This post is actually 3 of the 5 Strategies Included in My Latest Workbook.  If you would like access to the entire workbook in PDF format, plus the worksheets for FREE, click the following image:

First: Tips for both Beginners and Advanced Marketers

Providing information that can be digested by all members of your audience, can be difficult. There are times when things may get just a lil’ too technical for many folks. It’s our jobs to help decipher where those hang-ups may occur and try to make the information as helpful, but still as detailed as it needs to be to convey the intended message.
This mini-workshop covers 5 Strategies to Increased Online Profitability…not in 2 weeks, but today. Sure, you can stretch some of them out over the near future, but my goal is getting you moving in the right direction today.

Have you ever been hungry, and decided to pop over to your local favorite fast-food joint and wanted to order a burger…(or a salad if beef isn’t your thing)? You know, something that will fill that pit, and make you say “Ummmm”. How would your reaction turn, if after you paid, they said “If you could, please pull over into the parking spot, the next frozen burger shipment is scheduled to arrive in 3 hours. Your burgers will then be ready immediately thereafter.” WHAT? You might even decide to slap them with a few pickles.

The same holds true with any information products or services that you try to create. Always be thinking of how you can position your product or service to fill your customer’s needs, as quickly as possible, while still diligently providing quality, and care. Our goal needs to be to provide the value, while providing the actionable content that is going to help take our readers from Point A to Point B.

This leads us to our 5 strategies for this workshop. While I am going to provide you with the strategies…I’m also going to provide you with some awesome worksheets to help jog brain cells, and try to allow you to put these tips into action!

There are 5 Strategies to Increased Online Profitability that I want to share:

• Elevate Your Game (& Your Prices)
• The “How-To” Non-Pushy Affiliate Technique
• Find a Hungry Market
• Blogging is probably NOT your Business
• Everybody Loves PIE! (Can’t have too much)

Please allow me set the scene, if you will. About 4 or 5 years ago, I created my first “information product”. In hindsight, I made so many mistakes, I can’t even begin to tell you. The product was regarding purchasing non-performing notes. I know, I know, pretty sexy topic, huh ?

Painful Learning Lesson #1:

Always find a market, a hungry market, and then create a product. Don’t create your product, and then seek to find if the market wants it.

Painful Learning Lesson #2:

Websites. Ahhh…the trials and tribulations I’ve experienced with Godaddy & Homestead. I had the ugliest, poorest copywritten, least trafficked site on the net. I thought: “Build it, and They Will Come”. I knew nothing about creating and driving traffic. Nothing about HTML (still don’t know a lot). Anyway…learn WordPress and your web-life will be more golden.

Painful Learning Lesson #3:

My cheap information product WAS cheap. I look back and can’t even believe I tried to sell it. Look now today, I’m giving away this workshop which I know I could charge money for.

Bottom Line: I did everything wrong, but was still make 1 sale every 2 weeks. It’s my hope that through my trials and struggles, you are able to take-away nuggets to help expedite your learning…to make you get to your promised fortunes…FASTER.

Strategy #1: Elevate and Decide in the Air

Back in the 90′s (If I remember correctly), there was a company that arrived on the scene with a slogan. The company’s name was Above the Rim. A slogan of their brand was “just elevate and decide in the air”.

This is indeed a double-edged sword. By that, I mean, there is a correct way to elevate, and there is a wrong way to elevate. The correct way involves getting the information you need NOW, to make an informed decision as to what your next step should be. The wrong way involves just elevating for the sake of elevating, and finding out later you could have, should have, would have.

Worse yet, the elevation is slow, or never happens. This type of elevation sometimes occurs over not wanting to spend on education (hold your eye-rollings…I’m not here to sell you anything with this workshop). It has just been my experience that, in hindsight, I just wish I would have invested some money up front, and saved myself hundreds of hours of grief. You know, actually pay for a specific solution to my problem.

Imagine if you will, a basketball player example. Most of the pros and their fast twitching, high-performance muscles and instincts can drive-in the lane, maybe catch a quick glimpse of a defender trolling toward them from the right, can quickly assess what may happen next, logically process where to go, and jump off one foot…all at the same time. As they subconsciously process all of these variables, while in the air, they decide to turn their body to the left (to screen the ball from the defender), and then throw up a shot with their weak (their left) hand. Off the glass, and SWISH! +2 for the Home Team.

