This is part one of a series on how to create an information product, written from guest writer Leevi. If you’re thinking selling a digital product online is a good choice for you, settle in and enjoy this series. — Yaro
This series on creating your own information product will start with addressing a vital starting point with product creation: creating a product that will sell.
In other words, creating a product that has a hungry audience.
You can have the best quality information product in the world, but if you are the only one interested in “Advanced Cardio Training for Mexican Walking Fish” then your product won’t sell.
Therefore, we will kick off this series with niche identification.
“Spend 10% of time on product creation and 90% of time on marketing the product” – Dan Kennedy marketing legend.
Part of marketing is market research or niche identification. If you do the hard work now and find that audience ready and willing to buy, then when it actually comes to marketing the product it will be so much easier.
Your job is to get in front and lead a crowd of people who are already marching, not to get a crowd of people to start marching.
So how do I find a hungry market?
You can start first by understanding the psychology of why people buy.
Here are things you can sell in order of effectiveness.
- PAIN (or relief of pain)
- PROBLEM (solution to a problem)
- PLEASURE (delivery of pleasure)
- PREVENTION
Prevention is the hardest one of those to promote. Hardly anyone wants to hand over money to present something. It has been said people will not pay a dime for prevention, but when something is broken they will pay the world to fix it. If I was you I would stay away from creating a prevention product and just concentrate on the first two.
The Thing About Niches
I think, unfortunately, the term niche is sometimes mistaken as some obscure small sect of people and a market that has no competition. If you can find that, that is great, but remember competition is healthy and validates a market. If there is no competition you have to ask yourself, “Have I really found a gold mine or is there a reason no one has tapped into this market?”. Usually there is a reason and it is because no one is buying.
Wikepedia defines a niche market as:
“A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs.”
That last part is crucial. The market defines the product features. This is key and where a lot of people drop the ball. This applies to affiliate marketing as well. You see it’s not so much about the product as finding the hungry market.
We could take a normal fitness product aimed at using body exercises to get in shape and split the demographic into male and female. For examples sake we choose males. Males interested in getting in shape. Who are busy and don’t have time for a gym membership (new parent, busy with work, work shift work) or don’t want to pay for a gym membership.
The product hasn’t changed but the audience I am targeting and speaking to has. Now I become the expert on helping new male parents who are busy with work and parenting, but want to get in shape or maintain their fitness. All my marketing and prospect material is aimed at establishing solid relationships by delivering awesome value to this niche. I build trust and credibility by helping them along their journey to get fit without a gym membership while having a busy schedule. And along the way it just so happens that I highly recommend “product xyz” to do so. It could be my own fitness product or somebody else’s.
See how this reverse engineering works?
The Fatal Flaw I Work With
Commonly people seek my marketing consulting one step too late – they already have their product. So many people are product focused when they don’t even have a market to sell to or know who they are selling to.
When I ask why they are selling this product or how they came up with the idea, these are the common responses I get
“I had a great idea”, “I think it would be really good” or “I am really interested in this topic”.
See a pattern here?
Selling an information product is not about what YOU want, like or need. It is about providing a solution to a market with a want, like or need. I have spoken previously about removing your ego from the marketing process. It is not about you – it is about your market and prospects and satisfying what they want.
The Top 3 Mega Niches
I spoke previously about finding a crowd that is already marching and just get in front of them. Here are the three mega niches that are already marching:
- Health and fitness
- Make money or business
- Relationships and personal development
Now these are the larger niches, I strongly recommend you dig down deeper within these niches to find the “who” that you will be targeting with your product.
Next week I will talk more about picking a niche and I will address the most common question that faces information product creators.
Click here to read part two of this series.
Leevi
Really interesting article.
I guess you can turn a prevention (or pleasure) into a pain, by reframing it too?
Lots of food for thought for my ebook ideas!
Hi Suz,
Great point about the reframing.
The classic example of “save your marriage” vs “stop a divorce”. The latter, with more pain, is proven to win out.
Leevi
I agree that the three niches you have mentioned are most sought after, but I also feel that it is important to find a sub-niche and channel your energies towards that. But as you say, it is very important to identify if that sub niche has enough foot prints so that tomorrow one can develop and promote an actual product in that niche.
Can’t agree more on that 10 % product creation and 90% marketing strategy.
Hi Raj,
Yes as you mentioned those are 3 big niches and you should dig down within those niches.
Leevi
Thanks Leevi,
You make a good point that it’s about what – They – want, for example on one of my other Blogs (my Writing Blog) – I – thought that bright orange would be a fresh color for a Writing Blog, only in Forums I got several complaints about my blog being to bright and to uneasy on the eyes, so now I made the blog easier on the eyes with more ‘Pastel’-like colors. And last monday I already had more daily visitors than usual.
An other thing that I think can also be helpful for selling is to look at your product from a broader perspective by looking at it as – an Offer – for example besides a – Main product – also put in some other aditional products as Bonusses combined with for example some extra aditional services and with for example a money back guarantee etc. etc. all included in one giant (for your niche)
irrisistable Offer.
For example on my – Home Business Lifestyle – Blog, for selling an interesting Report about How you can use Free Video’s for Getting More Traffic, I also included a little ebook of mine that ‘Traffic Wanters’ get as a bonus for free. Because – I – thought that it would be nice to get an ebook for free that normaly isn’t for free. (only they probably don’t care that much about it because I can’t say that I already have seen a massive run to my offer yet) So possibly I need to be on the look out for a possible bonus that is more directly related to getting traffic.
