The 10 Biggest Mistakes I See Information Marketers Make

Information marketing can be a tricky business. Avoid these 10 biggest mistakes I see information marketers make to increase your chances for success.

1. No upsells in their on-line ordering system

You've got them on your order page - primed and ready to purchase your product. They're in a buying mood. Yet, you don't offer them additional products they can purchase right then and there. Bottom line - you're leaving a lot of money on the table. I've seen up to 90% of purchasers take the upsell that was offered on certain products. And I've seen upsells work well where the "upsell" was priced at 3 times the price of the original product. You're only limited by your creativity, but if you aren't offering any upsell you know what your results will be - zero.

2. No ride along offers with their physical product shipments

Similar to the upsell, you've got a new customer that has just received your product. Assuming you've delivered as promised on the quality of your content and you have a sharp looking package, then you have a prime prospect to purchase additional products from you. So include a promotional piece or two in your physical package that offers them additional items of yours to purchase. The only cost is the printing cost of the pieces you choose to include.

3. Trying to do their own product duplication and fulfillment

I always ask people the question "Are You a Speaker or a Fulfillment House?" When you're first starting out the economics may require you to do it all yourself. But once you're rocking and rolling you've got to ask yourself the question "What's the best use of my time?" Is it running of manuals at your local copy shop, burning CDs one at a time on your computer, searching for boxes and packaging materials, and running products down to the post office or the local UPS store to ship out everyday. The answer should be no. The most valuable use of your time is sales and marketing of your products and services and new product creation.

4. Not investing some time everyday in marketing

Your products won't market themselves. Yet so many information marketers get caught up in the day to day of working in their business they don't spend any time working on their business. You must invest some time everyday in marketing. Do at least one thing a day that will help you to build your business. Write an article, make a call to a potential joint venture partner, send out a promotion to your list. Whatever, do something each day that is an investment in building your information marketing empire.

5. Selling their product for too little

Too many information marketers price their products way too low. If you think you're going to make it in the information marketing business selling products for $15 then you're probably kidding yourself. The only exception would be if you have massive retail distribution selling thousands of units. Don't undervalue your products. If you're selling physical products for less than $97 you're going to have a tough go of it in this industry. Figure out how you can bundle a few things together to come up with $297, $497, $997 or higher priced products.

6. Trying to make it perfect

Just get it done. It doesn't have to be perfect. I've seen product launches delayed months while the creator was crossing every "t" and dotting every "i" for the fifth time. Yes, I think you need to have your product proofread by another set of eyes. But it does not have to be perfect. Get it out there and start generating some revenue. You can always tweak it on future production runs. Should it look professional - definitely. But don't let your obsession with perfection get in the way of getting your product to market.

7. Selling a product that isn't yet fully developed

This one tends to be a bigger problem for platform speakers than for regular information marketers, but here's the gist of it. A speaker offers a package from the platform that includes some components that are in development. They think it will take two more weeks to finish everything up. But, invariably, it ends up taking two months or more to complete. So you end up with a lot of unhappy customers who want refunds because delivery promises were not kept. The real key is to manage expectations. People will wait some period of time before things are in their hands, but if you keep pushing that delivery time out it will bite you.

8. Not testing your on-line ordering system prior to launch date

You've put months worth of effort into creating your fantastic new information product. You've lined up joint venture partners and your offer is being blasted out to thousands of people. Then someone tries to order and they can't get their order through. Oops, you forgot to check your shopping cart system out ahead of time. Does everything work as it's supposed to? Is your fulfillment house getting copies of all your orders as they come in? Don't scramble around after the fact trying to get your ordering mechanism in place and fully tested.

9. No "Read this First" or "Getting Started" document to guide users

You've assembled a comprehensive new course that's the latest and greatest on subject "x". It consists of 12 CDs, 6 DVDs, and a 400 page manual that arrives at your customer's door in a big box. You've definitely got "thump value". But when your customer opens the box he is overwhelmed by your product because he doesn't know where to get started. So include some type of "Read this First" or "Getting Started" document that will outline for your customer step by step how to consume your information. If they immediately put your product aside because they don't know where to begin then chances are they'll never get going with it. Which means there's a significant chance they'll return it and nearly a 100% chance they'll never purchase anything else from you. So, tell them how to "consume" your product in a logical manner and you'll be ahead of the game.

10. No unannounced bonuses in package

Everyone likes surprises. When you send your package to a customer be sure to include some unannounced bonus they weren't anticipating that further increases the perceived value of your product. It doesn't have to be another physical component - it can be a bonus they download or an additional file contained on one of the CDs or DVDs they weren't anticipating.