Work Yourself Up!

Follow the Problem

A well known catch phrase from a popular movie is “follow the money.” For Internet marketing, the best advice is “follow the problem.”  The most effective online products are those that address problems.

How to break into Internet marketing. How to lose weight.  How to avoid foreclosure in a down market. These are problems that drive people to search engines desperately looking for answers.  How do you know what people want and need to know?

You have to research and listen into the online conversations in your niche. Start with keyword research for your topic.  Check in with Google Labs and find out what the trend of online interest is based on up to the minute searches.  Over days or weeks, you can see when the trend shifts and a new hot topic rises.

Another expanded Google tool, the Google Talk Labs, lets you get involved in conversations about trend topics. You have a chance to interact and possibly influence the conversation. At the same time, you want to drop into several discussion forums that focus on your niche.

Don’t be a lurker, be involved. You can use a different name - just make sure that you contribute to the conversation. Nothing will get you barred from a forum faster than showing up with a sales pitch instead of being a participant.

Once you make several posts and join the conversation, then you earn the to right to offer suggestions or recommendations. That’s another reason why you want to use a name other than your own name so that you aren’t obviously recommending your own site.

When you get a hint of a problem from comments in the forum, be bold and ask, “Does anybody have a good resource for how to . . . ” If no one has a suggestion, there’s a product waiting for you to develop.

You can also get a feel for problems by scanning major blogs like Technorati and Boing Boing. Subscribe to blogs that are popular with followers of your niche interest. Chances are they will comment on those blogs.

If you find that there’s a product to address the problem, take a look at it. What can you do to improve, simplify, expand or add a new twist to that answer? Is it a high priced product? Then you need to develop something at a slightly lower price point.

Is it too cheap and vague? That’s your cue to add more substance, get endorsements from reviewers and position your product as the premium solution. Millions are made online by solving simple problems where the public is using the ‘net to find a solution.

Get Green Online

The renewed interest in green living opens enormous opportunities for online marketers. With a constant stream of news about global warming, damage to the rain forests and escalating oil prices more people are searching on line to find “green” answers that make life easier and better without damaging the environment.

Cater to this green living revolution and you’ll have a wealth of product possibilities. Start by searching ClickBank and PLR article sites for “Green living” topics. Whether you find eBooks or a set of articles that can be combined into eBooks, you want to provide information on how the average person can go green. 

You can also take some of the ideas and create videos or podcasts to explain the methods. Many people live in housing built without green living in mind. Show them how to adapt their current home with simple and cost effective means.

Search for products that are “green friendly” and low to moderately priced to go with your low cost green theme information products.  Become an affiliate marketer for these products. Some excellent green products come from entrepreneurs who may not know about affiliate online marketing. 

Explain to them how you can help each other. Offer to add some free articles or an eBook to their website. You’ll open up new markets where both of you benefit financially. Create a “green” website.

You can even find web providers who claim to use mostly green equipment. Thinkhost.com uses wind and solar energy to power of its server capacity, recycles, sets up commuting plans for employees and donates generously to environmental causes. 

You can brag about this hosting service and make money as an affiliate marketer. While you’re at it, borrow from their concept about giving back. Designate a featured product on your site and pledge to donate 15% of each purchase to a nationally or internationally known environmental protection organization.

Use your information to create a “Green Home” mini course. Offer the 5 lessons as an eBook or on video. Each lesson is a chance to promote your other products. Connect with as many environmental product sites as you can get to add your free course.

Do the keyword research on various environmentally friendly products. You’ll find so many options - from hybrid cars to bamboo fiber clothing (which is soft and luxurious to wear). There are big ticket items such as home sized windmills, solar panels, solar water heaters, low flow showers or toilets and building products. 

Increase volume sales potential with eco-chic clothing, sustainable gardening, reviews of energy conserving appliances, low VOC paints and other practical ways to live “green.” This is one evergreen niche that you can feel good promoting!

Go for the Online Gold

Sports have a universal appeal.  Whether you play football with feet or hands, there are crazed fans who eat, sleep and breathe the sport.  Sports minded online marketers can cash in during the season for their favorite sports.

To score big in this market, you need winning plays and excellent timing. In the United States, football season captures a huge fan base from the college teams and bowl games to the pro teams culminating in the massive appeal of the Super Bowl.