(Btw. talking about ‘Traffic Wanters’, when you happen to be one you know where to go and when you don’t want to you don’t need to download the bonus(es)
when you don’t like to :))
The only issue I had with this is the percentages. The 10% effort of most people wouldnt be worth much. If it’s not worth much it’s shameful to put it out there, that’s how the internet is littered with crap.
Hi Lucy,
It is not 10% effort.
It is 10% of the time. Simply meaning out of the whole product creation, marketing and selling of the product you should devote much more time to marketing it.
It is by no means stating that you make crap products. And I want to clarify that. I DO NOT ever recommend you make bad or sub par products.
I merely recommend you are smart about where you devote your time with regards to your product.
Lots of great info on here. You are the man!
I quote
““Spend 10% of time on product creation and 90% of time on marketing the product” – Dan Kennedy marketing legend.”
I totally agree… Many ideas are lost because they do not know
how to market or have a conversation.
If you know marketing you have a great probability of success.
Great post by the way….
There is an old saying along the lines of the fact that the product graveyard is filled with many great products with poor marketing.
Hey Leevi,
Great tips here on product creation and more importantly marketing them. It really is important that we listen to our readers wants and needs when it comes to product creation.
Great tips…. I just start to make my own ebook. It’s about healthiness product. Thanks for the inspiration
I think the true key is finding out the psychology of why people buy things… then you can sell anything!
Great post, it’s so important to find the right market. Just like content is king and marketing the queen.
Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing it Leevi. I enjoyed reading it.
It sounds quite easy but its actually very difficult to create a product that can be easily sold to others. Thanks for sharing the details and the tips that can be really very helpful for us in this cause.
I Love this blog every time I visit another very informative post to read and learn from, be it from Yaro or one of the guessed writers, there is so much content to learn from.
Hi Leevi,
Regarding your text “Creating a product that will sell.”
During the 90’s did I own 4 successful boutiques for girls in Sweden and my proverb was: We do not follow the fashion,-we must lead the fashion.
Its means;
“You do not follow the market. You must lead the market and success will eventually come.”
Just found this blog! finding the correct niche is much tougher than I had originally thought (2 years ago) 🙂 Any hints are so appreciated!
Hey Leevi, thanks for the nice tips. I will try to add something on top of it – Creating USP. I meant Unique selling point. Even if we are able to find a good niche and create a good product, if someone could replicate it tomorrow, i think we may not go anywhere right. Today the first point is even a problem. Every market is crowded and finding a very marketable niche is rare.
Even if we find one, the USP factor of the product will sell for itself. Just my 2 cents.
You make great points Leevi. I’m working on my first product and I have to remind myself that I’m doing it for the people, so I have to cater to their needs/wants. Also the marketing point is huge. You can have a great product but how great is it if nobody knows about it?
Briana, it is really nice to hear that you are creating a product for people. Very few people see the core value. All the best for your project.
This is somewhat related to Neroli’s post. One must focus on creating a product from the mind that will hit the consumers’ mind.
Right Golden boy. I think one has to first take a market problem, then analyze customer pain and then come up with solutions that can be a hit.
Now there is some good advice although most people probably realize it but tends to ignore it: spend 10% of your time creating a product and spend 90% of your time on actually promoting it.
I think most people are a bit nervous when it comes to the promoting part . . . People like me.
First off I would like to say terrific blog! I had a quick question which I’d like to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your head prior to writing. I’ve had a hard time clearing my mind in getting my ideas out there. I do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes tend to be wasted just trying to figure out how to begin. Any ideas or tips? Thank you!
Hi Sherill,
I think this is something a lot of people struggle with.
Minimize distractions, set a time limit and have a clear objective before you begin.
I usually set my writing ideas or tasks out the night before. So I am clear and ready about what I have to accomplish.
I do most of my writing in the morning, when I am fresh and alert. I set a time limit on the amount of time a piece should take and time limits on periods to write for so I have adequate rest.
No internet surfing (unless specific to article research) and no email, facebook, twitter, etc. Focus on the task at hand and get it done.
Hope that helps.
Leevi
The best niche to pick is still health but that is not what I am interested or believe in. I think creating own product got to be a niche what the creator of the product has been mastered. If you want to make a product of your own to sell you got to be an expert in that field. Or if you have money to invest you can outsource the product creation to freelancers.
Good article Leevi, but how can someone become or sound like an expert on a topic that he/she has no clue about, even if that niche has a lot of hungry audience?
Great information. I always wanted to know more about product creation from someone who would tell it plain and simple. A lot of people make it seem mystical. I also wanted to know about niches and why some people act like they are something that is scientific. I am curious though. I heard you should not enter these 3 niches because there is too much competition. I have heard one or two say that these markets are okay to enter because of all markets have competition. What is your take?
Dear Leevi,
You mentioned that its best to study the market needs and then design a product to suit that needs.
However, i found many successful brand and entrepreneurer start just by the idea of a product ,and wish that this product solve his own problem… from there it became successful.
Example : the Dyson products by Dr Dyson.
Kindly advise your views. Thank you so much
Regards,
Glen Ho
Dear Levi
very inspiring work! Thank you for it. I’d like to follow the link to the “product creation outline” but I only get to an error message: Error establishing a database connection.
Any work around?
Thanks and best wishes
Hi! I was hoping to take a peek at the product creation outline, but it’s not opening properly. Any help would be immensely appreciated!
Thank you 🙂