Information Marketing
Information marketing is, in my opinion, one of the best, most exciting, most profitable businesses you can run. An information marketing business sells products (books, courses, booklets, manuals, DVD’s, CD’s, seminars, workshops, coaching, etc.) to a specific niche market (i.e. opportunity seekers, gardeners, business owners, hobbyists, etc.).
There are many, many benefits to running an information marketing company. First are the high profit margins of information products. Most info-marketers mark-up their products 8 to 10 times. If a book and 6 audio CD’s cost $30 to print and duplicate, the marketer will normally sell it for $250 to $300. Because people value the INFORMATION inside an info-product and not the value of how it’s delivered, it’s easy to sell low-cost info-products for very high dollar amounts. And if you deliver high-quality information, your customer won’t argue with the fact that the info-product was relatively cheap to produce.
Another benefit is the fact that information is easy to ship. It’s easy to box and mail, around the country or around the world. Online, it’s even easier. You can create and sell an info product that the customer downloads directly from your website so there’s no printing or shipping costs for you. One of my Internet websites, at www.inforiches.com, sells a book that I wrote years ago called The Ultimate Million Dollar Idea Generator. When someone purchases that book, money is deposited into my account instantly and the customer is taken to a webpage where they can download the e-book. I never have to stock or ship the product. This has been a great extra income stream for my business.
Most of my marketing friends are information marketers. Many of them are millionaires or multi-millionaires. Why? It’s because the demand for quality information in a variety of areas is at an all-time high. We’re smack-dab in the middle of the “Information Age” and the demand for information doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
For example, let’s take infomercials. At the time I’m writing this book there are a number of info-products being sold on television. Carlton Sheets is selling his “No Money Down” course on how to get rich in Real Estate. Russ Whitney, John Beck, and Ron LeGrand are also selling real estate info-products on TV. There’s a guy selling a course on how to make money on eBay. And another guy, Jeff Paul, showing people how to make money by... guess what... SELLING INFORMATION PRODUCTS!
There are other marketers selling information products on the Internet and by mail.
Yanik Silver makes millions of dollars every year showing people how to get rich on the Internet. John Reese, another Internet marketing expert, made over $1 million dollars in just ONE DAY, selling a $1,000 info-course on how to get traffic to your website.
Sydney Johnston sells information on how to make money on eBay – and pulls in money daily from her website business.
John Lyons sells information on how to train horses – and has become one of the most highly respected horse training experts in his field.
Adam Katz sells information on how to train your dog. He’s been doing this for years – and pulls in a considerable amount of cash from dog owners every single year.
Joe Polish sells information to carpet cleaners that teaches them how to generate more money through smart marketing. He’s made millions of dollars – and continues to pull in money hand-over-fist. In fact, he currently sells a carpet cleaning coaching program that costs about $10,000.00 a year – and it’s very popular!
Dan Kennedy sells information to direct response marketers that shows them how to be more effective and make more money. Dan has not only made millions himself, but many of his students are also multi-millionaires in the information marketing field. One such success story is Jeff Paul, a struggling financial planner who went from living in the basement of his relative’s home – to making $200,000 a month in his own info-publishing business. Today, he’s a multimillionaire... having even sold his info-products on home-shopping powerhouse, QVC!
Jerry Baker sells information to gardeners on how to create and keep a beautiful garden. His information empire pulls in money for him like steel to a magnet.
And these are just a few “Success Stories” of people getting very wealthy selling indemand information products. The information marketing is huge – and growing by leaps and bounds. We’re in the middle of the information age – and people are willing to spend big bucks for the right information. In this section, I’ll reveal secrets that will help you create your own information marketing business.
Information Marketing Secret #1:
You do not want to sell bookstore books.
