creating info products – Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2024

Once you’ve mastered your online marketing system and you’re growing your list on a daily basis, this is a good time to then set about creating additional offerings for your subscribers. This is where you start to look at your Product & Marketing Funnel and see where the gaps are and where new products can fit.

If you’re like most solo service professionals you’ll have something at the top (i.e. the widest part) of your funnel, which is usually your free taste, and then you’ll have something at the bottom (i.e. the narrowest part) of your funnel, which is usually your most expensive one-on-one services, but you won’t have anything in-between.

This is where you need to create products at different price points so that your clients and customers can experience your services and expertise without having to invest in your top (most expensive) service, but they want more than you are offering at the ‘free’ level.

A great first info product to create is one that sits at the second level within your Product & Marketing Funnel; somewhere between $1 and $50.

So, here is the step-by-step guide on how to create that all-important first paid offering.

Step 1 Host a Free Teleclass

Not only is this a great way to build your list, but it also exposes your audience to your expertise. You get to interact with your target market via the teleclass and they are able to ask you questions right there on the call.

Step 2 Record Your Teleclass

In addition to this being a great incentive to getting more sign-ups (if a registrant is not able to make it to the live teleclass they know that they’ll be able to get hold of the information afterwards via the recording), but this is where you’ll turn your free teleclass into your first paid info product.

Step 3 Create an Accompanying Guide or Special Report

Using the notes you prepared for your teleclass, turn these into a guide to accompany your teleclass. Or turn your notes into a special report and sell the report as the paid product and offer the teleclass recording as a bonus.

Step 4 Create a Workbook

If you also provided instructions or how-to information as part of your free teleclass, take that information and create an additional workbook. A workbook is a simple document that will allow your customer/client to make notes, write down their ideas, or plan out how they’re going to implement the how-to information that you shared with them on the teleclass.

Step 5 Bundle It All Together

Now that you have your teleclass recording, and you’ve created an accompanying guide/ebook and/or workbook, bundle all this information together to offer as a paid product at the second level within your funnel i.e. between the $1 and $50 price range.

Step 6 Create a Sales Page and Shopping Cart Link

You now need to create a sales page for your product, and associated shopping cart link. It is also a great customer service feature to create an autoresponder so that you can follow-up with your customers to check that they are happy with their purchase and are implementing the information you shared with them.

Step 7 Promote to Your List

Once you have your product all set up (Step 5), and created the sales page (Step 6) it’s time to promote it to your list and make sales! This is the exciting part! Include some teaser information in your newsletter leading up to the launch of your product, and once you’re ready to take sales send a solo mailing announcing the launch of your product. A solo mailing is much more effective than including the announcement as part of your regular newsletter.

After the initial launch continue to promote your product through your newsletter; promote it on your blog; and tell all your social networks about your product.

Last couple of issues I talked about how either moving too fast or too slow can sabotage your success. (You can read part 1 and 2 here: http://www.michelepw.com/blog ) Today I’m going to talk about a place where entrepreneurs typically move too fast — launching their product.

I know. You just finished your product or program and you can’t wait to start selling it. In fact, if you could, you’d start selling it yesterday!

And it’s agonizing waiting to launch your product. You want to be making money NOW, not waiting for weeks or months before you actually see any income. Plus you want to get it into the hands of your ideal clients, they NEED what you’re selling. So who has time to sit around waiting to promote? Just get a sales letter up and start selling it, right?

Okay here’s the thing. There’s a reason why product launches work and there’s a reason why you reach more people (and make more money) if you control yourself and do it right.

What’s that reason? Urgency.

You see, probably the biggest reason why your ideal clients decide not to buy is lack of urgency. They may like the product, they may know they need it, they may like YOU. And I bet they even INTEND to buy — just not right now. Right now they have a million other things going on and a bunch of other things they’re spending money on but in a few months or a year they will have the time or money to “finally” invest.

Well, we all know how that works out.

The more time and energy you spend building up buzz for your product, the more you’ll start creating that urgency. And the more you’ve built that urgency into your ideal clients’ minds, the more likely they’ll buy (and USE) your product, thus getting the results they want.

So it’s a win-win. You win because you get your product into the world while being paid handsomely for it, and your ideal clients win because they get the help they need to solve their problem.

So how much time should you allow for a product launch? Well it depends on the launch. There are a variety of launch systems out there, and depending on what you want to accomplish (and who your ideal clients are) dictates your launch. But here are some guidelines to get you started:

If you’re doing a straight teleclass launch (i.e. a preview call that sells the product or program) I would allow a minimum of a 2 weeks before the preview call. (Note, if you want to get affiliates involved you’ll need to allow a lot more time to plan. The more time you give your affiliates to put in their promotional calendars, the more likely you’ll get them to actually promote.)

If you’re doing more of a “release a special report and/or video” which teases the product by providing information, then you’ll need 4-6 weeks. Those take a little longer to get the viral aspect going. Because a preview call has a “date” when the call is, there’s built-in urgency, but a special report or video doesn’t necessarily have that.

If you want to use surveys or a contest, you might be able to do it in a couple of weeks but it would help if you had a little longer (2 weeks to do the survey then 2 weeks to do something with the results of the survey).

Remember these are minimum times AND these are how much time to actually PROMOTE. No, you don’t have 2 weeks to write a squeeze page, once the squeeze page if up, you need at least 2 weeks to promote. If you wanted to add a couple of weeks to do some other promotions, that’s never a bad idea. (Remember, the more you promote the more urgency you build and the more your ideal clients will want to buy.)