Creating your info product and selling info products can be a very lucrative business. The barriers to entry are low and it doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an expert.
If you have some knowledge to impart and an audience who’s eager to learn what you want to teach, your product will most probably be a winner and generate lots of sales.
However, despite how straightforward the process is, many marketers stumble and don’t see much success. They create the product, but they don’t make sales.
Or worse, their customers don’t like the product and are vociferous about their disdain for it.
Below are seven common mistakes to avoid when creating and selling your digital products. Avoiding these pitfalls is half the battle won.
1 – Not doing your research before creating your info product
This is the biggest mistake. You want to give the people what they want… not what you love and think they want.
You may be extremely passionate about a subject and enjoy writing about it. However, there may be very few people who are interested in the same topic as you. The market is too small for you to generate enough profit to make the juice worth the squeeze.
If you’re creating a product because you’re passionate about it, go ahead. But if you plan on profiting from it, you just might end up seeing tumbleweeds in your sales stats.
Avoid this mistake. You want to do your research and see if others are selling comparable products as yours and doing well.
Look in forums (in your niche) to see if people want answers to pressing problems. Does your product help them solve these problems?
It does? Excellent. Your product will sell well.
Find the demand then create the product. NOT the other way around.
2 – Inferior quality product
There’s a common belief in the online marketing community that you should just act and put your product out there. Very often, the example of Apple iPhones is used to state how the company keeps making improvements even after the initial release.
The hard truth is the iPhone is an awesome product to begin with. They released a working product that did what it said it would. All future improvements are just icing on the cake.
As a marketer, you want to create the best product you can. Even if it takes slightly longer (because you’re going the extra mile), take that time to release a product that your customers will love.
Don’t rush the process and release a shoddy product into the marketplace, just because you want to say you ‘did it’. It won’t matter when your customers are ranting about what they just bought from you.
So, create quality products that will help your customers. While you should avoid perfectionism, you also want to aim for excellence in whatever you do. There’s a fine line here that you should be aware of.
I have found that a tool such as Designerr goes a long way to helping to produce high quality info products.
3 – Not honoring refunds
If you have a money-back guarantee for your product, you must honor it when your customer asks for a refund during the stipulated period. Having a refund policy and not honoring it is poor form.
There are many marketers who offer a guarantee (because it improves conversions) but disappear when a few of their customers ask for refunds. This is dishonest and word will spread about your lack of integrity.
If you don’t want to issue refunds because you believe that serial refunders will try to take advantage of you, then don’t have a refund policy for your product. You’ll still make sales while avoiding the ‘riff-raff’.
4 – Not having an upgrade
Having an upgrade can boost your earnings by more than half. After someone buys your product, they should be taken to another page which offers them a related product that will help them too.
Your upgrade should add more value to their purchase. Avoid creating an upgrade which makes it necessary for your first (front end) product to work.
Both should be independent products that stand well on their own… but which still complement each other well.
For example, if you’re selling a book on the keto diet ($17), you can have a monthly keto recipe membership ($27) where you offer new keto recipes every month.
A significant percentage of people who get your book will also sign up for the keto recipe membership. Not only will you have sales for the book, but you’ll also have sales (and recurring income) from the keto membership.
Notice how the customer will be simply fine with the book even if they don’t sign up for the membership… but will benefit more if they did sign up?
That’s how you do it. Don’t hold your customers hostage by creating a product that makes getting the upgrade compulsory.
5 – Poor support
This is straightforward. Provide a support email and/or a support desk link for customers and potential customers to reach you.
Some people may have questions before they buy, and some after they buy. You need to answer all queries and help them out. This will not only convince potential buyers on the fence to buy your product… but will also build trust with customers who have already bought from you.
6 – Not focusing on marketing
Creating the info product is only half the battle. The other half is you marketing it like it’s the next best thing since sliced bread.
You’ll want to post about it on social media, recruit affiliates, use paid ads, etc. Do whatever it takes to put your offer in front of as many eyeballs as possible. That’s the best way to increase your sales revenue.
7 – Not building a list
We shouldn’t even need to mention this, but we will… because so many beginners make this mistake. They avoid getting an autoresponder because it has a small monthly fee.
This is myopic. When someone buys your product, you’ll want them to be automatically added to your email list so that you can sell your future products to them.
Having an autoresponder allows you to build a list with automation and you won’t need to do it manually. More importantly, whenever you have a new product for sale, you can email your complete list of existing customers and tell them about it.
You’ll see an initial surge in sales because your list is familiar with your products and trusts you. Your email list is your most important asset as you keep creating and selling new products. Always build a list from the get-go.
If you want a quality free autoresponder, then I recommend SendSteed. SendSteed comes included with several other marketing tools in a fantastic all tools in one free service called LeadLeap.
These seven mistakes are the most common ones that trip up beginner marketers. Now that you know what they are, avoid them and create your very own winning info product. Once you see the sales coming in, you’ll never look back.
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Mike Gaudreau is the owner of The Wealthy Boomers, a site devoted to helping seniors make money online. Mike resides in Montreal Canada.
You should assume the owner of this website has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection, to any suppliers of goods and services that may be discussed here and may be compensated for showing advertisements or recommending products or services or linking to the supplier’s website.
