Posts Categorised: Blogging
10 Steps To Creating a Profitable Digital Product
Many business owners and bloggers realize that creating their own digital product is the best way to leverage their website and help their customers. I wanted to walk you through the process of creating your own product. I will also list some suggested resources so you can have all the tools at your finger tips, even if you are on a budget!
How to create a digital product
1. Identify your ideal customer
The first step is knowing who your ideal customer is. You must be able to picture this person in your head. You should know them so well, you know what kinds of words they use when they are talking to their friends. Do some digging and learn as much as you can about your customer before developing any product.
2. Solve one problem or pain point
Every great product solves one problem. Your key to a good product is to know your customer so well that you know what keeps them up at night. Those are called ‘pain points.’ If you can find a problem that they would pay to solve, you have a winner. Start by asking, can I make something easier, faster or automated to solve this problem?
3. Decide the best way to deliver your product.
There are lots of ways to deliver a product. If you know your customer, you can develop something that fits their lifestyle. If they are busy, you may create audio training so they can take it on the go. If there is a lot of information, you may need to develop a book. You can even add worksheets, checklists and resource sheets. And of course, you can create a video training. You can use white boards, power point presentations, or many various ways to create an exciting product that talks directly to your ideal customer.
4. Create your product
Start with an outline. If you are not sure where to start, see what others have done by reading a table of contents in a book from your area of specialty. Once you have a strong outline, record or write each section one at a time. Spending just twenty minutes each day can help you create a great starter product in less than a month. Just do something to create your product each and every day.
5. Create a sales page
Let’s not get bogged down in the details. The easiest sales pages use the AIDA method which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Get the attention of your customer. Create an interest in solving their one problem. Create a desire to want what you have to offer. Finally, tell them what action they need to take to get your product. It really is that simple.
6. Create a way for customers to buy
Now that you have a product, customers need to be able to purchase it. It can be as easy as creating a ‘buy now’ button on Paypal. Create the button and paste the code on your sales page below your call to action. When they purchase, they should be directed to your page where they can download your product.
7. Create an incentive or scarcity
Everyone likes to get a good deal. Create a high value for your product. You can add a bonus checklist to summarize your process. You can even create a report based on the research you did when creating your product. The more valuable this incentive is the more likely people will hurry to purchase your product for fear of losing the incentive. If you really want to get your customer to take action, create scarcity. Only allow your bonus to be available for a short amount of time or you can have the bonus only available for a certain number of people.
8. Spread the word
Use social media to tell others about your product. Do interviews, create graphics, use banners or just write up some compelling questions to tell others about your products. You can make it as simple as an interview video by having a friend ask you questions about your product. Just set up a camera, or smart phone and record. You can make better videos later when you start making money and can afford to hire a videographer.
9. Take care of your customers
This step is often left out of training programs that I have seen. When you create a product and someone buys from you, they are trusting you. Do your best to deliver a ten times value on your product. That means if they pay twenty-seven dollars for your product, they should receive two hundred seventy dollars of value from the product.
Don’t forget to send them a follow up email asking about their experience. Send them unannounced bonuses and create a deeper relationship with them. There is a lot of money to be made when you understand the needs of your customers and listen to what they have to say.
10. Automate the process
Lastly, create a way to automate your process. For instance, you can create a webinar (recorded online seminar) where you point out the problem and give a few suggestions. You then ask them if they would like to find out more and better ways to solve their problem. You end by offering them your product for a special price since they are watching your webinar. (Remember AIDA!)
Conclusion
I have a mentor that recently said, “just move forward on your goal everyday. Just do what you know and learn as you go.” If you have that attitude, you can always find a way. With Youtube, there are all kinds of free tutorials, just look for the information you need to know at the time. If you need some specific help, I enjoy helping people develop products that help their customers and make money. I would love to help you out. Just contact me here.
Here are some other helpful articles:
- You CAN Develop A Digital Product (VIDEO)
- Connecting with Customers
- 7 Steps to Marketing Your Business
- Using Content to Gain More Customers
RESOURCES:
Note: some of these links are affiliate links, but I would never suggest something I have not personally used and believe in.
BlueHost: If you don’t have a website, I suggest starting with some good affordable hosting. I have used these guys for years. They have top notch customer service. (find out about BlueHost) If you need help designing your page or getting started, contact Digital Success Advantage for a great deal.
