How To Package Your Product [Informational Product Series]

The human mind works in mysterious ways.  We are visual creatures.  We always will be.

When you walk into Macy’s, you expect to look at things.  When you walk into Best Buy, you want to feel and touch stuff.  If they have a game console hooked up, that’s all the better.

When you view a webpage, you want to be similarly stimulated.

No pictures - no purchase.

So how to you make your informational product look real?  What can you do to give your prospective buyer that eye-candy that they want.  Oftentimes, it’s a simple graphic that is the distinction between a product that makes hundreds a day or a couple bucks a day.

Thankfully, you don’t need to be a designer to create stunning graphics.  Nor do you need to put out a boatload of cash.

It’s usually as simple as a couple clicks of a mouse button.

The product I am referring to is CoverActionPro.

CoverActionPro is a series of Photoshop Actions that let you style a cover or a DVD template however you like, then it outputs the finished hi-def image for you to put on your site.

Here’s some examples:

I felt some of you cringe when I said Photoshop…  There’s a solution.  CAP has step by step tutorials that make the process of creating your covers painless.  In fact, this is how I learned Photoshop - these tutorials.

CoverActionPro truly is remarkable software.  I have used it to make thousands off of info products.  I have even sold the graphics it produced to other clients.  It more than paid for itself within about 7 days…

Have you used any other cover creation products?  What did you think?

JD

[Caption]

8 Tools That Make Building Information Products Easy [Informational Product Series]

When most people think of digital products, they immediately conjure an image of an ebook.  Digital products can really be any number of things, though.  They can be audio or video based, or text based products and workbooks!

A lot of times, your audience is going to be what determines the style of the content you create.  If you are doing how-to stuff, video is the way to go.  If you are doing something that has learning sections like a workbook, text is best.

With the emergence of free and cheap tools, it’s easier than ever to record audio and put screencasts together.  No need for a programmer or expensive computer equipment, just pick up a mic at Target and you’re all set.

As with content based products - you still have to type.  There’s nothing I can do about that!

8 Cheap And Low Cost Tools That Make Building Informational Products Easy:

• Audacity

  Audacity is audio recording software.  It will interface with your mic and record anything you say!  You can even use it to record interviews and presentations!  Once you’re done, export it as a .mp3 and upload it to your web server.

• GoView

  GoView is a brand new screen recording software put out by Citrix.  It lets you record your screen and your mic and bundle it together and distribute it on the Internet. 

• Camtasia

  Camtasia is by far the industry standard in screencasting software.  They support HD output and will convert the project into any video format imaginable.  The video editing tools and wizards really make you look like a pro in no time.

• Microsoft Word and Open Office

  As much as I hate adding this, I have to.  Microsoft is the default editor for for anyone writing anything.  Both export directly to PDF too.

• Adobe or Gimp

  Being that we’re human beings and we like to look at stuff rather than just read, you’re going to need to do some graphic work in order to sell much of anything.  If you aren’t familiar with Adobe Photoshop, I suggest you start there.  Gimp is the free, open source version and does a lot of graphic type work very well!

• Articulate

  If you plan on teaching anything, this software is what you want to do it in.  Articulate is by far my favorite e-learning software suite for making dramatic, fluid presentations.  You can teach people anything, voice over and narrate a powerpoint, or build quizzes.

There are other tools and software applications out there that do some of the tasks that these do, but none are more complete.  I would hate to see you buy a screen recording application and realize it didn’t do what you needed it to.

If you know of any others, please feel free to let me know if the comments!  I love trying new tools, especially if they help me make money..

JD

How To Pick A Bulletproof Niche [Informational Product Series]

Informational products have been making millions for years now.  Think about it - create something once and live off of it forever.  Provide some updates and you’re golden!

I don’t mean for it to sound like it’s easy.  It’s not.  You have to pick a niche, be an expert, package it, promote it and support it.  It does take time.  But seriously…. a 9 to 5 desk job or build a product that helps people out with a problem and answer to no one about your status reports again!!

How To Pick The Niche For Your Informational Product

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you don’t have a niche, you don’t have a target market.  If you don’t have a target market you’re not going to be selling much of anything.

Before we get to that, I want you to answer one question:

What are you good at?  What do you like to do?  What are you passionate about?

Alright, that was three.

But seriously, what do you do for a living?  Are you a consultant?  An investor?  A marketer?  A graphic designer?  What do people ask you to help them with?  What problems have you helped overcome in the last 3 months at work?

I guarantee if one person has a problem that you helped solve, thousands around the world have the same problem.

Think about it…

Finding A Great Product In Everyday Problems

A client of mine once came to me and asked what they should do in terms of venturing off on there own.  She was a college professor teaching Strategic Planning to kids between the ages of 18 and 23.  She did a fair amount of client type work in our local area.  She had a great following and was extremely professional.  She couldn’t sit down long enough to type a paragraph, but we’ll get to that.

So, I asked her what problems she helped her clients with in the past few months.  Her reply, “I helped two small boutique retailers rearrange their stores.”  Then I asked her what kind of results her clients got?  “They doubled their sales in both cases,” she replied.

After about two weeks, we sat down with a microphone and a laptop and recorded 3 hours of audio - question and answer style.  It really was great stuff.  She had a copy of the questions I was going to ask her and she plotted out her answers on tape.

After that, I sent the recording off to a transcription service and got the whole thing transcribed for around $50!  I zipped it up into a pdf, put some nice graphic treatment on it and built a little site around it!

She averages $108 profit per day with that product!

$108 isn’t going to make you a millionaire by itself.  It will provide some much needed cushion in your daily spending, though.  That’s an extra $3000 a month with something that you don’t have to invest time into ever again!

So what are you good at?  What do you do everyday?  What segment of people can you make a product for?

Let me know your thoughts!  Send me an email or leave a comment and I’ll help you flesh something out… 

The next article is going to cover the delivery method including links to free and low cost software that’ll help you record and save your content!

JD

5 Easy Steps To Building Great Informational Products [Series Opener]

Informational products are sensational, especially with the adoption of the Internet.  All it takes is a skill or passion, some time to sit down and write (or build), and some basic web design skills…

In Startup Tools, we cover informational products in detail - complete from the brainstorming process to putting the final touches on the website. 

Here on JDsBlog, I wanted to take the next 5 posts and share some important information with you in regards to the thought process behind the product itself.

The secret is to test before you launch.  Start selling the product before you invest any time in it!

Test your market to figure out how well it’ll sell and see if it’s worth your time to build it!

The next 5 posts are going to be related to informational products that you can sell on your blog our your website…  Make sure you grab the RSS feed to keep up with the content!

How Social Media Can Land The Job Of Your Dreams

Problogger has a great interview up about the website Twitter Should Hire Me.  The founder has an interesting perspective on how you can find a great job through social media!

What advice would you give to people trying to get a job in social media?

If you want a job in social media, prove you can utilize social media without a paycheck. I recently was just asked to be a social media marketer for a company because I had spent the month I was unemployed building my own brand online. I didn’t wait for a company to give me a chance to prove I was successful within social media; I took it upon myself to let my actions speak louder than my words. If you can’t build your own brand (your blog or your Twitter, etc), then you can’t be successful in social media. And, companies will hire the person that has proven to understand social media, rather than the person who says they do.

Admittedly, the story of the website is a bit intriguing.  But Jamie Varon, the site’s owner, used her time away from employment to build her brand.  Now she has three job offers on the table!

I am curious…  Have any of you ever found employment or freelance work through social media?  One of my friend’s only marketing stream is Twitter, and he’s doing very, very well!

JD