Information Product from conception to market to profit…and beyond! (18)
Information Product from conception to market to profit…and beyond!
Hey 
So, this is my second one of these, my first was earlier in the year and due to a day job that took over my life, AM fell by the way side. Loads of change then happened at once and I've managed to take redundancy from my job of 11 years and have decided that it’s now or possibly never, 3 months purely dedicated to nothing but what I enjoy…giving AM the time it deserves (along with things that make me tick like running, hours in the kitchen, no alarm clock!). So as of last Friday I left the world of the 9-5, my career of 18 years, any semblance of a safety net, a nice monthly income, car, and this is all down to me to make work and I can’t wait! Nothing planned in my life except AM!
As luck would have it the time away from the grind this week has let me catch up with friends and led me to what I hope is a killer idea for the Information Product world.
Without letting on too much about it, it’s using the knowledge of a friend with 15 years’ experience getting to the upper echelons of his industry and packaging that in what could be a variety of ways i.e. intro ebook, videos, guides, website, forum, building mail list. The only other products I can see that are similar are ones that teach the basics of this industry (some technical skills), but don’t touch on how to make it big, how to go from small/medium to the international level, how to handle yourself in the right way, how to get certain types of work, who to approach and a whole host of other areas that we can get as detailed as we like on.
The kicker in this for me is that the friend already has a huge contact list and tens of thousands of social media followers that we can hit when the time is right.
With all the above making me rather excited at the prospects it holds I’ve decided this will be my only AM focus (although it could contain a fair few AM elements admittedly). I need to understand everything needed for the product at hand and how to package, manage, market and grow it.
The below is going to be my focus for this week:
- Research and collect detailed information about existing products and their contents, number of videos, how do they hook you in, delivery method, price point, subscription method or one off payment, any USP
- Read up as much as possible on the Information Product arena, how do people start, if, how and when do they monetize, what skills I’ll need
- Brainstorm some ideas around the varying product levels we can offer (this will help to see what our initial offer is and what we want to dangle in front of them afterwards)
Already done is a high and medium level breakdown of all the information that can be passed on, this will form the basis of any work we do with the different formats.
Rough plan so far (based on 24 hours of reading so far, so will likely change):
I like the idea of a 20 or so page free ebook/guide that gives an overview of some of the key areas, whets the appetite. Simple LP for name and email, then it gets mailed to them, along with a bit of detail about what is just around the corner. This could go out using social media, and then with the way straight out of the 4HWW book do some AdWords testing with keywords related to the product and direct people to the above LP also. If this shows a decent level (not sure how to define that?) of interest than we’ll go ahead with the basic product.
I won’t list all the questions I have right now as there’s just so, so many! Hopefully the next few days things will start to become clearer around what tech to look into (email management, blogs etc) and also more of an idea of the product (I think there’s enough info for us to have monthly payment, but don’t want to then try and spend ages on content when could do less to start with and build up). There’s so much that can be done with this it’ll be a case of cutting down to basics with a few add-ons and our USP to stand out.
If anyone’s had experience of this kind of thing and has any pointers, links etc then I’m all ears!
Shall keep this updated every few days at the very least, even if it’s just so I can see my own progress and that I’m (hopefully!) not standing still in a wealth of data, links, guides and stuff!
Tim
Not sure where this follow along should've been put, mods feel free to move to where it should be if it's not meant for here!
Do you already have a mailing list? What's your source of traffic?
Originally Posted by thuglife
Traffic wise again starting from scratch here, i'm going to get a blog going for them (presume Wordpress but need to look into this as it's another new one for me). I was thinking first just use his social media to get the link to the LP to people and see how that goes and how many sign up, along with AdWords for some split testing of keywords to see how viable it is. After that it's pretty open really I think, Facebook would be my first choice as we could target to the level we want, but never used that or AdWords so open to suggestions!
Further thought on the testing bit and it seems logical to stay away from anything being sent out too early, so all testing will be adwords or facebook based to begin.
What's your budget for this?
Nothing set in stone, I'm hoping to start it off small and expand as and when we see that there's a definite market. I don't want to wax loads on creation/design etc to find it's not wanted in the quantity we expect.
My recommendation would be to have as many 1-on-1 conversations with your prospects as possible ON THE PHONE OR IN PERSON.
Understand their problems.
Understand what situations they're going for.
Understand what other products they've bought, and how they've failed them.
Buy all those same products yourself.
