Creating your first product doesn’t have to be hard. I’m sure all the talk about upselling, down selling, cross-selling, sales pages and shopping cart software is overwhelming. But you can get started right now without worrying about all that.
For now, don’t worry about fancy sales letters, upsells, affiliate programs and the like and just get your first product up and launched. Remember that what you set up today can always be improved later. The important thing is to get it done.
Create a Product
First, create the product that you want to sell. As we discussed earlier, it’s faster if you use content you already have. So go ahead and combine five to ten blog posts into one document, add an introduction, a conclusion, some images, a checklist or cheat sheet to make a complete product and then turn it into a PDF file. Use a copy of your product cover as a marketing image.
Marketing Your Product
Next write a blog post about your product and create a call to action within the post. Make it short and sweet. Simply tell them the benefits of getting this product and give them the link (or Buy Button) so they can purchase it.
You can use PayPal to create a buy button. Just go through the steps in the order that PayPal provides you. At some point, it will ask you for the download page that you want to insert. You can either make a real download page or provide the link that goes right to the file that you’ve uploaded to your server.
Making a Download Page
Even though you can sell your product without a download page, it’s helpful to create one because some people get confused easily and besides, it’s extra real-estate that you can use to add an upsell later if you want to. You don’t have to do that right now though. Just add some text, thanking them for the purchase and give them instructions to click the link in order to download the file.
Promote by Email
Send out an email to your list about your new product. Also share the blog post with your social media platforms, and with your friends, colleagues, and family. As you make your first sales, follow up with the buyers to find out what they thought of your information product. This is a way to get testimonials and reviews (or feedback on how to improve your next product).
Information product creation and sales don’t have to be hard. You really don’t need all the bells and whistles to get started. If you don’t have a product yet, start now. Don’t let feelings of overwhelm keep you from taking action. Remember, you can always improve later.
Moving Forward: Planning Your Content & Product Launches
The easiest and fastest way to create products and content is to do it at the same time. If you plan out what you want to create for your audience in advance you can create a little bit of content at a time, and then combine it to easily create an information product. That’s one way to maximize your time when it comes to creating content.
Know Your Audience
You know the drill. Find out what issues your audience is dealing with and think about what products you can create to help them. Make a list of their pain points and use them as reference when you’re looking for product ideas.
Understand Your Expertise
Match your audience’s pain points with your expertise. To start, pick one topic to focus on to create content that will start as blog posts, email marketing messages, social media updates that will eventually become a product.
Determine the Product You Want to Create
After you’ve chosen the topic, decide what type of product you want to create. Determine what the purpose of the product will be. Then create an outline for it based on it’s purpose.
For Example, Your blog is about German shepard dogs
Audience Problem: Training German shepard dogs to accept a new infant into the family
Goal: Teach German shepard dog owners who are expecting a new baby, the best way to introduce the infant to the family pet.
Format: eBook
Take this information and plan out 7 to 10 blog posts. Create a series to answer all the questions that your readers may have about safely introducing the dog and the infant to each other so that the dog doesn’t get jealous or feel threatened and also, that the baby won’t be in any sort of danger.
Develop the Blog Content
Create a title for each blog post based on the outline you made for your eBook. Then come up with some key points that you want to cover in each post. Create your posts, keeping each one around 600 to 750 words long. Publish one blog post each week.
Develop Content Surrounding the Product
In addition to blog posts, create content for emails to your subscribers, and social media updates. Email content and social media updates should link to and lead directly back to your website and your blog posts.
Using your outline, create a sales page as well as a download page so that you can promote the product when it’s done.
Create Content Upgrades for List-Building
As you’re creating the blog content consider how you can make that content worth more using content upgrades. A content upgrade is additional content that can’t be accessed by readers unless they provide their email address. An example of a content upgrade is a checklist, cheat sheet or other content that works directly with the original blog content.
Combine Content for the Product
After you’ve created the final blog post in the series, you can combine all the posts into one document. Add an intro and a conclusion. Include all the content upgrades as well.
This process of combining blogging, email marketing, and social media marketing is the quickest way to create your marketing content and info products. Using this method, you’ll have the product finished within 7 to 10 weeks, depending on how many blog posts are in the series.
This article was taken from my 38-page guide, “Unleash Your Content Creation Potential: Streamline Your Process, Save Time, and Maximize Results.” If you found it helpful, you may want to purchase it in its entirety at Unleash Your Content Creation Potential.
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