They elevated quickly. They processed the information they needed to, and then performed an aerial assault and took no prisoners. This is exactly what we need to be doing. Try not to search for the holy grail. Don’t get swayed by parts of your day that are causing you to be unproductive. Stay focused on what the next thing is you need to accomplish. Determine what the 1 specific action it is that you need to take, and then TAKE IT.

Examples:

• Suppose you want to create an information product about “Grooming Poodles”, and you have no idea how to setup a website. You don’t even have your product/service outlined yet. Instead of focusing on the website…focus on completing the product/service ideas. The website can come later, and if you spend too much time working on that aspect, you may eventually get a site up and running, but never get to the product or service. At least once you have the product or service complete, you can begin marketing it without a site (think twitter / facebook, etc).
• Sticking with the information product topic, perhaps I want to create some audio’s. Many people would possibly start with writing out their paper, and then simply recording themselves talking through it. With a small amount of research, they may have discovered, they could actually record a video, and then strip off the .MP3 Audio file and have 2 products VERY QUICKLY.

Do just enough research before-hand (analyzing the situation, choosing best routes) and then elevate and decide in the air. Just don’t get stuck and never leave the ground.

Please refer to the Worksheet in the Workbook to help you Elevate and Decide in the Air.

Strategy #2: The “How-To” Non-Pushy Affiliate Technique

Nobody enjoys being sold to. However, we all want solutions provided to us that solve our problems. When that magical moment happens, and we find a solution (be it a product, or a service) to our problems, we instinctively BUY.

Sometimes, these problems we are facing are some we may not even be aware of. Other times, they are just on the back burner, but a great opportunity presents itself, so we buy.

In this module of the workbook, we are going to talk about the best of two separate, competing worlds. We are going to look at the art of the soft-sell.

I refer to this as the DRI Technique.

Method #1: Demonstrating Others

QVC and the Home Shopping Network are two ultra-successful examples that come to mind when I think of businesses that profitably demonstrate items and make a KILLING doing so. Really…think about it. Somebody gets on the show, demonstrates something, flashes their finely manicured fingernails while holding a porcelain, made in Italy, carrot-scraper. The manufacturer offers a discount, and people buy like crazy.

You, as an InfoPreneur have the power to do similar. I heard Pay Flynn, over at SmartPassiveIncome.com recently did something similar. He demonstrated the power and versatility of Market Samurai by using a Webinar. I understand he did really well with the affiliate sales by simply demonstrating what MS does.

Here is the best part, perhaps what led to a huge chunk of the sales…Market Samurai comes with a trial period. Try it, before you buy it. Pat took something that has incredible power, demonstrated how easy it was to get the results his viewers were looking for, and then provided a free-trial solution. Free trials work like gang-busters for converting buyers. Best part, Market Samurai offers a generous affiliate payout (you have to be a user to get Affiliate access).

Don’t be afraid to share something of great value to your readers. If you are going to get paid for the promotion…even better. Your readers and viewers will thank you for sharing something of great importance to them, and you may get thanked with a large commission check in the mail (or Paypal).

To Summarize :

Method #2: Reviewing Others

NOTE: This does not mean Reviewing Products…but rather processes.

Dave Navarro at TheLaunchCoach.com did a fantastic job of this by analyzing a Sales Page for a product launch by Laura Roeder. Laura was offering a product that required an opt-in to “get to the next stage”. Dave opted-in and analyzed the copywriting and sales bullets that Laura utilized to get customers to be in a “hungry buying mode”. He took each different segment, broke them out and talked about them on his blog.

Whoa, Nellie! Let’s look at really what happened here.

He opted in (that’s also what he wanted the viewers and readers to do), and then he provided a great, detailed explanation of a third party perspective that would help his folks. That’s an awesome strategy. Why? Because some of those readers WILL get pulled into “the story” that is being woven, or choose that it was a desired product that filled a need of theirs, and would in-turn, purchase the product. Thus generating a nice commission for himself.

Now, here is the best part (yes, he made commissions and that’s great): he really instilled conversation about the post. He asked for inputs from his readers, and they answered. He might have even chucked in a Free $250 product or something to generate some responses…can’t remember.

Either way, it worked beautifully. The purpose of the post was specific: to educate and provide income. Mission Accomplished.