Putting yourself as deeply in the customers shoes as possible is the only way to create an amazing info-product I believe.
Now, this is going to sound really weird.....
And completely contrary to popular belief.....
But the marketing will take care of itself, if you create a good enough product.
I am a massive follower of Elon Musk, and his 100% focus is on PRODUCT, and VISION.
If you have a better PRODUCT, and a bigger VISION, for your target customer than they can receive elsewhere, then you are going to become a very successful person.
Here are some of my questions for you, if you'd like me to give more detailed feedback:
a) is a 20 page ebook going to deliver to your audience everything they need? Or is it simply a frontend for a larger, fuller solution?
b) are you trying to deliver the bare minimum in terms or product, or are you actually committed to solving this problem for your customer base? Is this a cashgrab? Why are you doing this? Why is solving this problem for people important to you?
c) does the 'buyer audience' have a propensity to download products from torrent sites? If so, are you taking proactive security measures to prevent piracy from happening? (contrary to popular belief, there are lots of ways to do this)
d) Is accountability important to your audience? Do you have a way to deliver that to them?
e) is structure important to your audience? Do you have an innovate way of structuring your course to deliver it to them
f) is a 'community' around your subject matter something that is important to your audience? Do you have a way of fulfilling this need for them?
Personally, for my product, I started with the following configuration:
Frontend
- clickfunnels (optin page, sales page)
- aweber (nurture, and buyer email lists)
- wistia (sales video hosting/analytics)
Backend
- wishlist member (content locking)
- vimeo pro (video hosting)
- zendesk (help desk)
Hope that helps.
Wow, thanks John! So much there to go on. We've been talking to various people already about this to see if it would have helped them when they started out in his field and so far they are saying that it's something they would've checked out (obviously still wary of the fact this isn't a random public sample). The understanding of the market I think we have down pretty well as both have been in or around this field for 15+ years and know people that fit into a variety of categories we'd be aiming at and their struggles, wants and aims.
a) 20 pages would come nowhere near disseminating the information that we have to give out, i was wondering about using that as a 'way in' to grab peoples attention and to get them wanting more. Contrary to this idea though I was on a session the other night around landing pages and a number of people had much higher response rates to a simple page asking for their email with only a tiny bit of product blurb. This was their most effective way over giving out time with a real person on offer to the customer and an ebook that took two weeks to create. Going by the starting small idea using the option of testing the water and seeing the interest before investing more time/money sounds appealing.
b) This is something we see as a long term solution, both for us and our prospective client base. I think there's enough information on this subject that we can give out that lends itself so perfectly to a subscription model (monthly video updates, guest speaker vids, forum etc), we're meeting to discuss the various options later this week as it could be a one off purchase, one off purchase then an optional discounted subscription after etc. I don't want to pump money into a product that doesn't have the market we think it does, so i'm hoping that we can do this and start piecemeal, testing the market, maybe deliver a cut down product for a small price (collection of videos) and that can have the option of a much reduced monthly sub at a later date maybe.
c) They do yes. Product wise this would be video and written content, no app or anything similar, but ending up with a web site that not only has content for them but also a forum and other wrap arounds is an end game i'm picturing. Other sites that do similar are purely streaming video as it stands.
d) Not sure what you mean by this?
e) We're starting to get our ideas into a teachable and structured format, and there will be some road testing of this content via a classroom situation that we're involved with that's coming up soon. Due to the aim of what we're doing it lends itself to an easy structure as it will be walking the person through how to make it to the top in this chosen field.
f) That's a very big part of it for them and a lot of it is based on this, both in their real world experience of it and what we will teach them. With enough people on board for this product then a forum would be ideal.
As this can be a multi-level product that i think lends itself to being built up, would testing the water with a clickfunnel page be a good way to start? I'm already signed up to leadpages, but for what I'd be doing they look pretty similar (open to pointers on this as still in my 30 day money back window!)
One other area I'm not certain on yet is how to define the best way to identify which traffic source to use when we look to test the waters. As everything is new the last thing I want to do is waste time/money on testing in the wrong way if possible.
Cheers for the help on this, much appreciated
Originally Posted by Tim King
The reason why many people justify paying a very large premium for a college education is that they have someone there to make sure they apply the knowledge that they learned.
People want to be held accountable.
Info-products are cheap ($50-$250) for the same reason textbooks are cheap ($100-$250).... there is noone there to ensure that the knowledge has been transferred, or to ask questions to.
