The Blog of Lisa Morosky

I was watching TV yesterday and I saw a commercial for Janet Jackson’s new CD, “Number Ones”. Immediately after the commercial, I got an idea. This model can translate to bloggers looking to create a product. See all Janet is doing is releasing her best songs all over again, with a couple added bonuses.

If you’re racking your brain to find an idea for a product, it’s staring you right in the face. Create your own “Number Ones” with your best content, and a couple extra bonuses.

Here’s how you can do this.

• Find your best material. If you’re not sure what material to consider your “best material”, you can think of it this way:
  • What posts have the most comments?
  • What posts have the most views?
  • What posts generated the most buzz in social media circles?
  • What posts offer the most complete material and resources?
• Update your best material. You don’t want to just copy and paste your free material into a paid product. You want to take this material and use it as your guide as you update it with more information, more resources, more links, more insights, etc.
• Create something small as a new bonus. Janet created a couple extra songs. You can create a 5 page how-to guide, or a short video.
• Sell it. You can sell this information in a couple different ways.
  • As an eBook. Probably the easiest way to go.
  • As a packaged deal. Put it all together as an eBook. Create videos to go with the material. Record audio of the eBook (mp3s). A package like this will sell more than just an eBook.

And bam: you have a product and another asset when it comes to your business.

[Sidenote: You find inspiration in the weirdest places. A typical commercial was the inspiration for this post. Pay attention to the world around you for inspiration for your blog, products, and business.]

Image Credit: music2nite.blogspot.com

Creating info products to sell, or to giveaway, is really an easy process. Yet people make it harder than it is. We’re not talking about a novel here. We’re just talking about providing something of value to your audience.

So here’s what I like to call “the easiest damn way” to make an info product. It’s a process that’s worked for me in the past, and continues to work now.

Brainstorm.
Take an hour or two and brainstorm what your product will be about. Here are some things to consider during this step:

• Will it be blog content that’s repurposed into a product?
• Will it be brand new content?
• What’s the topic?
• What’s the title?
• What resources are you going to pass along to others?
• What’s the one, main point that you want to get across with this product?
• Do you have all the information you need, or do you need to do more research?
• What format will your product be in? Report? Videos? Audio?

At the end of this step, you should have a solid direction to go in.

Outline.
Spend a good chunk of time outlining your entire product. If it’s a report, outline each section in detail, including introduction and conclusion paragraphs. If you’re doing videos, outline your slides, or make some talking points. At the end of this step, you should have a complete step-by-step outline of your product. The worst should be over.

Fill in the gaps.
Fill in the gaps in your outline with the real meaty content. This shouldn’t be too stressful, because you already have a pretty good roadmap set up.

Make it pretty.
Go through your content and edit and proofread. Package it up and make it pretty. If it’s a report, have an eBook cover image created and turn it into an easy to download PDF. If it’s videos, edit them with intros and transitions. Make your product sparkle.

Sign up for E-junkie.
There are a ton of different ways that you can sell an info product on your blog. But remember, we’re talking about “the easiest damn way” of doing all of this. I think the easiest way to do it is to use E-junkie. They’re cheap (starting at $5.00 a month). You just upload your product, customize some options, stick a Buy Now button on your blog, and you’re good to go. You can even manage an affiliate program through E-junkie.

Promote your product.
You should promote your product on your blog, your social networks, forums, your mailing list, and so on. Also, send some emails out to other bloggers in your market and see if they’d like to participate in a JV deal.

If you follow this process, you could easily create a product in a day and have it up on your blog to sell. Don’t make it harder than it is!