Quick & Easy info-Marketing Secrets for Small Businesses
Have you ever wondered why people published books, CDs or DVDs?
How about articles, podcasts or blog posts?
Traditionally, authors don’t get rich selling books or CDs (the average business book sells less than 1,500 copies). Authors, especially business-people who author books, made their money because their book attracted new customers or their CD made a nice gift or back-end sale to existing customers.
However, now in this age of print-on-demand and Internet digital download distribution, any small business (retail, service, or profession) can use info-marketing to both attract new customers AND make a nice tidy profit at the same time.
For those that don’t know, info-marketing is basically selling information. You can package and sell the information either as a stand-alone product (books, ebooks, articles, videos, etc), or in conjunction with the sale of another product or service as a premium, bonus or up-sell.
For example, a piano seller might include videos on the proper care of your piano to get years of service, or a financial planner might give away copies of their book on how to invest intelligently for retirement.
Frankly, the possibilities are almost endless.
When trying to decide how to apply info-marketing to your business, examining these two areas first make it quick and easy to see the possibilities, even if you’ve never previously published as much as a single article.
Questions/Mistakes
What are the most frequently asked questions people have about what you do or what you sell?
What mistakes do you see people repeatedly make, either before or after they buy from you?
Take some time and write these down on a simple sheet of paper. If you don’t know the questions people have, ask your customers what their biggest questions are about what you do or your area of expertise. Then, sit down and answer these questions either by typing them out or recording the answers into a microphone or video camera.
You can publish the answers and then give them away to new or existing customers and sell your new info-product(s) to generate new leads.
What’s Your Problem?
Most people buy to solve a problem. They’re hungry, they buy food. Their back hurts when they wake up, they buy a mattress. They find moles in their backyard, they buy something to whack the moles.
You’ve heard the phrase “Get all the facts before you buy.” Well, you can be the one who provides the facts and then they buy from you!
- If you sell mattresses, create the buyer’s guide to getting a new mattress.
- If you sell houses to first-time buyers, create the first-time home buyer’s guide to getting a great deal on your first house.
- If you’re a plumber, create a guide on 5 simple ways to keep your pipes from freezing.
All of these would position you as an expert and draw people to your business.
Creating your own info-product now rates easier than ever. When I published my first audio product back in 1995 (I know I’m old), I had to order 1,000 copies of the tape (NOT cheap and very risky for an experiment). Now you can publish an audio CD using $49 software and Kunaki.com to duplicate them one at a time for under $2. Self-publishing a book used to take years and cost tens-of-thousands of dollars. Now you can do it for free at CreateSpace.com.
Every small business should have at least one info-product to use as a bonus gift for existing customers. But, once you get bitten by the info-marketing bug and start to see the possibilities for generating new customers and profit streams, you’ll probably have an entire lineup of your own info-products for sale in no time flat!