Once you add a support, and even better, a knowledgeable instructor/professor, you can immediately justify values of $5000 - $50000.
If you're not figuring out a way to employ some solution there, you are most likely both leaving money on the table, and not serving your customers interests to the fullest extent.
In regards to clickfunnels vs leadpages....whatever, theyre all basically the same stuff im pretty sure.
The best traffic source to test the waters is generally the most targeted traffic source; if you'd like help on this one, you'll have to explain what your course is about....im not looking to steal anybodys ideas, and ideas are lame anyways, the money is in the implementation.
Well, this is quite a beast now that were getting all the detail out on the table in front of us! Going to be spending a few days collating it all and then next week meeting up to go through how it can be split into bite size chunks and then how they roll up into product or product groups and also the markets we can attack with this as there's different ones in the target audience. Not much point going any further with other steps just yet as the type of product and audience will define much of the rest.
While waiting to sit down with my partner on this I'm going to keep buys by up-skilling myself on landing page creation, current level, zero 
Also looking to try a generic split test using Google AdWords just to test the market for some keyword searches.
Good luck with this Tim. As for LP creation to collect email leads, look into using one of the services such as Instapages, Leadpages, Clickfunnels, or any of the other ones out there. Just do the research, decide on one, and get it up as soon as possible! Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect or beautiful the first time around.
Originally Posted by hkz116
Seeing as this product relies heavily on the person with the intimate knowledge of his industry, I'm going to be spending my time doing some 'normal' affiliate bits while he whirs away on his side of the product. The product appeared after my aim to make it in AM, so this just reverts a bit of time back in that direction. So many of the skills are transferable anyway, landing page creation, blogs, tracking that it should all tie in nicely as I progress.
With that in mind I'm looking into offers at the moment, most likely the 'win an iPhone' type, possibly pin submit, as I've got some angles I've not seen elsewhere as of yet and I can rip and edit some LP's to get going next week.
I'd love to focus purely on this product, but as i have no income until I create my own I thought I'd get something going quickly that ideally I can make some profit on in the months ahead. Time wise it shouldn't be a drain as I've got as many hours as I can stay awake for (minus time for weekly TV viewings of stuff like Walking Dead & Manhattan )
I've also decided to start my own blog, will most likely be based around this kind of follow along to start with I think, so mainly copy and pasted to keep the time required really low.
Up tomorrow is more time working on my landing page skills. Aiming to build one from scratch of an existing type just to see how it's done, then tweak and add as needed. This will be key as I don't want to be able to split test like a mofo once I get going!
Not huge amounts going on product wise, spent a bit of time on looking at what offers i'll run for normal AM stuff though.
Done in the last day or so
- Finalised a list of survey questions that will be asked to someone who we thinks matches one of the profiles for our demographic, price, product detail, their own goals etc
- Discussed some possible options to beta test and bring up to 25 people in to give opinions and help us build the right product. Working on whether we do a vague lander with name/email opt-in as a post on social media, or pick the people we know face the issues we want to help with our product. Partner wants to keep it more under wraps, but I think being vague would be fine i.e.
- Do you want to make it further in the industry as a xxxx or xxx?
- Do you want to be involved in an upcoming idea from Paul and his team?
Advantage of that option is it would give us what i think would be a large number of people signed up and our mail list would grow quickly with people that are our target market
Up next
- Partner meets with first survey participant tomorrow
- Meeting on product detail and to review her answers
- Start to firm up how we think the product will be delivered/monetized
- Define high level best/average/worst case scenarios for the product/rollout and what actions we'd take from each
Starting to get to grips with what tech is needed behind the scenes for this kinda thing too, Leadpages, Aweber etc
Starting to realise this product can be as big or as small as we want, so much scope. We've worked on it a far bit this last few days, going through all our ideas and noting down all options possible. Starting to get into the planning detail now which is good, can start to see each area instead of one big mass of information/data/possibles.
