Last time in the Blog Expert Series we discussed how to keep passion alive and not dump your blog.
In this Blog Expert Series post, we shall discuss creating your own products.
If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, the chances are you have a number of different reasons for blogging.
You want to use the platform to gain more readers, or you want to extend your marketing strategy for your business by harnessing all vehicles available to you when it comes to communicating online.
Most importantly, however, you want to make money from your blog.
While blogging is a great platform for people of all walks of life, the likelihood is that very few of us come to it purely for pleasure. We want to achieve something from our site, and the biggest thing most of us want to achieve tends to be an increased source of revenue.
The best way of making money from your blog is by producing a superb product which serves a number of different functions.
The advantages of having an outstanding product include:
- Drawing people to your site through specific key words
- Generating money by encouraging people to purchase your product
- Attracting traffic back to your site after they have used your product successfully
- Encouraging people to make referrals to new customers for your product
There are two main types of product which you can develop – one which is a free download, which is designed to attract traffic to your site, and one which people have to pay for.
Whichever you choose to opt for (or both!), the advantages are well worth the effort which it takes to set your product up on your business blog.
How to find your niche in the product field
The best way to identify what kind of product to develop is to undertake research in to what your customers are ideally looking for.
By ascertaining what the primary keywords are that your customers are searching for, you will be in a great position to work out a product which will answer their needs.
Check out the main phrases which people input in the key search engines, and this will support you to develop an industry-related product which meets those needs.
Developing your ideal product
Once you know what your product will be, you simply have to set some time apart to develop it. Creating your product can seem daunting, but the chances are you know what you want to say, based upon your customer’s needs.
Back up any claims that you make with research, and make sure your product is proofed well so that it doesn’t contain any errors.
This process is as important for free downloads as it is for paid-for items, as no-one likes to feel that they have wasted their time needlessly downloading something which the creator hasn’t taken care over.
Providing a quality free product will make your customers feel loyal towards you, encouraging them to come back again and again. Possibly making purchases the next time they visit your site.
Launching your product
Once you have your product, you need to make sure you market it well both on and offline. Harness all of your resources to make sure you tell everyone around you what you are offering.
By creating a Facebook presence, tweeting about your product, and marketing it well, you will generate as much publicity around your product as possible. This will support a strong customer interest and get your product off the ground.
Keeping your product updated
Once your product has been up and running for a while, remember to keep it updated and refreshed from time to time. Keep abreast of changes in your industry, linking them back to your product.
Each time you update or revise your product, you are in an ideal position to market it once again to new and existing customers, keeping it interesting and bringing it to people’s attention over and over again.
That’s the end of this blog expert series. I hope you have enjoyed all the posts and thanks for reading / commenting on them.
Here’s the links to the previous Blog Expert Series posts:
Blog Expert Series: The Surprising Decision 77% Of Bloggers Get Wrong
Blog Expert Series: Be The Blog Every Blogger Envies
Blog Expert Series: Give Your Blog The X Factor
Blog Expert Series: Ridiculous or Outrageous?
Blog Expert Series: Get Your Readers Begging For More!
Blog Expert Series: Does Stripping Down Stress You Out?
Blog Expert Series: Do Not Dump Your Blog
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Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
Hmm.. the thing that makes me wary of creating my own product is that I feel it’s a one and done deal. After a certain amt of time, noone will want to buy it. That’s why I prefer affiliate marketing more
Henway
I can understand what you say but you could create a product that you can constantly update and re-launch.
Andrew
Most never create just one, but a fleet of products.
You combine that with updating and relaunching, and you’ll never run dry. 😉
Totally agree, Deniis.
It is a matter of finding the time and balancing the product creation with everything else that is needed to run an on-line business.
Andrew
I just tell people to be consistence, and good things will happen.
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
…as long as they are not consistently BAD!
Andrew
Ha-Ha 🙂
Actually there is a very thin line between being consistent (having patience) and just being stubborn.
There are two very important advices people should follow. The first is to have patience and to not give up. The second is to not be afraid to give up from bad ideas.
As you can see the two advices are pretty much the opposite thing. So we should always know and consider BOTH advices. Choosing the right one for a certain situation is vital. But we can’t make the choice if we know only one of them :).
Regards.
Frank,
I agree. You need to know when you are following the wrong path and make the decision to get back on track.
Andrew
being smart with strategies is a very good point , i love the thoughts a lot , having an updated product is surely needed cause people want the new always !!
Excellent series Andrew; I’ll be saving this to go back over the others as well. 🙂
I like the advice Andrew, too many people online concentrate on being an affiliate long term which they need to really start on their own product development in the short term.
Dwight Anthony
Financially Elite Blog dot Com
Hi Andrew,
I like your breakdown.
As you note it’s vital to offer your best stuff when offering freebies. Never hold back for each creative act is prospered….or to put it more accurately, if you offer crap expect crap returns.
Don’t fear putting out your own product. Start your experimentation process today, just like everybody else who produces their own information product 😉
Thanks for sharing your insight and have a powerful day!
