Guest Post from Sunil at EasyExtraMoneyOnline.com He is a young sensation who you should really listen to. He has a ton of great information at his site and is a true-giver, in every sense of the word.
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Channels to Distribute Information Products
Brandon often talks about turning what you know into information products that you can offer to the world. I am a big proponent of selling information products, and today I want to discuss some avenues you can tap to distribute your product.
These avenues can be applied to the following information products: e-books, audio books/CD, video/DVD, email content, whitepapers, articles, reports.
Your Own Website or Blog
The easiest place to start distributing your product is through your website or blog. When a product is available on your own web property, you can often link to it, mention it in “passing” – a strategy called soft selling as well as warm up your readership to your product offer by providing quality content through your site.
This strategy has worked very well for me when selling e-books, Audio books as well as affiliate products. To see an example of how I have displayed a product that I own for sale on my website, have a look at my accounts receivable factoring site. Notice the book on the right hand column.
Similarly, look at my Dubai city information site. Click on any link outside the home page and notice the books for sale on the right side? These are both books I own as well as those I market as an affiliate.
Newsletter Marketing
One of the most effective marketing mechanisms you can implement is a newsletter auto responder. I use this tool on several niche websites as a way to build relationships with my readers and to promote my products as well as affiliate products.
Newsletters are effective because you have the attention and trust of the reader. I mean they subscribed to you didn’t they? Moreover, by penetrating their email inboxes, you can ensure higher exposure rates.
Have a look at my website on raw food for dogs. Notice the newsletter opt in box on the right side? Notice how I offer a free course? This is one way I get readers to sign up. The rest is history.
Sales Pages
Incorporating dedicated sales or landing pages in your website or blog is also an effective way to distribute information products. This strategy has worked very well for me because I can leverage the Google Pay Per Click (PPC) program to drive traffic to targeted webpages rather than my general home page.
Having a sales page has also allowed me to have a central hub that potential affiliate marketers can access if they want to market my products on a commission basis. Have a look at my site on filing airline complaints. Notice the affiliate link in the footer? This entire page is a sales page dedicated to doing one thing and one thing alone – sell the e-book! Although it does well organically, I leverage PPC as well to drive additional traffic to the website.
Amazon.com
I love the Amazon Kindle self publishing platform because it has multiplied my income from the sale of information products without increasing the effort I put into generating it. How so? Because I already have the products, I simply submit them to Amazon for inclusion in their database.
Once they have the product in the database, you are essentially exposed to a ton of potential buyers within the Amazon community who are looking for the next best book to read. Have a look at my sales page on my bamboo plant care website. Notice half way or so an image indicating my book is also carried by Amazon?
Not only does this drive additional sales from Amazon, but it also increases my credibility by associating my product with a big name. Google has recently come up with their Partner Program, which is also a good avenue to submit your e-books to. I am seeing some good results from Google as well.
Offline
Finally, do not ignore offline methods which include grassroots marketing, guerrilla marketing and the good old word of mouth marketing. My website on structured settlements has no product on the website itself. However, I have physical CDs and DVDs that I have available for distribution.
Why? This is a business decision I made because these products are not for everyone, nor do I want everyone to know that I have these products available. Depending on your business objectives and target client base, sometimes you make decisions that support one channel of product distribution over another.
In this case, although my products are information based, I choose to distribute them physically and offline rather than making them available for download online.
ClickBank
If you are an infopreneur, you cannot ignore one of the biggest and most effective avenues to distribute your product. The ClickBank marketplace was designed specifically for information products. It is the biggest platform today where information products are listed, sold and marketed by affiliates.
Not only will you expose yourself to masses that are waiting for the next product release, but you will also have the opportunity to build your own sales force army who will sell your product on a commission basis. You don’t pay them until they make a sale. It’s a true win-win for all involved.
The best part about ClickBank? You can get on it overnight! Clickbank makes your life easy by handling all the accounting, sales and affiliate tracking for you. You simply sit back and collect the checks.
Concluding Thoughts
It is my belief that everyone has at least one info product in them. The challenge is always distributing that product effectively to the masses. I hope the handful of avenues discussed above have been informative and helpful in your journey of distributing your content.
Author Bio:
Sunil is the author of the Extra Money Blog, a blog dedicated to Entrepreneurship, Personal Finance, Blogging and Internet Marketing. His goal is to help successful working individuals get more out of life, whether financial freedom or the flexibility to live life on their own terms.
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