May 9, 2013
Are you ready to release your product to the world? If you have a single product that is ready to be released, you can use any method of scheduling you like from a paper calendar to project management software, just make sure you have some type of schedule available that you can look at in a glance. Here are some tips that you can use to prepare for your big day.
Don’t Start at the Beginning, Go Straight to the End
When releasing your product, you definitely should go right to the end result and work backwards. For instance, you know that the end of this process, you will release a certain product on a certain date. From there, you will need to work back and think about how your product will meet the needs of the market and how you will communicate to the public how valuable your product will be. You should go even further back and think about dates that are considered to be important in your industry, when industry heavyweights are releasing their products and think about any trade shows that may be coming up. You want to make sure that you are avoiding big launches but embracing important events.
Make the Public Excited to Meet Your Product
The pre-launch of your product is extremely important because this is where you will build excitement and create a demand. There are several things that you can use in order to communicate with the public including direct mail, teleseminars, webinars, affiliate partners and videos. Each type of communication will have a different lead time, so make sure you are taking that into consideration. For example, a email campain will involve at least three emails prior to the launch, one on the day of the launch and two following the launch. You need to make sure you have enough time to produce, review and send everything.
Use Your Resources to Your Advantage
You have a lot of reources out there that you just may not realise you have. Think about events that can build buzz like contests or beta testing. These will need to be scheduled as well. With these events, you can gain even more advantage like asking everyone who enters a contest to provide a testimonial for your product. This will give you content to add to your sales copy and will give you an amazing way to get the word out.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Perhaps one of the keys to a successful launch is a sense of urgency. You can do this by only having a limited number of items or selling it at a deep discount for a limited amount of time. You want to tell people they need to get this product immediately, give them a reason why, and follow through with that reason.
By utilising these tips, you can have a very successful product launch and hopefully a very successful product.
Thanks!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
The Internet Marketing Academy
http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com
(Image courtesy of tungphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
April 18, 2013
If you have only a single product to release, you can use any method of scheduling you like, from a paper calendar, to a word processing document, to project management software. If you are releasing multiple products, it is a good idea to use a calendar that allows individual schedules to be combined into a master schedule, so that your overall marketing obligations can be seen at a glance.
Start at the end
You need to know what product you will be releasing, as well as when you will release it. You must know exactly how your product matches the market’s needs, and be able to communicate the value of the product to that market. Consider important dates for your industry, such as trade shows, regional holidays, and releases by industry heavyweights, and plan your product launch around them. Depending upon the goal of your launch you will need to ensure that you have both the capability to measure your goal and the infrastructure to serve it.
Build excitement
The pre-launch part of your product launch builds excitement and creates demand for your product. You can use affiliate partners, direct mail, email, teleseminars, videos, webinars, and other means of communication. Each type has a different lead time. An email campaign to existing customers may consist of three emails that go out prior to the launch, one the day of the launch, one after the launch, and one before the offer ends. An affiliate marketer campaign needs to send these emails to the affiliates prior to the distribution dates. Direct mail campaigns require time to print, proof, and if necessary re-print the pieces prior to the mailing dates. Schedule when things must be sent out, as well as when they must be written and reviewed.
Use all available resources
Other buzz-building options include contests, review copies, and beta-tests, all of which need to be added to the schedule. One popular style of contest requires everyone who enters to give a testimonial, which establishes social proof for your product. Allow time to add the testimonials to your sales copy. Leverage the power of your affiliates, the press, existing customers, thought leaders, investors, industry analysts, family, and friends to get the word out.
Create urgency
You can create urgency for your product by having a limited number, by having it available for a limited time, or by releasing it at a deeply discounted price for a limited number of customers or days. Tell people why they must buy your product immediately, and then follow through on that promise. Otherwise, you risk destroying your credibility, and with it all sense of urgency in your customer. The post-launch phase of your product launch begins the moment your product is available for sale, and ends when the window of availability closes. During this time, continue to stress the need to act with urgency.
Thanks!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
The Internet Marketing Academy
http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com
(Image: MorgueFile)
March 12, 2013
There’s a story told that during World War II, the RAF wanted to add additional plating to their bombers, in order to protect them from anti-aircraft guns. Since additional weight would decrease the bombers’ range, they could only plate the most crucial areas. They analysed the bullet holes in the returning bombers, mapped out where most of the holes occurred, then presented their findings with a suggested plan to plate those areas. A quick-thinking officer pointed out that the planes didn’t need protection in those areas, since they flew even with numerous bullet holes. The planes that had been hit in other places were the ones that hadn’t returned home. Successful product development and marketing requires asking the right market research questions.
Ask open questions
Closed questions are those that can be answered by selecting from a list of options, such as “Do you prefer option A or B?” Open questions are ones that require explanation, and usually begin with the words what, how, or if. Ask what they want or need in a specific arena, how getting it will make a difference, and hypothetical questions about their general situation. By using a mix of all three types, you will find out details about the way that your customer or prospect currently does things, including the things that work and the things that don’t. A successful product needs to be better than existing products in important areas, while still doing all of the important things that the existing products do well.
Identify both issues and costs
It’s not enough to ask what their biggest challenge is, or what causes them the most frustration. You also need to put a price tag on the solution. How much is that challenge or frustration costing them? The upper limit of your product’s price is the sum of all the money saved by all of the problems it solves. You can follow up with the confirmation question, “If a product solved those challenges, what would that be worth to you?”
Understand motivation
Ask them what their top goals are, and then ask how their life or their business will be different if those goals are met. What would achieving those goals look like? By understanding their picture of success, you will better understand the emotional needs that your customers believe their goals will satisfy. For example, two executives with a goal of 10% sales growth might have vastly different pictures of what that success will look like. The first might be happy that no employees need to be made redundant, while the second is thrilled by a promotion and even bigger challenge. Pitching your product to appeal to a sense of safety and security would attract the first executive, while repelling the second.
