Articles: Market Your Business With Information Products

Are you looking for a way to establish your company's expertise and connect with your prospects and customers? Consider giving away (or even selling) information products. An information product is a printed, electronic, or audio publication such as a white paper, special report, printed booklet, tip sheet, cassette tape or CD that offers useful industry information to your prospects and customers.

Here are four ways you can promote your business with information products.

1. Include an information product as a premium when the customer purchases something.

For example, if your company cleans air ducts, offer a free report such as "Allergy-proofing your home" to every customer who engages your services.

2. Use information products to encourage a prospect to take action.

A mail house might offer a special report about creating a successful direct mail campaign to prospects who meet with a sales representative. A landscape design company could give a tip sheet on selecting the proper plants and trees to each prospect they meet with. Be sure to emphasize the free information offer in your advertising and other promotions.

3. Give away information products, just for the asking, that will create a desire for your product or service.

For example, a professional organizer could offer an audio CD of a seminar she taught. The prospect will listen to the CD during drive time, enjoy learning about organizational techniques, and may be encouraged to hire the organizer.

4. Turn uncompensated time into paid time by offering special reports for a price.

If you offer a service and find that you often spend time in free consultations with prospects that go nowhere, create special reports. This works well for prospects who may be interested in your service but can't afford it. If you find you are asked the same questions over and over again, turn each question into its own special report. Once you have several different reports written, you can offer bundles of them at lower prices. Instead of $8 each, for instance, you might offer 3 for $20.

The key to a successful information product is to keep the topic narrow while delivering information in depth. Don't be a tease; deliver detailed, specialized information that is difficult or inconvenient to find elsewhere. Put an enticing, benefit-filled title on your information product. Title formats such as "how to" and "seven (or any number) ways to" are particularly effective.

If you teach seminars or give presentations regularly, record the sessions and create audio CDs or downloadable MP3 files. These recordings make excellent information products to give or sell to prospects and customers.

The internet offers a low-cost way to deliver your information products without going to the expense of printing on paper. Information products can be delivered as e-books, special downloadable reports and MP3 files, or by auto-responder email. If you're offering hard copies of materials, they can be printed out one at a time on your printer as needed.
© Eileen Coale, All rights reserved.

Eileen Coale, owner of Coale Communications, is a copywriter and consultant. To sign up for her free monthly ezine, Third Thursday Marketing Tips, or to learn more about her work, visit her website at www.eileencoale.com. You can reach her by phone at 410-757-0821. If you'd like to use this article at no charge for your website, ezine, or newsletter, contact eileen@eileencoale.com for permission.