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Do Not Create Another Internet Marketing Product
by: Willie Crawford
In May of 2003 I put on The Internet Marketing How To Workshop. This was a workshop designed to teach product creation and effective marketing of a product over the internet.
Many of the people I communicated with in the weeks just prior to this workshop had grand ideas for an ebook or other information product. The problem was that many wanted to cover a topic that is perhaps already over-covered. They wanted to teach people how to earn money teaching people how to earn money.
By the time that this 3-day workshop was over, many of the attendees had developed plans for niche products which weren't in the internet marketing arena. This occurred because the speakers at the workshop had a natural knack for helping people to identify unique knowledge and skills that they have and which people are willing to pay for.
When you think about, you know more about some topic than 98% of the people in the world. The problem is that you may not appreciate/value that specialized knowledge. Your challenge is to confirm that it's something others want or need, and then package it for them.
It is very important that you verify the need before investing a lot of resources in creating something nobody wants. If you see a void in the market, you need to ask yourself, is this because there's no demand. So do your research first.
By why NOT another internet marketing product? Part of the problem for the market I study is the short product life cycle. The product is released with a lot of fanfare, lots of people become affiliates for the product, and soon the market is near the saturation point.
Of course, it wouldn't reach the saturation point as quickly if each affiliate targeted a different audience. However, what usually happens is that affiliates run promotions in the same places and for the same audience... with disappointing results.
If your product has a low production cost and you can generate a new one of these every few months, it's not as bad. This type of product should be used primarily for lead generation. However, it's still a lot of work for a very low return. You need to also have a good backend product in place :-)
So what kind of product should you generate then?
At the Internet Marketing How To Workshop, attendees explored the possibilities of:
- Reports on better negotiation - Information products on time tested sales techniques - Pet fur coats from recycles furs - Info products on breeding pets - Cookbooks - Software - Speaking and consulting - and a number of specialized services both inside and outside the internet marketing arena
One of the speakers focuses on the self-storage and recording industries. Why? Because there is a lot of demand, and he dominates those industries.
I won't give away all of their ideas, but if you'd like to listen to the recordings of the event, I am running a special. The event is on 9 videotapes and when you get a set before Monday, February 2nd, at midnight Central Standard Time, I will throw in a free set of the audiotapes.
Why am I doing that? I'm moving my home office and mini-warehouse to a different location. I have a LOT of boxes of tapes that I don't want to put back in storage. So if this is something that interests you, drop by my site at: http://InternetMarketingHowToWorkshop.com After you order the videos send me an email telling me you want the audiotapes too. Send the email to willie@williecrawford.com
To give you some extra brainstorming ideas, I also have several hours of coaching on CD. These are MP3 files that we made the Monday following the workshop mentioned above. Weather canceled a fishing trip that we had planned, so we salvaged the day by recording an information product and giving those who helped make the recording reprint licenses to them. This was one-on-one consulting with the attendees who were at the hotel. Once you start exploring your experiences and knowledge you should be able to come up with several ideas for very profitable info products. I'll close with an example I did On January 13th, 2004. As you may know, I wrote a fairly successful cookbook. Realizing that others wanted to know how to do this, I partnered with 2 other cookbook authors and we put on a teleseminar. We recorded the event and we now market the recordings from our websites. You can check it out at: http://WriteACookbook.com A very simple idea, which created an inexpensive product which will sell for years.
About the author:
Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at: http://ProfitMagician.com
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