Genius Marketing Pro: If you are on a tight budget and want an all-inclusive system, this is it. These guys really care about helping you and provide lots of on going free training. This product include an autoresponder, page creators and lots more. Plus it is under one hundred dollars! It is a great deal and it is worth reviewing. (Click here to learn more.)
GetResponse: Everyone needs a good email autoresponder if they want to be in business online, and this is one of the best. (Unless you go with Genius Marketer.) GetResponse offers great plans, it includes a free landing page and survey function. When you use my link, you get a $30 credit!
MailChimp: MailChimp offers email autoresponders, without a lot of bells and whistles. They even offer a free plan, so you can get started without any money.
CopyBuilder: If you have all the tools you need, you may need help writing your sales copy. This system takes you through the entire writing process. It is like hiring a copywriter to talk you though your sales copy, but much, much more affordable. (Check out CopyBuilder.)
Note: I mention autoresponder above and followed up with an article about it here.
How any business owner can write a blog?
If you want to write a blog you can buy a course, get some training, hire some professional guru or get some coaching. Personally, I would suggest coaching because you can get better results sooner. That is what I plan to do in this article. I will tell you what I tell all business owners who want to write a blog, but are not sure where to start.
First, come up with some good information to write about.
What to write in your blog
- Write about your Frequently Asked Question. What do people ask you about often? If you can’t think of any, visit a website of a competitor and find their FAQ’s. Don’t steal their information, but use their questions to get you started.
- Share some videos from Youtube or Vimeo. If you see a video that may be helpful to your customers share it on your blog. I suggest adding a few sentences with you expertise and opinions about why you are sharing.
- Share some news. There is always something happening in the business world today. Find relevant topics to talk about as they relate to your business. Then, add in your personality and tell why you think it is relevant and what your customer needs to do about it.
- Share some entertainment. No, I am not talking about the latest celebrity gossip, unless that is relevant to your business. I am talking about sharing things that are fun. Share a funny story that happened at work. Share a funny picture and tell what it reminds you of about your work. People love to laugh and if you can help them laugh, you will have a new friend. . .and possibly a new customer.
I hope you can see that you don’t have to write everything. Make your blog a collection of relevant information to your customer.
Let me give an example:
Let’s say Lacy runs a dog grooming business. She starts by writing about the technique she uses. She shares her experience about how she got into dog grooming and answers her top ten FAQ’s. She was able to come up with three months’ worth of blog content in one afternoon. She spends 20 minutes a week writing and uploading her blog. She even has time to add some really cute pictures to go with each posting.
The next month is busy for her, but takes ten minutes to upload four blog posts, one for each week. On one she shares a cute picture of a new puppy and congratulates the family on their addition. The next one she adds an encouraging quote for dog lovers. The next week she shares a news story about a lost dog being found. And the last one, she shares a single paragraph about her upcoming specials.
The next month she is back on track, she shares her thoughts on a new dog feeding system she saw at the store. She took a quick picture on her phone and used that on her blog. People are excited about it and she orders a bunch for her store and sells out in a few weeks all because of a regular blog posting schedule.
As you can see, there are a lot of things to write about, even for a simple subject like dog grooming. Imagine all the things you can write about for your business.
Quick Exercise: Pull out some sticky notes, index cards, scratch paper or a note pad and start writing down anything you can think about your business. Just put the topic or title in one sentence on each pieces. Write as many as you can for about twenty to thirty minutes. Even if you think you run out of idea, go to a search engine and search your business or industry. See what other people wrote about your topic. Use that as a spring board to write more topics. Before you know it you will have over 50 topics to write about. That is enough for a blog a week for an entire year!
Tips on Writing Your Blog
- Write like you talk. No one wants to read boring technical mumbo jumbo. People want to hear from real people. They want to hear stories. They want to hear how you can help them. Always write as if you are talking to your favorite customer in person.
- The more you write, the better you get. Your first blog posts may feel clunky at first, but keep at it. Eventually you will develop your writing voice and your blogs will be regularly read by your customers. The more your customers like what you post, the more they will share it. When they share it, their friends may become customers, who share it with their friends, who become customers . . . I think you get the point.
- If you don’t like to write, just talk. Record an audio or video of you talking about your topic and have someone transcribe it. There are services that will transcribe your video a dollar a minute (like the rev.com). It may be worth your time to have someone else type it up if you don’t type fast. You can even hire someone from a college, have a secretary type it up or ask your loving spouse to do it for you.
