- There are no shipping and handling charges. One of the things I never liked about selling hard goods was the manual process of taking the order, running the credit card, and placing the order with a drop-shipper or filling the order of my stock. I hated finding a box, packing peanuts, printing the label, taping it all up and lugging it to the post office. Every minute I spent filling orders was time that I wasn't being compensated for; therefore, my profit grew smaller with every minute spent on shipping and handling. Informational products require no shipping and handling—most are delivered by e-mail. In the time it takes you to click your mouse, you can deliver an info product into your customers' hands.
What topics make for good info products? Someone once said, "If you can teach people how to feel better, look younger, be thinner, get rich or be more attractive to the opposite sex, the world will beat a path to your door." And those topics are just the tip of the iceberg.
An e-book is no different from its paper cousin, except that it's meant to be delivered and read electronically. Topics for e-books are as wide-ranging as regular books. A few recent bestsellers show people how to:
- Start an eBay
business
- Make money in real
estate
- Make your own beer
- Protect yourself
against a mugger
- Get the best deal on
a used car
- Play a better game of golf
Where do you sell info products? Although some e-book authors go the traditional route and actually sell their e-books on CDs at neighborhood bookstores, the largest marketplace for digital info products is on the web. At any given moment, there are thousands of info products for sale on eBay, Yahoo! Auctions, specialized e-book seller websites, and even Amazon.com.
When marketing your own info product, you can't wait for customers to find you—you have to bring your product to them. Seek out those who would be interested in what you have to say. If you've written an e-book on how to brew your own beer, check out the online forums devoted to the topic of beer. (You'll might be surprised to find that there are hundreds of forums for beer lovers!)
Without posting an obvious ad, which is usually not allowed, offer to send free copies of your book to whoever will take one. Don't worry about giving them away for free at first. Once your book finds an initial audience, these people will help you sell more books by referring customers to you.
I also recommend that you create a website to help sell your e-book. When John Grisham wrote The Firm, he had copies printed up and drove around selling them out of the back of his car. A website is the modern day equivalent of the bookseller's car trunk.
If you'd like to cash in on the sale of information but don't think you can write an e-book of your own, never fear. Finding someone to work with you on such a project is easier than you think. We'll address that topic in next month's column.
Here's to your success.
About the Author: Tim W. Knox is the founder and CEO of three successful technology companies: B2Secure Inc., a Web-based hiring management software company; Digital Graphiti Inc., a software development company; and DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs launch and prosper from their eBay or online sales business.
