Presenting How-To Information

Let's say you have the know-how to create a how-to-product of your own or, if not, that are ready to invest in a resale product, with master resale or private label rights. In short, you have some how-to information, you can do what you want with it and now need to think about how to present it.

There are various ways you can do it. You can put together an e-report, e-book or e-course, depending on how much material you have. This might initially be a word.doc which you can then convert easily to a PDF file. You can find a good 'PDF Convertor' by using Google.com or Yahoo.com to search for one. You will see lots of free and low-cost, easy-to-use programs that enable you to convert any file into a PDF format. A PDF format looks glossy and professional and can be downloaded easily by any customer who has Adobe Acrobat.

You don't have to simply present information in a written format to be downloaded and read. You might, as examples, add an audio product to what you are offering. Let's say you have an e-book on share investing. You could put together a series of additional, and perhaps more timely, questions and answers and turn this into an interview which you could offer as an extra MP3 file. You can Google.com and Yahoo.com for free programs you can download to help you to do this.

You could then use this MP3 file on a website, either yours or an affiliate site, to promote the e-book and then add it into the package as a download. It all helps to increase the perceived value of the product. Instead of, say, £37 for the basic e-book, you can now price at £47 because of the extra MP3 material. Increasingly, the most popular and profitable how-to products come in a variety of formats - an e-book, an MP3 audio, an audio CD and so on.

You'll find that, as you become more successful and build a database of your own customers, that you can actually sell the same basic information in a variety of ways – maybe as a big, 10-part e-course initially and then as separate in-depth e-reports and again on MP3 formats for those who prefer to listen rather than read. You could even do a DVD version if you want! You can also offer back-up services such as email updates which might deliver more timely material.

How-To Products That Work

Successful how-to products sold online have key criteria in common. One is a price that reflects the value of the information, not the price of producing the nitty-gritty product. If someone is going to make £10,000+ from a high-value e-book on forex (foreign exchange) trading, they'd expect to pay perhaps £200+ rather than £19.99!

It is always tricky to know exactly what to charge and many entrepreneurs Google.com and Yahoo.com to see what similar products are selling for online. Some then pitch at a slightly lower price. Sometimes, this can work. Other times, a cheaper product is perceived to be inferior because of its price. Others pitch at a higher price.

Again, this can sometimes work as the product will be perceived to be of higher value. But it can mean that some buyers will simply go for a cheaper product of a similar type. You really need to test various price points, offering at, say, £34.99 or lower to one list and £39.95 or higher to another, to see which generates the highest net income for you.

Buyers love freebies – although they are more often than not called 'bonuses' which sound rather more business-like. The more bonuses you can include, the better the take-up rate of your offer. Bonuses make you seem generous and the customers feel special. It also helps increase the perceived value of the product and makes the customer feel they are getting value for money.

If you offer an e-book, you might want to have three bonus e-reports to go with it. These should relate closely to the main product. If you were writing about overseas property investing, you might do extra, in-depth four page reports on the current hottest markets; Germany, Morocco and Turkey as examples.

This can be a good way to keep the whole product fresh and timely and more attractive. The basic product can stay largely unchanged but you can update those free reports every three to six months. And, in due course, you might also find you can sell them separately as well. Of course, there are all sorts of freebies – you might offer a free trial membership to a paid-for website, where you take a commission on every new member!

You should also give your customers a strong guarantee. What you are doing here is to make the customer feel there is no risk in trying this product. As an example, you could offer a 30 day money back guarantee to your customers. But add to that though to make sure the would-be buyer really knows they are not going to be taking any risks at all. If you can eliminate the risks for them, they are much more likely to give the product a go!

Tell your potential buyers that, even if they return the main product, they can still keep all of the bonuses. Surprisingly, the take-up of this guarantee tends to be minimal. Of course, there will always be one or two customers who do follow through but these tend to be the ones who would have asked for their money back anyway. For everyone else, it is an encouragement to buy – and the extra number of people who do buy will far exceed the handful of refunds you have to give

All for today, see you tomorrow with more advice on selling how-to products and turning this idea into a proper, full-time business.

Product Stories

People love to hear stories and they don't get to hear enough of them. We recently heard about some architectural reclamation yards that go out of their way to get the story behind what they have for sale – where the building was, how old it was, what it looked like, who lived and worked there etc? It helps to bring the product to life.

If you were an antique dealer, wouldn't you do the same thing? But they rarely do. Even second hand car dealers know the power of such stories, as evidenced by the apocryphal "little gem owned by a vicars wife who only took it out on Sunday afternoons'.

Are there stories you can build around the origins of your product or service. If there are, you could make them all the more saleable and appealing.