Ryan
You make an excellent point, Ryan…
“it’s vital to offer your best stuff when offering freebies”.
Many people don’t!
Andrew
Hi Andrew
I’ve begun looking at older posts and looking to do more with my niche by writing an ebook. That’s what a lot of my readers have asked about. Will be awhile before it’s ready as I am working on other areas at the moment. Good idea to keep updated and show it to new readers.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia
At least you are thinking…now plan it in!
Andrew
Good tips for learning but consistency is the might and main in this discipline.
Its a must to create a product that will intrigue all readers because it give you the chance to morph a visitor into a potential client. Its a fact that everybody wants uniqueness, so its your opportunity to flaunt your intelligence and creativity.
I think the best way is to give a product for free to attract subscribers and a constant stream of new visitors. After you can create a product and sell it. This way you have a larger pool of people to offer your product too.
After updating the product do you give it for free to your last customers or they will have to buy it again ? Will they want to do that knowing that is the same thing with some updates?
Alex,
After the update, I would give it to my paid customers for free.
Andrew
Great advice Andrew. I find that I am getting caught up in the write a post or develop a download product or guest post or find forum to chat, vortex. When you are just starting with your blog it seems there is so much you need to be doing at once. And while I work on one of the items, I’m stressing over why I haven’t completed one of the others. So much to do, so little….creative juices to do it all.
Any suggestion for how you organized or prioritized your time when you were starting out?
A great question that is asked by many new and experienced bloggers.
I would break your blogging working hours down into 3 sections:
1. Content. Writing blog posts, guest posts.
2. Marketing. Commenting, Tweets, Facebook, forums.
3. Income. Could be product creation or affiliate marketing, JV’s.
So to make this easy…if you have 4 hours blogging time a day…allocate 1 hour each to the above categories (and have one hour for contingency because things always take longer than expected.)
Of course, there will be days when you spend 1.5 hours on content and only .5 hours on marketing. Don’t beat yourself up if that is the case.
The main thing I am trying to say…is do your best to allocate time to each of the 3 categories.
I hope that helps.
Andrew
I dunno about the money, but this is perfect for me; thanks!
Dennis,
You don’t like money?
Andrew
Whoopsy, that was supposed to be Monkey, the commenter above me. LOL
I Find that staying focused on a product can be hard at times. I get a good idea and start working on that and then another idea comes up. I do have to stop doing this to myself and stay focused at all times. Thanks for the tracks you lay down to follow Andrew. They are a road to success.
Debbie
Debbie
We all jump around, get distracted and lose focus.
You can have several ideas going on at the same time. That is not a problem. The time is becomes a problem is when you don’t finish any of them.
Ask yourself this question:
What is stopping you finishing and implementing an idea?
Be honest with the answer.
Andrew
Hello Andrew
Once again a stellar post. Product creation is so important and I agree that whether it is free on not, you must have great value. the other day I opted in for a free ebook at the request of someone whose list I was already on and the content was so poor that I will not buy anything from this site and I have lost some trust of the referring site. If you initial free product is marginal, you can sabotage your future efforts. I think your post on product creation says it like it is. thank you
Vickie
So true Vickie, re: quality.
I do feel many people on-line think they can just give away a poor quality freebie and the money will start rolling in.
As you say the only thing that will happen is…your potential customers will never return!
Andrew
Andrew,
I am recently writing an ebook, but i want to publish it, and still not sure if it is good enough LOL.
But when i think it is a free ebook, people don’t need to pay, it eases me somehow.
I just don’t have time to revise this ebook 🙁
Kimi,
Sorry but ‘dont have time’ is not a good excuse!
If it was a priority…you would find the time.
Andrew
LOL. True!
Sometimes just keeping up w/ your blog niches can be a huge time consumption problem, especially when you get past 2 or 3. I recommend outsourcing routine tasks as well.
Rob,
Outsourcing is a must – you can even outsource the creation of your product!
Andrew
Nice exchanging of ideas huh?! 🙂 Yeah, I agree with you Andrew. “Outsourcing” — that’s the right term and perfect solution that one must do. Even how good and even if your product has a high quality, still you must make a good marketing plans and strategies. Simple yet an informative blog will always top at customers attention. Thanks a lot!
Clinton,
Thanks for coming over and commenting.
The marketing can be harder than the product creation!
You do much outsourcing?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Nice tips! I agree that if one is selling a product that I buy, I would like them to always update that product or page. Some time ago, I browsed a product and was verifying them for the price as I was ready to purchase it, but when they told me the price (which was a few dollars more than what I saw at their site), I got turned off, even if they said that that was the price last year. So I strongly agree that if you are going to sell something, always update your product page so people won’t think you’re ripping them off. Thank you for sharing!
Felicia
NOT updating your sales page to the current price…to me is rather stupid!
Andrew
Nice ideas and tips Andrew.It is important to have an updated product and promoting it in right market that is specific niche to get better results. It is important that we provide the USPs of product so that your target audience know that the product is really important for them.
It’s just finding the USP of the product can be hard sometimes.
Andrew