Resource Review: A Guide to Info Product Creation

Resource Review: A Guide to Info Product Creation
Are you looking for an alternative outlet for your writing, or a different way to “write every day”, as many of the experts recommend? Want to earn some extra money, or just try out a different writing style from your WIP?
How about creating (and even selling) info products?
Melyssa Griffin, former expat English teacher in Japan, successful blogger, podcaster, and multiple-year six-figure earner teaching “entrepreneurs and bloggers how to grow their audience and skyrocket their income”, shows how you can learn to create info products in her free, 4-part, “#InfoProductBiz” series, which you can find online at https://www.melyssagriffin.com/create-prepare-info-product/ .

So, what’s an info product? In part one of her series, linked to above, Melyssa gives us her definition: “An info product is any type of product you create that teaches people how to do something that you already know.” Melyssa then gives some examples, such as ebooks, physical books, e-courses and workbooks, video and audio series, webinars, and even membership sites and their content.

Then the very first lesson she teaches us is a vital one: to begin your info product’s creation, “decide who you want to help”. As she explains, you might be inclined to create your first info product “backwards, by focusing on what [you] want to do or create,” instead of getting to know your potential audience first. She uses writing a healthy eating ebook as an example, warning us that you might want to “cram whatever healthy recipes you can think of” into the book if you haven’t gotten to know your audience first.
What’s the alternative? Do a bit of research to learn more specifically what information people are looking for, and target that topic niche; maybe your potential audiences might be “busy, working parents who don’t want to sacrifice nutrition for convenience,” or “college students who sometimes pay $0.12 for Top Ramen and call it dinner”. Melyssa suggests something more targeted, like “Quick Paleo Meals for Your Family” for the parents, and “Healthy Meals for Cheap College Students” for, well, you-know-who. Because these titles “speak directly to a specific type of person and their lifestyle,” as she puts it, they more directly target “the type of person you’d most like to help”. Of course, this is just the first lesson of the first part of her course, so she cautions us to not “worry about creating your product idea just yet”. How to do that comes in as the course progresses.

And, boy, does her course progress! In just the rest of this first part of the course, titled “How To Create And Prepare Your First Info Product (#InfoProductBiz Series)”, Melyssa shows us how to brainstorm our topic by surveying our audience (and what to do if we don’t already have an audience to survey; hints: Facebook and Twitter); and how to decide what format(s) your info product should be in, so that you produce a product “which would work best for your audience and topic”, based on such factors as meeting the appropriate price point, ease of learning the topic (think about it; “write what you know” doesn't have to be limited to just what you know now), and even which format(s) you are best able to produce. She then goes on to show us how to plan creating your info product, how to build an email list of your target audience and what tools to use to do so, and even how to “create a lead magnet that attracts your ideal customer.” (A “lead magnet” is a short but informative freebie related to your main info product, that you give away to folks who join your email list.)

Lesson 2 is titled “How To Prime And Grow Your Audience For Your First Info Product” and leads you through using and building your email list, guest posting on blogs and using social media to engage with your audience, and effectively promoting your “lead magnet” to get signups for your list. The next lesson, “How To Create A Killer Sales Page And Price For Your First Info Product”, discusses what you need to include on your product's sales page both content-wise, and what tech tools you should consider using on your page; what factors to consider in pricing your info product, and provides sound real-world guidelines and pricing suggestions to help.
Finally, “How to Launch and Market Your First Info Product,” the last lesson, covers just that :the all - important launch! Melyssa starts this final lesson laying out 7 ways to market your product, including webinars, email promotions, Twitter chats, and even pinning on Pinterest! Then she moves on to good advice on how to structure your launch : should you pre - sell, do just a standard launch, an evergreen launch, or some combination of all? (she clearly explains these terms as she goes).

If creating, marketing, and selling your own info products is anything you'd like to learn more about, I strongly recommend Melyssa griffin‘s free 0# info product biz course. Take the course at https://www.melyssagriffin.com/create-prepare-info-product, and check out her full site, https://www.melyssagriffin.com, or listen to episodes of her inspiring PURSUIT WITH PURPOSE podcast, at https://www.melyssagriffin.com/topics/podcast/.
 
Don’t worry if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Like any new endeavor, learning to create, market and sell your own info products can involve a substantial investment in time and effort. But if it’s something you might be interested in, the investment could be worth it. And if only the writing part interests you, NeoLeaf Press will be able to help with that. We're planning our own Info Product Sales and Marketing Toolkit package, scheduled for launch soon; stay tuned!