Main motivation this week has been from John Chow, fantastic knowledge and this video has so much I can use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq4gcoV_oPE
Done this week
- First user surveyed in a 3 hour chat. Very intrigued by what we could offer and gave us a lot of insight into what she is after to help her. She's searched for products/information like this but never seen anything
- Survey questions finalised. Fairly high level, leaving the participants to give us some good detail, hopefully. Questions on product, price etc included along with their background/aims
- List of users to survey completed, this covers all types of consumer in this industry so we should get a nice broad scope of detail back
- Decided to have a dry run of what is needed to record one content groups lot of information as a proof of concept. This will help us understand in more detail how much time/effort/money is needed for each stage and the whole project and we can get this out to the survey participants to get their opinion on
- Discussing how much we do up front, can do one content group and then release and build up from there if the market is confirmed we expect. Or do we spend the time doing the entire suite. Difference could be 2 months or more so now looking at what this means in more detail as in previous point
- Listed out all possible options for the suite of products and realised there's a lot of synergy can be had with people we know and either bringing them in for key videos/content or purely passing people over to them if they require their specialty
Up next
- Format of survey in Word doc, also create for free on Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/ - will then decide which one we send out (thinking proper one is better here)
- Send survey out, aiming for this done by Wednesday at the latest
- Pick one product group and write the script for each section and do a dry run off camera to see the timings for it and how much time the content takes up
- Contact collation. Go through all contacts including high level contacts in the industry and how and when they could assist. This will be key further down the line as once we have a professional product getting them on-board will enable huge publicity, and fingers crossed we can treat them as affiliates and they take a % of each product they sell off the back of their promotion. Bring multiple excel docs into one format so it's ready for use in aweber at a later date
Got a very rough idea of what the product would be...so far it's 5 or so groups of videos/content. Users can pick and choose which ones they want, just the 1, all for a discount, buy 2 get 1 free etc all then possible on the up-sell side. This lends itself well as each consumer in this market will have varying goals, also avoids information overload for them as not many users will want all the knowledge, either ever or definitely not in one go. There could be months if not years between some stages for them.
Chatting to various people with knowledge on the areas we're going to need too so that we can keep moving. Marketing, filming, copy creation/proofing all needed at some point soon.
Slowly but surely progressing nicely. Getting some interesting information back from the survey, most fits in with what we had drawn up already but there's some surprises in there namely which group of content people are most interested in. For this we listed 8 areas and asked them to rate them most important to least so we can get a good gauge of what to aim for and in what order.
One key item that's definitely hit home this week is having the ability to chat to friends/ex-colleagues/acquaintances that have knowledge on all or part of what we're trying to do. I've been lucky in that from my last job of 10+ years there's a wealth of variety and experience I can call upon in my contact list.
Anything or anyone that can change an unknown into a known without having to spend money or test from scratch is a godsend in this world!
Done this week
- Survey finalised and now live using SurveyMonkey. Subscribed for £26 a month so we can do more than 10 questions. 16 responses so far, people being chased to complete today and aiming to get at least 25 back
- Diagram of all products/sites to be used and how the data will flow between them now complete and makes sense (WordPress, AWeber, LeadPages etc)
- Read and watched more on email campaigns (AWeber just launched this in beta, looks good) as this will be key to managing our customers with up-selling and targeted offers and information
- Walked through the idea with a Project Management/Entrepreneur contact from my old IT world and he's on board to assist in any way we need (option of investment too if he likes it enough). This will be of huge help as he's worked with start-ups up to enterprises and with an accounting and economics background to add into the mix too
- Project plan started, high and medium level detail started to be populated
Up next
- Meeting tonight and tomorrow morning with my partner to go through survey results, outputs will be discussed and we'll see how this fits in with our knowledge collection
- Group the knowledge into products using the survey and personal knowledge
- Whichever product was requested most then this is our first product
- Scope out first product in detail, creation time through to consumer purchasing it, inclusive of costs, time from each resource, products and services required and any lead times to buy or understand them
- Branding - Discuss product name and how this ties in with my partners existing brand (which is really just his name)
Both of us are hugely excited by what this could achieve still, the more we look into it the more we can see it being a 'go to' brand for this niche. In our heads the most motivating thought is how when you think of learning a language you think 'Rosetta Stone'. That's our aim for our industry
He dude,
Looks like you're on the right track. I recently launched my own information product as well and I'm currently busy with refining a few things like LP, funnel, re-writing the ebook (more pages, more info).
I might have something interesting for you how you can attract more leads if you have an incentive to give away (i.e. ebook). I wrote a script and my conversions increased about 17% in the past 4 months with getting more leads by giving away the ebook.
I'm currently testing it with an other product and there has been a slight increase this month (4%) so far.
I'm down to give it to you so you can test it out. If that also works and increases I will leave it open here in the wild on the STM Forum.
Add me on Skype so we can discuss and maybe brainstorm any further: akie18
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