In this post, we’ll take a look at how to Create Information Products For coaches in nearly any field. Product creation is the best way to:
- Reach a wider audience
- Grow your brand
- Earn more profits
So why aren’t more coaches and consultants adopting the product creation strategy? Like you, they may be stuck in the process, unsure of the steps to take to create a great product
Digital information products offer an excellent way for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, authors and freelancers to get products out quickly and at a low cost. These products can earn you a profit while also establishing your reputation as an expert and enlarging your audience.
Even though production costs are low, it can take a great deal of time to create information products (info products). And the strategy works best when you have several products out at once, and keep producing more regularly. So, the best results come from implementing a rapid system of information product creation and publishing. (Later there smaller information products could form parts of or be put together to create a bigger signature system, method or process.)
Since speed is essential, but you still need to create high-value products that your target audience will pay for, how can this be accomplished? There are three keys to successfully creating info products quickly and profitably.
Contents
Step 1 : Focus on Problems – Identify a Need
As a coach or consultant, you have great insight into the wants and needs of your ideal client. You chat with prospects on Facebook, answer email questions, respond to the comments they leave on your blog, and even work with them one-on-one.
But what is it that your potential clients need the most help with right now?
This is the product you should be creating because the audience already exists all you have to do is solve the problem and show them how and become a Niche Market Authority.
An information product is just a digital file that contains information. It might cost absolutely nothing for you to produce, and there are few to no shipping or inventory costs. So, how can this type of product have any value at all?
The value of an information product is that it addresses a problem the buyer faces, and offers a solution to that problem. We go online looking for information (and information products) in order to answer questions, fulfill needs, solve problems, relieve pain, and assuage fears. An online consumer is willing to pay good money for an info product, even though it’s just a “file”, download or video – IF that product will accomplish this for them. You can’t put a price on solving a pressing problem.
Let’s take the example of someone who wants to start an online business and do it all themselves, but they face the massive tech stumbling block of building a website. No matter how they make use of all of the resources out there, it just never comes together or looks right. Even something simple like WordPress dumbfounds this less-than-tech-savvy businessperson
If you can create a short, quick, and easy guide to building a website that even this technically averse individual can use to produce results (a great looking, functional, and easy to use website), you’ve provided undeniable value. This person will not only feel satisfied with the money well spent on your product but will also check out your other offerings to see if you can solve any of their other problems, as well as sing your praises to others.
And, if you’re a rapid product developer, you can have a whole array of other simple products to help this online business newbie get ahead – a course on how to blog, an all-you-need-to-know course about Internet security, and an array of products on online marketing, each of which teaches one simple technique you can use to get web traffic.
All an information product needs to do is solve one problem to the buyer’s satisfaction. If you know your potential buyer, understand their problems, and have a viable solution for them, you’ll see results.
Step 2: Leverage Your Content Assets – Gather Your Documentation
If you’ve been coaching for more than a few weeks, chances are you already have all of the answers required—all you have to do it organise your skills and knowledge. Some places you can look for content that you can repurpose include:
- Your blog
- Your emails (and autoresponder)
- Your client calls
- Your social media accounts
- Your YouTube channel
- Your personal checklists and worksheets
All of these things (and many more) can be edited and organised into a comprehensive product that solves a serious issue and you can do it in less time than you might think. After all, you already have the bulk of the work done!
Creating a steady stream of high-value information products that solve your target market’s problems sounds like a fairly daunting task. Even if the products are small and compact, this involves a great deal of content creation. The secret to success is recycling and repurposing other content. Here is a great case study about the coaching business.
If you’ve already been doing business online, you probably already have a supply of old content. Or if you’re on offline business, you have marketing or informational materials. The idea is to take these materials and repurpose them to create new products.
You’re not just recycling old stuff and putting a new cover on it. If you have old content that has provided useful information to help people, it can still provide information and help people. It’s a matter of going through your old content and finding something that’s appropriate to the problem you’re trying to solve for your audience. You may also need to alter, update, or touch up this old content, but these are just gaps to fill. It’s much faster than creating completely new content.
If you don’t have an archive of informational content lying around on your hard drive, you can still benefit from these techniques. When you create a new piece of content, you can then repurpose it to fulfill other purposes. What you’re doing is getting more out of each piece of content you create.
Let’s take the example of an expatriate from Europe who has retired in Thailand and wants to help others make the move to Southeast Asia. The most pressing question you see from your website visitors is: “How can I move to Southeast Asia?”
To answer this question, you write a blog post entitled, “5 Easy Ways to Make the Big Move to Asia.” One of the methods is teaching English, and you give a few simple tips on where to find jobs, how to apply, and dealing with the logistics of moving.