To make any decent money selling information products, you must sell larger info-products, like courses, toolkits, audio CD or DVD sets. There is really very little, if any, money in creating a book for a bookstore. Unless you’re the next Stephen King, your chances of becoming a multimillion dollar author with mass-market books is pretty unlikely. Your best opportunity for success in selling information products is to create higher-end products ($250 to $500 courses or $500 to $1,000 CD or DVD packages) and sell them to a niche market. Joe Polish has made millions of dollars selling an expensive, high-dollar course to carpet cleaners teaching them how to effectively market their services and generate more income. Chauncey Hutter has made millions of dollars selling a high-dollar course teaching “Mom and Pop” tax preparers how to create more revenue. If you’re going to sell information products, you want to keep away from the $15 to $20 books (unless that’s your front-end product – that leads them to buying your larger, high-dollar back-end product) and focus primarily on more expensive information products.
You do not want to sell bookstore books.
To make any decent money selling information products, you must sell larger info-products, like courses, toolkits, audio CD or DVD sets. There is really very little, if any, money in creating a book for a bookstore. Unless you’re the next Stephen King, your chances of becoming a multimillion dollar author with mass-market books is pretty unlikely. Your best opportunity for success in selling information products is to create higher-end products ($250 to $500 courses or $500 to $1,000 CD or DVD packages) and sell them to a niche market. Joe Polish has made millions of dollars selling an expensive, high-dollar course to carpet cleaners teaching them how to effectively market their services and generate more income. Chauncey Hutter has made millions of dollars selling a high-dollar course teaching “Mom and Pop” tax preparers how to create more revenue. If you’re going to sell information products, you want to keep away from the $15 to $20 books (unless that’s your front-end product – that leads them to buying your larger, high-dollar back-end product) and focus primarily on more expensive information products.
IMPORTANT NOTE: $15 to $20 books are normally “loss leaders” that can be used to pull people into your marketing funnel. They’re tools to draw people into your business – so you can then sell them higher-priced products. Bookstore books can also be used as another way to generate free leads that you can then
convert to higher-dollar buyers. Dan Kennedy, for example, has marketing books in all of the major bookstores. However, Dan uses them as a way to create an initial bond with his readers and gets them to take action and purchase more expensive information products directly from him. They’re not a major income stream but simply a tool to drive new prospects into his marketing funnel.
convert to higher-dollar buyers. Dan Kennedy, for example, has marketing books in all of the major bookstores. However, Dan uses them as a way to create an initial bond with his readers and gets them to take action and purchase more expensive information products directly from him. They’re not a major income stream but simply a tool to drive new prospects into his marketing funnel.
Information Marketing Secret #2:
You DO NOT have to create the information product yourself.
Often the reason people don’t get involved in the highly lucrative information marketing business is that they don’t think they’re an expert in anything, so they have nothing to write about. The biggest myth in the information marketing business is that you have to be an expert in a field and write the product yourself. You don’t. In fact, I’m part of a group called the $100 Million Dollar Roundtable. It’s a group of about 10 marketers who have collectively generated over $100 million dollars in sales. Every week we do a teleconference and interview other experts and record the calls. Currently we’re interviewing real estate experts. At the end of our recordings (which take a few weeks), we’ll have 8 to 12 audio recordings of our group interviewing experts in real estate. We’ll have a completed audio product (with printed transcripts) that we can easily sell for $500 to $1,000. And none of us in the group have to be experts in real estate. We simply find the experts, ask for just one hour of their time for an interview, and, like magic, we have a product.
You DO NOT have to create the information product yourself.
Often the reason people don’t get involved in the highly lucrative information marketing business is that they don’t think they’re an expert in anything, so they have nothing to write about. The biggest myth in the information marketing business is that you have to be an expert in a field and write the product yourself. You don’t. In fact, I’m part of a group called the $100 Million Dollar Roundtable. It’s a group of about 10 marketers who have collectively generated over $100 million dollars in sales. Every week we do a teleconference and interview other experts and record the calls. Currently we’re interviewing real estate experts. At the end of our recordings (which take a few weeks), we’ll have 8 to 12 audio recordings of our group interviewing experts in real estate. We’ll have a completed audio product (with printed transcripts) that we can easily sell for $500 to $1,000. And none of us in the group have to be experts in real estate. We simply find the experts, ask for just one hour of their time for an interview, and, like magic, we have a product.
