Assuming you do want to sell your online information product, rather than giving it away, there are a number of ways you can sell it.
Try out a few different methods as various techniques are more effective for particular products.
Hook them early. Set up a dedicated sales page
If you are selling an online information product you will need a sales page dedicated to that product.
We will look at various ways of directing your customers to that sales page later, but for now here are a few of the elements you should include on your sale page.
1. An attention grabbing headline that outlines the key benefit of your product
2. Some short, high impact sales copy that continues to describe the benefits of the product
3. Some high quality testimonials
4. Some personal touches including a photo and a signature
5. A ‘call to action’ that makes it clear where your customers can buy your product
So now you have your sales page, you need to find ways to get targeted traffic to it.
You can try to optimize your page for the search engines, which can be effective although it is tricky given the low amount of content you will have.
You may need to look at other paid forms of promotion to get a good volume of traffic.
Establish your own affiliate program for more money and traffic.
Setting up an affiliate program is one of the most effective ways to sell online information products.
Having an affiliate program is similar to having your own sales force that you only pay when they make a sale.
The principle is simple; your affiliates have a link on their websites to your sales page, including their own unique affiliate code.
When a customer buys your product after clicking on that link your affiliate partner gets a certain percentage of the value of the sale.
Here are some tips for setting up a successful affiliate program for your information product:
a. Give your affiliates as much information as possible to pre-sell your product before your customers arrive at your sales page.
As well as a product description and list of benefits you could provide a banner or sidebar add for their website, and some high impact testimonials.
Some people go as far as providing their affiliates with a web page template and full sales copy for a warm up page.
b. Use a pay per sale model, rather than pay per click or pay per lead. This will encourage your affiliates to really pre-sell your product instead of simply encouraging their customers to click on your link.
These other models will only work if you have such fantastic sales copy on your sales page your visitors are guaranteed to buy your product.
c. Promote your affiliate program in various web discussions including relevant forums and blogs, but be careful not to overdo the sales pitch and attract the criticism of other internet marketers.
d. Set up a recurring affiliate program where your first tier of affiliates looks for new affiliates to sell your product. The original members take a commission for any sales that the affiliates they introduced make.
Targeted Advertising. Pay per click advertising
Another paid method of generating traffic to your sales page is through Pay Per Click advertising.
Various search engines offer this service, but the most well known is Google’s AdWords system.
With this system you can bid on certain keyword phrases, and when someone searches for that keyword in Google adverts for the highest bidders appear at the top of the search results.
You can also have ads appearing on relevant third party websites where Google has found your keyword phrase in the text of the web page.
Every time someone clicks on one of your ads, whether on a search engine or a third party site, they are directed to your sales page and you have to pay the amount that you bid.
Here are some tips for an effective Pay Per Click ad campaign:
a. The most popular keywords can be very expensive so keep records of what you spend to be sure you are not paying out more than you are making.
b. Look to bid on less popular keyword phrases that are more targeted to your customers.
c. Bidding on a lot of different low cost keywords is usually more effective than bidding on one or two popular ones.
d. Make the text of your ad very specific to your product so you only get visitors that are actually interested in buying from you to avoid paying out for worthless traffic.
Business Planning Exercise:
Explore pay per click on Google.
Take a look at the advertisements on the side of your search engine results when you do a search.
Search for your business topic and read the ads.
What are they for? What do they say?
Extra credit: Write your own pay per click ad and test and track your ad performance.
Bite sized pieces.
Do you ever go to the super market and nibble on a free sample only to grab the product and drop it in your cart. It is impulse shopping at it’s best.
Giving away free excerpts from your information product in exchange for your customers e-mail address can be an effective sales technique.
You can offer these excerpts as short articles on your own site, or third party sites. Once you have your customer’s details you can follow up by e-mail, offering them the rest of the product at a reduced rate.
Make sure the extracts that you choose to give away are some of the best parts of the product, but that they leave your customers with the feeling of wanting to know more.
Networking
Joining various discussion forums related to the topic of your product is a great way to make sales.
If you post relevant and well informed comments you will quickly be seen as an expert in that field and people will be interested to see what else you have to say in your e-books or reports.
Don’t be in too much of a hurry with this method. Putting in the groundwork and building up a relationship with other members of the discussion forum before you mention your product is essential.
Most discussion forums allow you to put a link back to your site at the bottom of your post, so make sure this link points to your sales page to get maximum conversions.
Give it a try
The idea of putting together an information product from scratch may seem daunting, but take it step by step and it can be a very simple process.
Don’t feel you have to write a whole e-book yourself; there are so many different formats that can be more attractive to your customers.
Creating your own information products can bring you business in many ways.
You can give your product away to increase your list or provide an incentive, you can sell your product for a fixed price, and you can create recurring income from your product.
One of the main advantages of writing your own information products is that they will add credibility to your business and enable you to build up a reputation as an expert in your subject area.
Having successful information products in your portfolio will enable you to launch more ambitious projects using the status you have built for your business.
Related posts:
How To Generate Residual Income From Information ProductsHow To Price Your Information ProductsHow To Determine Demand For Your Information ProductsHow To Overcome Writing Hurdles When Creating Information ProductsHow To Find Winning Ideas For Your Information Products
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