- If you must, hire a writer. You can use a writing service, a college student or a site like Upwork to get someone to write for you. I suggest that you read it for quality and verification and make sure you take time to view their writing before you hire anyone. Remember, they will be representing you and your business.
- Always keep ideas handy. Once you begin looking for ideas, you will see them everywhere. Have a single place to keep all of your idea. You can use electronic notes or programs like Evernote. Or you can just keep notepad or sticky notes handy. Whatever you do, write down any interesting information and you will always have something to blog about.
Conclusion
I have to admit it. I am a bit ADD. There are times where I just can’t focus. But even with that, I still find time to write a blog. Yes, I know we all have a business to run, but taking a few minutes each week, or once a month to share our expertise is imortant. People need and want your wisdom. Share it with the world and the world may just come knocking at your door.
If you need some personal coaching, I have limited availability, but I would love to help out. I bet we can get you started on the right path of blogging quickly and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. (Click here to learn more)
Attention Do It Yourselfers! I know a lot of us are DIY Entrepreneurs. When we get started, we have more sweat equity than money. If that is you, I have created an entire training for entrepreneurs teaching WordPress. I am offering it for a special price for a limited time, so jump on it quickly if you are interested. (Click here to see the course.)
PS: If you are a person of faith, you especially need your voice to be heard. Read this great article on Christian Business Revolution.
http://youtu.be/rofFtppcJqg
People make decisions based on their story. When entrepreneurs can connect to the world of their customers, they are going to be extremely successful.
Use powerful personal stories to connect to your ideal customer’s world view. Those stories will create loyal followers and lead you to success.
http://youtu.be/xpvXCnuSNSA
3 Steps to Making Killer Business Videos
The three steps are easy;
- Intention
- Value
- Call to Action
Let’s break these down and see how we used them in the video.
Intention
Every video needs to have a purpose. Without a purpose, there is no reason to create a video. Are you entertaining? Are you teaching? Are you inspiring? Are you sharing a story?
The intention creates the ‘feel’ and ‘mood’ for the video. Having the whole video moving toward a single goal helps keep your viewer engaged and keeps you on track when creating the video.
First thing you want to do is grab attention. In the video, I shared the hook about what you will learn in the video. If you were interested in creating videos, you would have been hooked from the beginning.
A hook can be a question, an interesting graphic, a joke, or something that stands out as different. You want to wake someone up when they come to your video and give them a reason to continue watching.
Second, you want to show the benefit of listening. What are you going to cover and why is it important. I put the hook and the benefit in the first few seconds of my video. I wanted you to know exactly what it is that you would get from watching the video.
Third, you want to show why people should listen to you. Now, don’t go too crazy with this one a simple sentence like, “I’ve been creating videos for over thirteen years.” Or “I have created hundreds of videos and talked in front of audiences of over a thousand.” Those are credibility statements. (Both are true, but did you notice I did not use them in the video!)
Some people take credibility to the next level and talk about expert authority. If you are doing a 5 minute video a sentence or two would work. If you are doing a 30-60 minute presentation, you want to share a story about what you do and why you are doing it.
The point is you want people to believe you. You can see from this one channel that I know what I am talking about, so I decided not to bother you with details, I just jumped right in because I tried to keep this video under three minutes.
PRESENT VALUE
First thing you want to do is make people feel comfortable. You want them to feel like you are talking directly to them. Don’t pretend to talk to everyone in the world, picture in your mind one person whom you are sharing. Create the video for that one person.
Imagining this one person makes your conversation more intimate and people will relate to you better.
Second, you want to show off your personality. Even if you are a mellow person, be who you are. It is so important to be real and authentic.
People want to relate to you, not some online persona you created. If you get to know me, you will see that I am just like I am in person as I am on video.
If you are who you are and you are talking to that one person, your video will be so much more powerful.
Thirdly, (who uses thirdly anymore. . .) Make it easy to grasp. Present your information into bite sized chunks. I suggest using lists and keeping it simple. Think of three important take aways or five quick tips.
You may have heard a preacher, he covers his three points in his sermon, then continues to go into another mini-sermon. Don’t do that. Deliver the content intended. If you have more content, create a new video. That is the power of editing.