You can do the same thing. Find an expert, interview them by phone, and record the interview. With a cheap tape recorder, a connector that attaches your phone to your recorder, and some blank tapes, you can start creating products in no time flat. (NOTE: While some experts will let you interview them out of ego alone [Yes, we all want to feel important], other experts will only do the interview if you allow them to talk about their products toward the end of the interview and give their contact information. Since this information is usually provided within the last 5 minutes of your interview, it doesn’t distract from the quality of the overall discussion.
It’s a small gesture to get a valuable product created that you can sell for years and years to come. Ultimately, it’s a win-win situation for both yourself and the expert you’re interviewing. Another way to get instant products is to purchase the reprint or resale rights for existing products. I personally like this method of getting new products because reprint and resale right products normally come with proven sales materials. Instead of having to write your own (or hire someone to write a letter for you), you can get a ready-to-go, tested and proven sales letter that works. The only challenge with purchasing reprint and resale rights to a product is that they can be expensive. Some companies charge as much as $10,000 for the license to their products. However, if you have a clear idea of how a particular product will be used in your business and
you know it will generate more income than the cost of the license, it may be a good investment.
you know it will generate more income than the cost of the license, it may be a good investment.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I cover the “secrets” behind reprint rights later on in this book. Please read it carefully before purchasing any reprint rights.
Information Marketing Secret #3:
There’s a simple system to making money by selling information.
I described it in detail in the section on mail order marketing, but it’s so important I’m going to cover it again here. Imagine a funnel. It’s wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Your information marketing business is like this funnel. You fill up your funnel with prospects by offering lowcost (or even free) products or services. A booklet, a trial subscription, a 10-minute coaching call, whatever. You offer this low-cost or free “front-end” product or service to get as many interested prospects into your marketing funnel as possible. Then, your business “sifts and sorts” your prospects – as you offer them more products.
There’s a simple system to making money by selling information.
I described it in detail in the section on mail order marketing, but it’s so important I’m going to cover it again here. Imagine a funnel. It’s wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Your information marketing business is like this funnel. You fill up your funnel with prospects by offering lowcost (or even free) products or services. A booklet, a trial subscription, a 10-minute coaching call, whatever. You offer this low-cost or free “front-end” product or service to get as many interested prospects into your marketing funnel as possible. Then, your business “sifts and sorts” your prospects – as you offer them more products.
For example, as you go back to your mailing list with higher-priced offers you’ll find that fewer people will buy them. The people who DO buy them are your higher-quality customers. Let’s say that you fill your funnel with 1,000 people by offering a free report. Then, when you go back to your prospects with a $250 offer, only 250 of those people make the purchase. You’ve just “sifted out” your best prospects – and made $62,500. Now let’s say that you go back to the 250 people who bought your $250 offer and you make them an offer for a $1,000 live seminar. This time only 75 people buy. These 75 people are now even better customers and you’ve generated $75,000. Go back to those 75 people with a $2,500 offer (maybe 6 months of personal coaching) and you may find only 25 people take you up on your offer. Now, at the BOTTOM of your funnel, you have the best-of-the-best customers – and you’ve made an additional $62,500.
You started with 1,000 people at the TOP of your funnel, sifted and sorted them with various offers, and at the BOTTOM of your funnel you have 25 amazing customers and you’ve made a total of $200,000.00 in gross sales. Now you simply keep the process going. You continue “pouring” people into the top of your funnel, understanding that only a certain percentage will buy each additional product from you until only the best customers reach the bottom of your funnel and buy your most expensive product. These customers will normally buy anything and everything from you as long as you continue to deliver value.
Marketers like Dan Kennedy, who have an incredibly loyal following, have customers who have been with him for years and years and buy everything he produces. At a recent seminar he mentioned that he has a few customers who have asked him to keep their credit cards on file and anytime he comes out with a new product, he has permission to charge their card automatically and send the product to them, sight unseen. Now those are LOYAL customers!