Method #3: Interviewing Others

The example I want to share with you is not exactly spot-on with what I’m detailing with this method, but it’s very close.

David Siteman Garland at TheRisetotheTop.com conducts a lot of video interviews on his site. Interviews with various successful, rising to the top stars.

David derives a lot of his “visible” income from sponsorships on his site. Under his video interviews, he provides links to the interviewees sites, blogs, etc. I don’t know if I’ve ever recognized 1 affiliate link. They are all links directly to their sites. Were I in those shoes, I would probably consider placing affiliate links.

Afterall, nobody is saying, “Hey, here is this great product, can I RAM it down your throat, and have you open your wallet?”. Nope. It’s an interview with somebody, and at the end, there is no harm in providing affiliate links that if people are interested in buying something (even though they are completely non-promotional videos) they can….if they CHOOSE. Again, they see a need that could be solved, and can buy…while YOU make some money.

So, I love the video interviews, I’m just thinking there may be some missed profits, and I doubt any of the interviewees would blink an eye if David were to get some commissions for clicks. I think the relationships created would still be rock-solid, win-win scenarios. Don’t you?

Please see the Worksheet in the back of the Workbook to help organize your thoughts.

Strategy #3: Find a Hungry Market

Going back to my “I Failed Miserably” early days of information product marketing. I feel confident that I was targeting a small market, and providing a crappy product for sale, and not conveying how it could fill their needs properly.

Buying nonperforming notes is really a real estate investing niche. The people want to make fast cash (doesn’t everybody?). However, I was not positioning my product properly to convey that it could solve that for them. (Incidentally, a guy I gave a Free copy to called me 1 year later and told me I saved him from Bankruptcy and he made over $200,000 that year. Note to FTC: That example is not a typical experience of somebody who digested my ebook…there, I’m covered. Whoooo!).

Anyway, before you jump into any market, be sure of 2 things:

1. There is a large enough prospective pool of customers.
2. The potential customers are willing to part with money for products, services, or tools that make or save them time, money, and frustrations.

Here is a great example demonstrating what I am talking about.

The “How to tie a tie” niche

I know this image is miniscule, but it’s what I am trying to convey to you that is really important. You can also go to Google, and type in “how to tie a tie” and see for yourself.

Please Note:

1. 36,100,000 indexed pages for the keywords.
2. How many paid advertisements are there? NONE!

I mean, I would think there would at least be “Tie Distributors” maybe advertising, but they probably found out that if somebody doesn’t know how to tie a tie, they probably do not wear one often. Who knows.

Now, check this out (snapshot courtesy of Google Keyword Tool)

1.2 Million Monthly Searches!

No Competition! Sounds like a great market to dive into based on numbers… but the market isn’t willing to pay for anything with those keywords for a good reason.

In this case, there are certainly enough potential customers, however they aren’t willing to part with their money. There is no sense in targeting a niche, and not having people wanting to part with their money. Go volunteer someplace else instead that will do the world some good.

On the other hand (NonPerforming Notes)

The “Buying Nonperforming Notes” keywords do not even register any number of global monthly searches, yet, when they are google’ed, a plethora of paid advertisements show up. So, it’s barely searched, but when it is, it is profitable. (I didn’t know any of these tips when I started).

In hindsight, if I’d go back and create a kick-butt program around that niche, and provide a really high price point, I would probably have been better off. No matter what though, I’d probably incorporate that product into a topic with more monthly searches, more traffic, yet with a market that is willing to part with their money.

Ahhhh, hindsight is always 20/20, huh?

Sidenote: You do not need to have too large of a prospective pool of people centered around your topic to make a great income. However, for most markets, it helps.

You may have heard “It’s better to be the big fish in a small lake”. Just please make sure the lake is large enough to provide “oxygen” (enough money in your case), and not a backyard swimming pool.

If you are having second thoughts about your product or service, spend some time thinking about it. If you are positive it can be profitable, by all means, do NOT let these words stop you. You will find a way. However, if you are having doubts, please see the Worksheet at the back of the Workbook for steps to verify.

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CLICK HERE to TIP VIP ACCESS

So, What are Your Thoughts, Questions, Takeaways?  Also, if you liked this, my feelings wouldn’t be hurt at all if you Retweeted or Liked on FB.  Thanks!

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Brandon Yeager

TheInfoPreneur