In Europe and South America, soccer matches and the World Cup have similar appeal. Months before the “big game,” you have almost seven months to market sports memorabilia, fan gear and snacks for game watching.

Speaking of watching, those die-hard sports fans want the latest electronics. You can market reviews of new plasma TVs, DLPs and projectors. You can also sell information products that explain how to install your own wall mounted TV or satellite system.

Then get an affiliate connection with a cable system, satellite service or electronics company to make money off products you review or recommend. But that’s not all - make a list of other major sports events that attract huge attention such as the World Series (baseball), Wimbledon (tennis), Master’s and British Open (golf), NASCAR (racing) and Grand Prix (formula one racing), Boston Marathon (running), Ironman (tri-athlete) and Tour de France (bicycling) just to name a few.

Each of these major events is preceded by qualifying events, which extend the online marketing opportunities for months before the major event. For each sport, use drill down niche research to find specific marketing options, products and affiliate markets.

Then there’s the world wide interest grabber – the Olympics. As soon as the next Olympic site and marketing theme is announced by the host city, you swing into action with online marketing offers.

You can easily get the jump on host city marketing by a year or more if you work fast. Be careful with logos and trademarks for the Olympics and other major sports events, but you can work around that or connect with authorized affiliate products.

After the flag goes down, the trophy is awarded and medals earned, be ready to flaunt the winners to the fans and console the losing fans.  Have some products with the winners’ names ready to launch within minutes of learning the outcome.

If you have Super Bowl winning theme products, you need a set for each team and a set of “maybe next year” for both teams. Don’t wait a day or two to get these ready or you’ll miss the first wave of buying while fans are riding high or crying loud.

How to Create a Best Selling Infomation Product

Just about anyone who has spent some time in the internet marketing field understands how fantastically profitable information products can be. However, creating an information product and actually making money with that information product are two totally different things.

Creating a profitable and successful information product can be quite a challenge to the average internet marketer. To actually be successful you need to find a topic with a lot of demand, research and write the material, craft a convincing sales letter, create eye catching graphics, and finally develop a marketing strategy for your finished product. All of this can be a little daunting to say the least.

By far the most common mistake that info marketers make is picking a topic that is of interest to them personally. Unfortunately, just because you are passionate about something doesn’t many that many other people share your same passion. Being knowledgeable and passionate about a given subject is certainly helpful but it is not as important as the demand for that topic.

For your info product to sell it needs to be about a subject that people will happily pay money for. Basically, most people will gladly hand over money for information that promises to solve some kind of vexing problem. The more serious the problem is that your info product addresses, the more money people will ultimately be willing to pay.

Actually researching the topic of your info product is probably the easiest part of creating an info product. This is the information superhighway after all and you can find information on just about every conceivable topic. You should start your research by looking at information products that are similar to the one you are working on. In many cases your information product will end up being an improved version of an existing information product.

This is done in the business world all of the time and is a much more effective strategy than developing a product out of thin air. If a particular information product is already doing well, you should have no problems marketing an improved version of that same product.

Once your info product is finished you need to convince people that your product is actually worth buying. The way to do this is by crafting a dynamite sales letter and throwing in some high quality graphics. It takes years of experience to be able to write and effective sales letter and unless you happen to be a seasoned copy writer, it’s best to hire a professional to write your sales letter for you.

The same goes for your graphics as well. You should not attempt these things unless you happen to have the proper experience. You can find affordable copy writers and graphic designers by looking at elance.com, guru.com, and even the warriorforum.com.

Your marketing strategy is how you actually plan on getting the word out about your info product. The easiest way to get the word out about your info product is seek out joint ventures with other internet marketers who happen to have access to the kind of buyers your info product appeals to.

The Warrior Forum, for example, actually has a section devoted purely to those are seeking out joint ventures. In order to engage in a joint venture you will need to create an affiliate program for your info product. This is how your JV partner will make money off of the deal. Don’t be discouraged if your first few info products are a flop. If you stick to it there’s a good chance you will eventually create a best selling info product.

