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Last year, you FINALLY
finished that ebook you'd been "planning" for
years. You wrote a quick website, added some order links,
told a few people about it, and amazingly, people started
buying your ebook. You had successfully entered the realm
of the information marketer.
Now let's look at how you
can step into the big league, and at a minimum, quadruple
your profits this year.
First, let's examine your
backend. No, not that backend... but the products and
services you offer your subscribers after they've made the
initial purchase. This is actually something you should've
flowed out even BEFORE you wrote your ebook. Your system
should automatically offer other related goods and
services to your customers. The hardest part of the whole
process is making that first sale. After that, if you
offer your customers what they want, they will continue to
buy from you.
For the backend you have
two options that you should consider. If you haven't
developed any additional products of your own, then you
should offer your customers related affiliate products.
This is often the best option for many marketers because
all you have to do is the promoting. All of the order
fulfillment, delivery, and customer service
"headaches" are handled by someone else. Just
locate high quality products that are a perfect match for
your customers, make them aware of the products, and cash
affiliate checks.
Your second option is to
develop more of your own products. This isn't as hard as
it first seems. When you wrote that ebook, you probably
did a lot of research. Turn the research that you did for
the ebook into other similar products. The secret... is
just capitalizing on the fact that people have different
preferred methods of digesting information.
Some people prefer print
books, some prefer audio, some prefer video, and others
prefer workshops (experiential). If you fail to offer your
information in all of those formats you're leaving money
on the table because you're ignoring entire segments of
the market which often only buys information in their
preferred format. Ebook buyers may insist upon that format
because it's generally cheaper, and they can get instant
downloads.
Sometimes, the different
formats are a natural product progression. It's a way of
offering more and more comprehensive versions of your
basic product. Different customers will be ready for
different levels of product. They will buy different
products as their first purchase. Some will even buy ALL
of your products!
Assuming your ebook is more
than a compilation of affiliate links thinly disguised as
an ebook, you should already have the core information for
a full line of products. You offer the different products
at a range of prices because your customers also have
different price sensitivities. Here is the progression:
- Offer the ebook - perhaps
priced below $50. Think of that ebook as a lead generator.
It's bringing in highly qualified leads and helping you to
build a list of people who have demonstrated a willingness
to pay to solve their problems.
- Perhaps turn the ebook
into a print book. Having an actual print book separates
you from those who only have an ebook since most ebook
authors don't have enough confidence in their work to
actually have it printed up. You can use a print-on-demand
publisher if you don't want to have hundreds, or
thousands, of copies printed up at first. Here's the
print-on-demand publisher that I recommend:
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=146382
Although a print book is a
step up from an ebook, a print book often doesn't command
a much higher price. This is because people are
conditioned (by the bookstores) to pay a certain price for
a book. In order to get much more than that price, you
have to conclusively demonstrate that your book contains
unusual or hard to find information. Still, an actual
printed book is an important credential.
- Offer audio in the form
of MP3, audiocassettes, and audio CDs. The physically
delivered forms will command a higher price than the
digitally downloaded version so offer both. Offer the MP3
for those who want instant gratification. To create your
audio, all you need to do is set up a teleconference where
you discuss, or expand upon, the material in the ebook.
You can also invite other experts on the topic to join you
to generate a product - for all the "experts"
involved to market. Record the teleconference and have it
converted into the various audio formats.
You can market attendance
to the teleseminar itself as a separate product. That way,
you're getting paid to produce a product. NEVER conduct a
teleseminar without recording it. The information shared
in these events are pure gold nuggets that people will
happily pay for. Even if the recording isn't something you
want to sell, it can make a nice bonus to offer with
another product.
For an added value product
you could have the recorded teleseminar transcribed. Offer
the printed or PDF transcript as a bonus with the
recordings, or offer it as an upsell.
- Conduct live workshops on
the topic of your ebook. Use the chapters to develop an
outline and to create PowerPoint slides to use. Record the
workshop and produce videotapes and DVD's to offer your
market.
- Package any combination
of audiotapes, audio CDs, DVD's and videotapes with a
workbook comprised of your notes, transcripts, or the text
of your ebook, and call this a course. This course will
easily sell for $197 to prices over $1000 depending upon
how you position it in the marketplace.
- Offer your content
through a membership site focused on your niche. Charge
for access on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. With
a membership site you will need to continuously add
content or make changes to keep it from getting stale. To
see how I've set up a successful membership site, check
out: http://TheRealSecrets.com
As you can see, the content
of that simple ebook can easily be turned into a product
worth over $1000. Most ebook authors will stop with just
the ebook though.
Most ebook authors will
never offer their customers upsells at the order form!
However, since you'll have a complete line of products,
you WILL offer the person, initially interested in buying
just the ebook, the more expensive forms of the product.
Many of them will upgrade right at the point of purchase.
That's why fast food restaurants offer to
"super-size” a meal or add fries. Offer them the
regular, deluxe, and platinum versions!
After you've made that
initial sale, you need to follow up with the customer and
offer them additional, related products. Don't ignore the
most valuable asset in your business - a customer who has
proven that he is willing to spend money on products like
yours. As that customer's circumstances change, he WILL be
interested in upgrading and getting other related
products. Don't ignore that fact.
Your system, even before
you wrote your ebook, should have flowed out what else you
were going to offer your customers after the purchase...
and at what point in time. As you're writing the ebook and
developing the upgraded products, you should also be
developing a series of autoresponder messages to make your
customers aware of your additional solutions to their
problems.
Read back through this
entire article with a pen in hand. Make notes of how you
can and will expand upon that ebook or info product that
you've already created. Then just do it. You'll easily
quadruple your profits this year. Do it right, and the
increase could be astronomical. It's all just a matter of
giving your hungry market of proven buyers what it wants.
Copyright 2005 Willie
Crawford
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About
The Author
Willie
Crawford is a corporate president,
published author, seminar speaker and
host, tele-seminar speaker and host,
retired military officer, karate black
belt, master network marketing trainer,
and lifetime student of marketing. He
shows people how to actually generate
substantial income on-line using very
simple, easily modeled systems. An example
of such a system that you can study and
duplicate is at: http://ProfitMagician.com. |
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