CALL TO ACTION
Every video needs to have something for someone to do. Psychology has proven when someone finishes reading a blog or watching a video, they are looking for the next thing to do. Give them something specific that relates to your intention. (See how that comes back around?)
Be as specific as possible. Tell them what to do, how to do it, where to do it and why to do it.
If you listened to the video, I told you to come to the blog. Read this page so you can learn about videos. Then, I asked you to create a video. I can see that you got the first two right, now all you have to do is create a quick video and share it with us on on Youtube or GooglePlus.
Suggested videos for you to create and share with us:
- 3 questions I have always had about creating videos for my business.
- One thing I have always wanted to know about videos.
- A topic I would love to see covered on this blog/video page is . . .
- If entrepreneurs were as cool as you are, then . . . .
If you share a video with me and email me (or use the contact page) I will share with you two tools to help you come up with great headlines and topics to write about no matter what your topic of interest is.
http://youtu.be/j-qRegA4DEE
8 Video Tips to Make Your Videos Look Professional
In the video we covered the value of the content: what you actually say is important. We covered audio, visual, location and even touched on editing. Well, hold on while I give you three more exciting tips to get you one step closer to being a video pro.
Framing
You have probably heard the term ‘dead center.’ Dead center is a term that means our eyes get bored when something is in the middle. It is dead because our eyes will jump around the frame to find something interesting.
If you take a photo or a video the rectangle where the images are is the frame. When you are shooting, think about the way you put something in that frame. The easiest way to talk about it is to consider your frame like a tic-tac-toe board. You will imagine two lines going across and two lines going down. Where the lines cross are ‘points of interest.’ (Some cameras have these line built in and you can visually see them!)
Look at this pic of a raptor…don’t worry it is not real. Look at how the top of his eye (which is bright yellow) lands on the top right point of interest. Then, his lower teeth line up on the bottom left point of interest. The framing of this shot lines up to make the photo interesting…not that a photo of a raptor needs to be more interesting, but you get the point.
Also when you are framing, make sure you are aware of everything around you. Have you ever seen a a video of someone talking and it looked like a tree was growing out of the top of someone’s head. Don’t do that. Make sure your background is also framed and there are no distracting lines.
It just takes a moment to be aware of your shot and to notice any distracting lines.
Lighting
Lighting is so important. When you shoot a video, you want the brightest light to be on the person you are videoing. If there is more light behind them, your camera will pick that up and your person will look dark.
Keep it simple. Put a lamp in front of the person. Make sure to ‘soften’ the light with a light cloth or scarf so you don’t have harsh shadows behind them. Unless you are doing a scary movie, then you may want to have a big lurking shadow behind the main person.
If you are outside be aware of the sun. If the sun is overhead, you will have strong shadows on the face. You don’t need a long enough extension cord, use a white poster board. Anything white will work. Just stand right outside of the camera frame, tilt the poster board to reflect the sun and fill in the face of your main character. You would be surprised to know that pros do this and some of them pay hundreds of dollars to get the same affect.
Angles
Make your videos interesting by changing the angle of your video. Now, if you are just doing a vlog, you may not want to change the angle very often. However, changing angles for effect can create powerful video images.
Let’s start with the basic. Make sure the camera is eye level and you are situated on a point of interest. You can tilt up a little and pull the camera a little lower to make yourself seem important or big. You can put the camera above you and tilt it down to make yourself seem smaller.
Why? Well, let’s say you are doing a vlog. You are announcing an exciting big addition to your channel. You would start by talking about the announcement. Then, change the angle to a lower angle to make yourself look big. Do your announcement from that angle to make it interesting. You can even add an echo to your voice to really make it stand out.
Angles help tell the story. Only use them to tell the story. Remember, what you say is important. Your content ought to be the primary purpose of your video. Then, you use techniques to really make your message stand out.
I have covered the basic angles, but there are a lot more. I created a video a while back that goes through a lot of different angles and show the ‘feel’ of each video. It was done with some teens, so it is fun and a bit quirky. Click here to watch the video: The Story of Interesting Angles.
That is a lot we covered, but I am sure you can handle it. Now, go out and make some interesting videos. Then share them with us on Youtube or GooglePlus. I would love to see what you came up with.
Feel free to ask questions, I love helping blooming videographers. If there is anything I can do the help, don’t hesitate to ask.