Finding Products to Sell on Ebay

I have been a member of the Ebay community since 1998. In that time I have bought and sold hundreds of different items in just about every conceivable category. In fact, at one time I  actually sold comedy CDs because I had got a great deal on a bulk shipment. I’m firmly convinced that Ebay is the single best place to sell a product online.

The problem confronted by many would be sellers, is trying to find a product they can actually sell on Ebay. There may be an outrageous amount number of hungry buyers lurking on Ebay but you have to find the right product with enough demand in order to make a killing.

Electronics are one of the biggest categories listed on Ebay and at any one time there are literally hundreds of thousands of different electronics items listed for sale. Electronics include things like mp3 players, cell phones, and computers. Just about any adult who lives in an advanced industrial society has some interest in electronics. Therefore, the demand for electronics is huge and shows no signs of decreasing any time soon. Selling electronics can be very profitable if you are able to buy items in bulk. Believe it or not the best place to purchase bulk electronics is Ebay.

Many sellers on Ebay will list electronic items in bulk quantities like 10, 20, or 30. With a $10 subscription fee to Ebay’s market research tool you can easily determine the average sold price for each individual unit. When buying in bulk you are ideally hoping to make a profit of 20%-30% per unit. What’s nice about buying in bulk on Ebay is that you don’t have to worry about getting scammed and losing your money so long as the seller’s feedback is top notch.

When buying in bulk from other online vendors, particularly vendors located in Asia, the chance of getting scammed is very high. You can find wholesale lots in just about any category by clicking on the category on the main page and then clicking on “wholesale lots” within each subsection.

Baby clothes are yet another hot selling item on Ebay. The baby clothing category has an unusually high Sell Thru Rate (STR) which means that the number of auctions which are completed successfully versus the number that don’t is above average. Take a look at the completed listings and see for yourself.

As with electronics, baby clothing can be purchased in bulk right on Ebay. You can also purchase used baby clothing by visiting your local thrift stores and discount chains. What’s really nice about selling baby clothing is that you can create an entire business model based on selling nothing but baby and children’s items.

Think about it. If you sell baby clothing it is a certainty that your customers will need more clothing in the future because babies and young children grow. By building a targeted mailing list of your customers based on their purchase history you can send out emails when you have new items that may be of interest to them. If someone needs baby clothes they will eventually need toddler clothes and so on. By building a list you can supply all of your customers needs and make a small fortune in the process.                   

How to Use YouTube for Market Research

Online video has grown in recent years to become one of the most popular methods of self expression and business promotion online. The result has been that a huge network of video sharing sites has emerged where users can create and share videos with one another. By far the most popular of these sites is Youtube which was purchased by Google back in October of 2006 for a whopping $1.65 billion.

Internet marketers have recognized the popularity of videos and regularly use video as a means of promoting their business and capturing more sales. What many Internet marketers don’t know is that video sharing sites like YouTube are a very good way to perform market research.

The search function on YouTube is very similar to the search function contained within a normal search engine. However, the search feature used by YouTube is much less sophisticated than the complex algorithms used by the search engines. This is really great news for video marketers because it means you can easily dominate the Youtube search results.

Before you submit your video you’ll need to do a little keyword research like you would if you were optimizing a page for the search engines. Once you have selected some keywords that you would like to target add some of the keywords to your video’s tags and title.

If you have done everything right, your video should be able to pull in some really nice traffic to you website. But the feedback you get from channel viewers can actually be just as important as getting traffic. Market feedback is a classic direct marketing technique that is achieved in real life by using costly things like polls and surveys.

Your videos actually give you the chance to pull in tons of market feedback without spending a dime on polls or surveys. Market feedback allows to get a more precise glimpse of exactly what is that your target market wants and how much they are willing to pay for it. This information is priceless.

You will frequently receive video comments that tell you whether or not your video was interesting or helpful. Many times you will receive negative comments that will tell what you did wrong. Except for the comment spam that you will inevitable receive, almost all of the comments you receive will be useful to you.

The most ideal comments are those that request additional videos. These comments are your target market telling you exactly what they want! Offline businesses pay a small fortune for this kind of information. YouTube users readily offer up this kind of information to Internet marketers at no charge.

Online videos are a truly fantastic way to promote your business and get more traffic without spending a great deal of money. But remember that your video submissions can actually help you improve your existing marketing strategy and develop new product ideas.