1. Create A Squeeze Page

Get a landing page which does nothing but offer some free gifts in exchange for the visitor’s email. This is where you start to build your list.

Hire a good graphics designer and come up with attractive gifts such as valuable reports and/or free software.

2. Create A Report To Sell

Your next task is to create a report which you’re going to sell. Again, make sure the graphics are eye-catching and pay a good graphics designer to create your website.

Your report has to look fantastic and the information needs to be good. Do the required research and put as much information as possible into this report.

With your website, sell the report for $97. This is a steep price for a report but your objective is not to sell many copies of it. Do the necessary promotion and get the word out about your report. And don’t forget to put links in the report to your website.

3. Free Gift

When people sign up to your list via your squeeze page, send them to a page where you will offer your $97 report as a gift. To claim the gift, the subscriber needs to refer at least 3 of their friends to your squeeze page.

Now when your subscribers see that your gift is worth $97 and that you are currently selling it for that price, it will drive conversions through the roof.

No one can resist a true free gift that is currently selling for $97. This can help you generate viral traffic. Your subscribers’ friends might sign up to your list and repeat the whole process by referring their friends to your squeeze page.

4. Email To List

Now while your squeeze page is building your list virally, you can create a report and continue to send it to your list for free. Of course, they would have to refer 3 or more of their friends to download the free gift.

Using this technique you are training your list to refer their friends in order to get your free reports. You are also testing to see which kind of offers create the best responses.

5. Contest

When you know which type of offers send you the most amount of referrals, you can create a contest and announce it to your list.

For the contest you will need to provide something which is perceived to be a high priced item otherwise it won’t work. The best type of offers are video training with personal coaching from you based on the offer with the most responses.

Offer your prize to 3 winners only. Since you are offering personal coaching and video training, you can set a high price for the prize. Pricing it at $1,000 is not unreasonable.

To win the contest, your list needs to send you traffic to your squeeze page. The top 3 who sends the most subscribers will win the $1000 prize. This is very attractive.

Once they spread the news by telling people about your contest, more and more people will join your list and promote the contest.. This is the viral effect you’re looking for. You can even issue a press release to inform more people about your contest.

Carrying out these 5 steps will ensure unstoppable viral traffic to your website. It needs planning and setting up the system for it to work and creation of the reports, but you are sure to get an avalanche of traffic. Using this viral traffic to get people subscribed to your list, you can promote your information products to them and push those sales figures through the roof.

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For more tips on how to promote your online business and increase sales, visit information product creation. To hire professionals to create your own best selling information products, visit http://www.eliteghostwriters.com/infoproducts.html – Alan Cheng, Elite Ghostwriters.

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My colleague works with managers who are struggling with software development projects helps get those projects back on track.

He’s great a what he does, loves his work and has tons of great ideas for creating information products.

But he hasn’t made much progress around creating an information product.

Why?

In his own words, “I’ve created one product but no one bought it. I’m not sure why but I’m worried that what I know just doesn’t translate well into something people will pay for.”

It’s a common issue: you love your work and the clients you work with love your work too. But you wonder whether what you do will translate well if you’re not doing it in person.

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Love Market Need = $$$
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If you want a product that practically sells itself and that you feel good about offering to your customers your product must meet two conditions:

#1. Your product is based on your talent, expertise, and joy

#2. Your product helps other people solve a problem that is bothering them RIGHT NOW

If the product doesn’t meet condition #1, it doesn’t matter how much people want it, you will not be able to solve their problem because you lack the expertise and passion to do so.

If the product doesn’t meet condition #2, people won’t buy your info product because they don’t want or need it.

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Finding the “Sweetspot”
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The “sweetspot” is the set of problems which meet both conditions: the problems you are good at and enjoy solving AND for which there is market opportunity (problems customers REALLY want solved).

Envision two circles whose edges overlap so that they share a common area (like the Mastercard logo). The area of overlap is the sweetspot for your product.

If you’re going to create just one information product this year, you want to create one in this sweet spot.

There are 4 steps for identifying products in the sweet spot.

=== Step 1. List Common Problems You Help Customers With ===

Take a moment and think about the customers you’ve been working with over the last three months or so.

Once you have some specific customers in mind, jot down all of the problems you helped them with. (Although your clients typically come with one specific problem, there are usually several others related problems or you may uncover a larger, more basic problem as you learn more).

For example, here are common problems that a project management consultant deals with:

=== Step 2. Identify Your Favorite Problems to Solve ===

Looking at your list put a check mark next to the ones that evoke an “I want to do that more!” response in your heart.

Don’t over-think this. The response you’re looking for is a sincere “More!” not a “should want to do more.”

Shoulds, woulds, and coulds lead to products that don’t sell.

Now, do the same thing but this time check ones in which you feel genuinely proud of the results you helped the client achieve.

Also include those which are still works in process but you feel good about your contribution so far. Again, don’t overthink this step.

Now circle all the problems you listed that have two check marks.

These are the product ideas that go into the “Love” part of the equation.

For example, our project management consultant looks at his list and realizes that some of the problems are “people problems” (right people with right skills and knowledge) and other problems are “tools and resource problems” (right software and procedures).

Because his background is in software design he decides the problems he really wants to create products around are the tools and resource problems.

=== Step 3. Identifying Marketplace Needs ===

Now that you have identified one or two problems that you enjoy helping people with and excel at providing, let’s look at opportunities in the marketplace.

Some specific actions to find those opportunities include:

As you look at the marketplace, jot down the problems/questions that keep coming up.

Important: A “gap” doesn’t necessarily mean there are no products or services out there providing solutions.

If a question seems to be coming up again and again it suggests there’s a need for fresh insights, perspectives, and voices. Maybe yours.

Example: Among the problems our project management consultant sees coming up:

=== Step 4. Finding Sweetspot Product Ideas ===

You’ve identified problems you’re good at solving; you’ve identified gaps in the marketplace, now it’s time to identify the “Sweet Spot” for your products.

Looking at the problems you circled in Step #2 and the problems and questions you listed in Step #3, look for any problems that satisfy both conditions:

#1. Problems you are good at solving and enjoy solving

#2. Problems that continually crop up in the marketplace

Create a new list with the problems that meet both conditions. These are your “sweetspot” product ideas. Products that, with the right marketing message and support, will practically sell themselves.

Example: Looking at both lists, the project management consultant chooses the following problem as a basis for his next information product:

Since his expertise and interest is in process improvement, it makes to create a product that will help teams find and eliminate steps causing bottlenecks.

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Bottom Line
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You can create products that will practically sell themselves if your products solve problems you love to solve and solve problems that your customers keep asking about.

With one or two products that meet these criteria plus a good marketing message and timely promotions to your prospective buyers you really can make a difference and grow your bottom line.

Editor’s Note: Also published here.

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Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, “Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!” go to http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm

You can contact Judy at 303-475-2015 or judy@judymurdoch.com

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