Thanks!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
The Internet Marketing Academy
http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com
(Image: MorgueFile)
January 10, 2013
Before you settle on the best type of Internet marketing for you, you need to know what you are marketing. Do you merely wish to raise awareness of your business or brand? Or do you wish to make online sales? If you are making online sales, is it an entirely electronic transaction, with online delivery of electronic content, or will you need to integrate with a physical sales and distribution function? All of these decisions affect how and what you will market.
Electronic products
The easiest online sales for an Internet marketer are information products. These products are e-books, videos, or web-based seminars wherein all of the content is delivered electronically, without any physical component. Such products offer certain advantages from a marketer’s standpoint: instant delivery (and gratification) to the customer, zero delivery cost, zero production cost, and infinite scalability (you can sell a million units as easily as ten).
Physical products
In this era of service- and idea-based economies, there are still plenty of physical products that are made and marketed. Arguably, these can even be some of the most exciting and valuable offerings for Internet marketing. When one is in the business of making and selling such products, selling on the Internet is an essential part of modern business strategy.
Product support
In the world of e-commerce, certain “old-fashioned” principles are becoming more important than ever. This is true whether you market information products or physical products. While it used to be possible to get away with bad or mediocre service, nowadays companies are severely punished for this. Customer complaints not only get posted in conspicuous websites but can even go viral, compounding the damage considerably. Your Internet marketing needs to be aligned with customer support, such as scanning Twitter and other social media for mentions of your product and company, to identify and address customer satisfaction issues.
Manage expectations
Purchasers of information products expect instantaneous delivery. If you require backend processing that will take some time before the product will be available, make sure that the customer is informed of this during the purchase process, before the final sale. Similarly, physical product sales should include information regarding shipping times, as well as how long your business requires for fulfilment before the purchase will be ready to ship. Additional customer contact can be made informing the customer when the product has been handed off to the shipper, as well as providing tracking information to further manage expectations of delivery.
By carefully managing expectations and customer service, Internet marketing can lead to a highly successful web-based business with either electronic or physical products, enjoying superior profit margins compared to sales from a physical store.
Thanks!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
The Internet Marketing Academy
http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com
(Image: MorgueFile)
December 15, 2010
Who said creating a product to sell on the internet has to take months?
Well, that’s what most people believe when they go through internet marketing courses. They think they have to spend months writing an ebook or creating a huge 10 DVD course.
Here are 3 quick product ideas that will pack a lot of value for your customers–and make it easier on your time. In fact most of these will only take an hour to produce!
1) Record an hour-long audio.
With more people using Ipods and listening to audios in the car, you can easily create a content-packed audio you can start selling ASAP. All you need is a good microphone (you don’t need anything really expensive!) and you’re all set. Oh, and you can download Audacity, a free audio recording software, for free!
2) Write a special report!
Think an ebook has to be 100 pages long? Most people would pay extra for undigested information that’s straight and to the point. No fluff and no filler. If you type fast you can write a good 1500-3000 word, 7 page report in about an hour.
Don’t think you have to take 4-5 pages of solid content and pack it with 95 pages of fluff and filler. Most of your customers will notice this and you could ruin your chances of getting repeat sales!
3) Sell a public domain book!
There are a lot of people making a killing selling public domain works. This includes books, music, and artwork whose copyrights have expired and were never renewed. This is an untapped market, and you can even take a public domain book and create a derived book of your own!
To find public domain books you need to research copyright laws in your country. You can easily go to an online used bookstore such as abebooks.com and find a good public domain book you can resell for profit. Either scan the pages yourself or hire someone real cheap to transcribe.
All this should take you an hour at the most to research and order a public domain book. The content is already written, you just have to resell it!
I hope this post gives you some food for thought regarding how to create a quick product to sell online. Many people are doing this and now it could be time for you to get in the game!
Keep Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
July 11, 2010
One of the main drawbacks people have when they start an online business is the creation of a product. They see products in big chain stores like WalMart and published books and wonder to themselves:
“How Can I Do This!”
Well, thanks to the internet and tools now available online, you could create your first product in as little as an hour. Here are several quick product ideas you could use to create a product by the time the sun goes down.
1) Get Someone To Interview You.
Do you know a secret to growing roses? Or how to get out of credit card debt? Everyone has specialized knowledge people would gladly pay to discover. All you have to do is get a friend to interview you, and a free recording software like Audacity to record the audio.
2) Create a Camtasia slide show.
If you’re not familiar with Camtasia, then you need to get in the game. It’s a software a lot of internet marketers are using to make a lot of money. You can use software like OpenOffice or Microsoft Powerpoint and record your product as a slide show.
You can get Camtasia on a 30 day trial basis , or use a free program called Camstudio that has less features. Download the free OpenOffice program, buy an inexpensive microphone and you’re all set.
3) Write a Report.
There are a lot of people selling 200-page ebooks out there, but why not be novel and write a short 10-page report revealing a special secret? As long as the information is valuable, the size of the report doesn’t matter, as long as people get value out of it.
Believe me, there are a lot of people who sell inflated 300-page eBooks, but when you remove all the fluff and filler, there’s only 10 pages of useful content. People will pay for straight-to-the-point information on a problem they’re trying to solve, or a need they want to fulfill. A report like this should only take an afternoon to write.
To conclude, everyone has specialized knowledge people would pay to discover. It’s just a matter of taking that knowledge and putting in a product hungry customers can consume. This post reveals ways you can do that quickly and easily so you can start selling it!
Happy Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
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