You can create an information product that’s compact and highly specific that teaches people how to get a teaching job in Asia. You already have several tips from your blog post, which can be expanded into chapters with step-by-step instructions in your information product. This is an example of repurposing.
For another example, let’s say that you created a series of videos on YouTube teaching people how to take good care of vinyl records. One video explains what type of record sleeves to buy. Another one deals with the importance of changing your record player’s needle regularly and how to do that. One more goes into the best ways to store vinyl and the pros and cons of each.
You can take your videos, arrange them in a logical order, and create a whole new information product out of them. Even better, transcribe the videos (or use a voice recognition software to do it for you), take some screenshots, and put together an eBook on caring for vinyl records. Write an intro, table of contents, and conclusion, and you have a very viable high-value information product.
Successful content marketers do this constantly. They’re always looking for ways existing content can be adapted, changed to a different format, updated, enlarged into new content (for example, creating a blog post for each tip), condensed into new content (taking a series of related blog posts and turning them into one “tips” article), bundling old content together, and so on. Repurposing is a tool to get more out of every piece of content you create.
Step 3: Create the Solution, Streamlined System
Now that you have your content, it’s time to put it together in a way that will make sense to your audience. Will you…
- Write a Kindle book? This is a great option for solving a very focused, single problem. Even better, Kindle books offer a fabulous opportunity to reach a wider audience.
- Create a signature system/methodology with xx steps
- Create a membership site or members area for your course? For a comprehensive, step-by-step course, you can’t beat the flexibility of a membership site.
- Offer a group coaching program? Add personal time with you to your membership site and you’ve got an instant group coaching program. Not only that but you’ve dramatically upped the value (and cost) as well.
Your choice will depend largely on the scope of the solution. Is it a simple answer that can be explained in a few pages or is it a complex issue that requires several weeks of work?
Creating a product doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. Sure, you can design a massive, all-inclusive course if you like, but when you’re just getting started, that’s a daunting prospect. Instead, work with what you already have and you’ll have your first product up and selling in no time.
Finally, as with anything that needs to be ongoing and done quickly, you can create a system and workflow to streamline your rapid information product creation.
Your system starts with an idea pipeline. You should always be on the lookout for ideas for info products, and keep lists of ideas that you can use for new projects. If you stay in steady communication with your audience, they’ll help you with this. You’ll see people asking questions, talking about their problems, and seeking solutions. For each question or issue that comes along, ask yourself, “How would I solve this problem for them?” This is the seed of your next information product.
To save time, create a content creation workflow that starts with the initial idea and ends with the finished, published product. Each time you get an idea from the market and start planning, go through your old content to see if you have anything you can use. Evaluate how you can use it and what needs to be added or changed.
Tools that can help here include outlines, templates, cheat sheets, and checklists that make content production smooth. It’s then just a matter of plugging the content in and the product virtually creates itself. In fact, if you have these tools and a creation process in place, you can start outsourcing or delegating the work to others and just work as the project manager, checking the final work and okaying it when it’s ready to go.
The last piece of your fast information product creation system is to choose tech tools to help you create and publish your products, and have them ready to go with the kinks worked out. There is some tech help needed with creating the actual file and publishing it in such a way that people can buy and download it, but these are small obstacles to overcome and there are plenty of tools to make it easy.
There is just one more piece of the puzzle and then you’re ready to produce a successful info product empire – the voice of the people. In other words, feedback from your audience.
Everything you do is based on careful research and assumptions. You won’t know what will actually work until you launch your product and see how it performs. You may learn some unexpected things about your target market along the way. This is extremely valuable information.
By publishing a large number of products on a regular basis, you create many opportunities for feedback from your customers, which you can then use for future projects. This is where real success comes in. Once you start publishing, you’ll quickly learn about your audience and its tastes. It allows you to pivot and if you can base it on the data (eg whats working) then you can adapt and edit fast in order to provide the ideal products your audience are looking for.
Gathering and analyzing feedback should be part of the system as well. Selling your products with a simple cart such as ThriveCart means you are able to also quickly sell and earn. Now you have an information marketing business.
Rapid Infomation Product Creation Turns You into a Trusted Expert
The idea is to produce one small but valuable digital product after another that identifies and solves a key problem your audience faces. With each product you put out, you’ll see profits and more exposure, but you’ll also gain valuable feedback to help you improve and produce even more valuable products.
Creating and implementing a fast product creation system makes it easy to flood the market with high-value information products.
Digital Business Coach | Web Revenue Strategist | Award-Winning IT Consultant | Author
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With over 18 years of industry experience in business and personal development, I’ve successfully been working with coaches, consultants and authors set up the right systems and implement strategic content strategies to start, grow and scale their businesses online with automation, digital products and services. (To work with Jatinder – click here)