ADVANCED MARKETING SECRET:
In the marketing funnel example explained in the previous section, you “poured” 1,000 people into your business and by offering them 3 individual products you generated $200,000.00 in sales. Obviously, with these numbers, you’ll want to continue pouring people into your marketing funnel non-stop. After all, just 5,000 prospects in this example would equal $1 million in total sales.
In the marketing funnel example explained in the previous section, you “poured” 1,000 people into your business and by offering them 3 individual products you generated $200,000.00 in sales. Obviously, with these numbers, you’ll want to continue pouring people into your marketing funnel non-stop. After all, just 5,000 prospects in this example would equal $1 million in total sales.
However, there’s another lesson to be learned here that I discovered from the guy I call the “$100 Million Dollar Man”, T.J. Rohleder. Let’s do some simple math and divide the amount of gross sales from our example by the number of prospects. So we divide $200,000 by 1,000 – and come up with $200. Basically, on average, each new prospect is worth roughly $200. (Of course, this is a very basic example, because it doesn’t take into account any additional marketing or fulfillment costs. But for the sake of getting the basic concept across, let’s forget these additional expenses). If the overall value of each new customer is $200 from your first 3 sales, HOW MUCH MONEY are you willing to spend to get ONE NEW PROSPECT???
Many marketers make the mistake of going cheap and trying to get prospects with little or no investment. They end up shooting themselves in the foot, because they end up with very few new prospects. If you know over time that the average value of a prospect is consistently $200, you can easily spend $50, $100, even $200 to get a NEW PROSPECT! (Yes, you can spend ALL of the profit IF you plan on selling them additional items while they’re on your mailing list). If you accept this idea, you can NOW do marketing that other marketers simply won’t do.
Imagine being able to send a special letter OVERNIGHT FEDEX! Attaching a $10, $20, even $50 bill to a letter! Sending an Audio CD... or a DVD... or a set of them... to grab the customer’s attention. In the late 1980’s, I knew of a company that sent out a HUGE Information Package to all prospects, with over 6 HOURS of audio recordings. The packages must have easily cost $10 to $15 each to send. But they were selling a very high-end package. So they knew the numbers and realized they could spend A LOT OF MONEY on prospects to create a new customer. If YOU know your numbers and you think this way, you can do a lot of marketing that your competition doesn’t realize it can do.
Information Marketing Secret #4:
Continuity Profits must be a component of your business.In just the last 10 years or so information marketers have discovered the importance of creating a continuity income in their businesses. A “continuity” product (or service) is something that you’re billed for on a regular basis, usually monthly or quarterly. For example, some newsletter subscriptions charge you every month. On the Internet, autoresponder services and website hosting services are normally charged every single month. These products and services are known as “continuity” offers.
Continuity Profits must be a component of your business.In just the last 10 years or so information marketers have discovered the importance of creating a continuity income in their businesses. A “continuity” product (or service) is something that you’re billed for on a regular basis, usually monthly or quarterly. For example, some newsletter subscriptions charge you every month. On the Internet, autoresponder services and website hosting services are normally charged every single month. These products and services are known as “continuity” offers.
Creating continuity products and services for your information marketing business is incredibly important because it becomes an automatic cash flow for your business. In the past, before continuity, information marketers relied on having to sell and re-sell to their customers again and again while incurring large marketing expenses to do so. Today, with continuity offers, information marketers can sell their customers one time and get paid for a product or service every single month for years. If you plan on selling information, it’s important that you look into creating and promoting continuity products.
Information Marketing Secret #5:Create multiple income streams.
