Why your information products don't sell...

I’ve been there myself…putting together an information product that I believed was a ‘winner’ ended up being a loser. Yeah, I may have sold a few here and there but it never took off. This seems to happen most of the time for many of us.

So what does separate say Ted Nicholas’ “How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer For Under $50” from 99.99% of the information products ever produced?

I think you don’t have to look any further than how author Richard Koch describes how to dominate a market…

“Any business or individual wishing to own a new market should create a new segment based on greater specialization. TAKE ONE MARKET OR INDUSTRY AND MAKE IT TWO (emphasis added by MW). The opportunity always exists—it is the way that markets must evolve—and all that is required to realize a new segment is imagination allied to the following simple method.”

“Focus on a subgroup or new group of customers that has some homogeneity internally and some differentiation from the rest of the current market. Next, decide how you can serve that customer group better, so that extra value is created for them, but without a proportionate increase in the cost to supply them, and ideally with a decrease in cost. Typically, this can be done by cutting out or downgrading elements of the product or service that are important to the market as a whole but not to your target customer group. Once you have found your new market, identify techniques and partners from other industries who embody the highest standards of value delivery, who are “highly evolved” economic species. Then appropriate their ideas or make them partners. Finally, aim to become and remain the standard, the model, and the leader in your new market segment.”

Now apply these statements to the Nicholas’ info product:

1. Ted took the entire industry of corporation-forming and split it—big businesses that had the deep pockets to form corporations and small companies that were forced to pay the same amount. Ted’s target was the small business that could not or would not spend $1,000 or more to form a new corporation.
2. Ted drove down the apparent cost of forming corporations for these small businesses. This itself is a big part of R. Koch’s ideas—offer a specialized group a better way of doing something through the vehicle of ‘lower costs’. Definite value creation by Ted.
3. Now Ted didn’t just sit back and relax hoping his target market would ‘see’ the value in his information product. He created ads that not just highlighted the fact that you could have your own corporation for a low price BUT HE ALSO CREATED ADS THAT SHOWED WHY YOU WANT TO FORM A CORPORATION…PERIOD! Personally, I see this as a key stumbling block of many information products. The author or marketer expects the target audience ‘To See’ the advantage owning/using their information product. This rarely happens. Even in the best case, an author will sell a few info products per month but it never becomes popular enough for the author to rely on it as a major source of income.

All three above points are critical to the success of any information product. Miss one point and your info product is sure to be a loser. I’ve committed errors in all three areas, sometimes on the same project, which really requires some skill! But I see others doing the same thing and wondering why their products aren’t selling the way they should. You may now have a better idea.

Take care,

Mike Winicki