A table with one leg won’t stand up. A table with two legs will wobble and fall over. A table with three legs is sturdier and can stand up if the legs are positioned correctly. A table with four legs is strong. (And, continuing this analogy, a table with 20 legs can hold many times its own weight). In the information marketing business, the products and services you sell are like legs on a table. If you’re selling just one product, your business is weak. For example, when 900 numbers were big back in the early 90’s a lot of companies made millions of dollars selling books and courses on how to cash in on this new technology. However, very quickly, the 900 boom turned into a bust and people quickly moved out of that industry. If you were an information marketer ONLY selling info-products on how to get rich with 900 numbers, your business would have taken a very steep nosedive. Smarter information marketers don’t build their businesses around one product. They create many, many products and services to sell to their customers. This way if any product becomes obsolete the business is still strong.
A table with one leg won’t stand up. A table with two legs will wobble and fall over. A table with three legs is sturdier and can stand up if the legs are positioned correctly. A table with four legs is strong. (And, continuing this analogy, a table with 20 legs can hold many times its own weight). In the information marketing business, the products and services you sell are like legs on a table. If you’re selling just one product, your business is weak. For example, when 900 numbers were big back in the early 90’s a lot of companies made millions of dollars selling books and courses on how to cash in on this new technology. However, very quickly, the 900 boom turned into a bust and people quickly moved out of that industry. If you were an information marketer ONLY selling info-products on how to get rich with 900 numbers, your business would have taken a very steep nosedive. Smarter information marketers don’t build their businesses around one product. They create many, many products and services to sell to their customers. This way if any product becomes obsolete the business is still strong.
When creating your information marketing business, it’s smart to build a wide variety of income streams into your company. For example, let’s say that you’re selling information products on how to make money on the Internet. You can have books and courses on how to do just that. You can interview experts on Internet marketing and sell the recorded interviews on audio CD. You can do joint ventures with other companies on the Internet and sell website hosting, website design services, autoresponders, software, and merchant accounts. You can create 20, 50, even 100 different streams of income, all pulling cash into your business. And the more income streams you have, the stronger your business will be. If anything happens to an income stream you’re still generating cash and can replace the missing income stream with something else without too much stress or worry.
Information Marketing Secret #6:
Many experts make MORE MONEY selling information ABOUT how they make money than using their actual secrets.
Let me ask you a question: If you were making $10 million dollars a year buying and selling real estate but only $100,000 a year selling info-products, on which would you focus more time and energy? Buying and selling real estate, right? Have you ever wondered why people like Carlton Sheets, Ron LeGrand, Russ Whitney, and others who sell real estate information products are selling their secrets instead of keeping their secrets to themselves and making millions in real estate?
Many experts make MORE MONEY selling information ABOUT how they make money than using their actual secrets.
Let me ask you a question: If you were making $10 million dollars a year buying and selling real estate but only $100,000 a year selling info-products, on which would you focus more time and energy? Buying and selling real estate, right? Have you ever wondered why people like Carlton Sheets, Ron LeGrand, Russ Whitney, and others who sell real estate information products are selling their secrets instead of keeping their secrets to themselves and making millions in real estate?
Here’s the Truth: Selling information CAN be MORE PROFITABLE than actually DOING the thing you’re teaching people how to do. For example, there’s a very, VERY popular internationally respected author with a line of very popular investment books that tells his readers that THE NUMBER ONE WAY to make money is in real estate. His very first book, a best seller, focused on how he learned to get rich in real estate. Now, is that true? Absolutely.
You can make a lot of money in real estate. People have done it, are doing it, and will do it in the future. However, this author told a journalist recently that he makes THE MOST MONEY selling his books, tapes, and seminars RATHER THAN WITH REAL ESTATE! He’s getting rich selling information on HOW to make money in real estate! So “information marketing” wins again!
My advice is this: DO what the millionaires DO, not what they say. I’m not saying that you should discount what they say. Many of these information marketers are experts in their fields, and they have made a lot of money with the ideas that they’re sharing, whether it is real estate, the Internet, or starting a business. However, many of them are making even MORE MONEY selling their secrets through books, courses, manuals, and live seminars! Often it’s MORE PROFITABLE to sell information than DOING the thing you’re teaching people about in your info-product. (Of course if you can do both, you’ll really be “in the money”!)
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