Video Production On A Tight Budget.
By Paul Johnstone · CommentsPutting together an information product used to be a costly affair before the Internet came along, the printed paper products were bad enough, but the real heavyweight costs came in the area of video production – so much so that it was out of the reach of all bar the biggest and most successful information publishers.
That is most definitely not the case any longer…
Capturing the footage in the first place is second nature these days, we can film high definition video on something that fits inside our pockets, – so we don’t have a problem on that score. Video Production however is a slightly different matter, taking the footage, editing it and adding text etc, basically polishing it and turning it into a finished quality product that we can sell is not quite so straightforward is it?
Well that is the common perception, – that it is both difficult and expensive, that we need to … ‘get someone else to do it’. The very thought of having to use those video production programs that the Hollywood Studios use is daunting, not to mention the fact that they cost an arm and a leg.
There is a solution to our video production problem though, a software program that is very reasonably priced and fairly simple to use. It is a stripped down version of one of the major programs the experts use, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it won’t allow you to get your job done – it can quite easily handle any project you could ever throw at it! Limited for what the pro’s need maybe, but absolutely perfect for those of us in the Internet Marketing arena.
It is called the Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum Production Suite – a rather grand title and not to be confused with the far more advanced (and expensive) Sony Vegas Pro – but if you want to get stuck into your own video production, this is certainly one of the programs you should consider.
Video Traffic – Use Your Blog Posts…
By Paul Johnstone · Comments
Getting streams of traffic to your website is the Holy Grail in Internet Marketing, and one of those streams is video traffic – short promotion videos that you put up on video sharing sites. With free Powerpoint and Camtasia alternatives available on the Internet, video production does not need to be too much of a problem.
However, coming up with ideas for new videos does tend to be a problem for many, in a similar way that coming up with fresh new blog posts causes problems, – mental block, writers block etc.
But there is one almighty hint in the previous sentence that could very easily be used to find a solution to one part of the predicament. The answer to more video traffic is staring us in the face…
Between blog posts and videos, the former is undoubtedly easier to produce than the latter – if you had an hour to come up with a blog post or a short promo video, I think it’s safe to say you’d sit down and write a short blog post … everyone would?
And therein lays the answer to increasing your video traffic!
Erm, … say what??
Simple, make a video version of every blog post!
Again, using Powerpoint and Camtasia – or their freely available alternatives – just take the text of your blog post and create a simple short presentation. Throw in a cheap USB microphone to do the voiceover, or maybe just use a musical backdrop from an audio file if you prefer, and you have yourself a short video.
Creating a Youtube channel is as straightforward as it comes, and adding a video version of each blog post would mean you’d have yourself a fairly substantial channel in a relatively short time – and more importantly would mean that you’d not only double the exposure of your blog posts, but would dramatically increase your video traffic as well.
Hey, you could even go a stage further and create three versions of each blog post, the written one for your blog page, an audio version available for download from your site, and the video version for your Youtube channel…
It’s amazing what you can do with a simple blog post and how much use you can get from them – video traffic is undoubtedly one of them.
Speaking of Video Traffic…
Two of the ‘main men’ in Information Marketing – the two Neil’s – have a great little program devoted to Video Marketing – click here now to check it out…
Do you want to know a little secret, a way to increase the value of a certain type of information product, even by up to ten times – that only the savviest of Internet Marketers know about? Well stay tuned because I’m going to tell you…
Not that I’m one of those savvy Internet Marketers you understand, – oh no – I learnt this from one of the real big dogs. But if it works for him – and believe me it does – it will work for anyone.
Right, down to business, you intend to put together a book or manual type of information product relating to your niche area – it could be in digital or hard copy format … or even both? The format is immaterial in this instance, it’s the price on the product we’re looking at and how we can significantly increase the value of it.
What are we looking at for an e-book? They can range from very cheap to very expensive, but a lot of the time you’ll find them around the $20 mark – some are less, some are more, let’s call it a very rough average. Funnily enough, most actual printed books cost less than e-books, why is that? Personally I feel the hard copy of an e-book isn’t a book but a manual. The word ‘manual’ gives the impression of a higher perceived value and as such comes with a higher price, usually around 3 or 4 times higher.
So whatever you do, if you’re writing a book to launch into your niche market, DON’T CALL IT A BOOK – call it a Manual and charge more!!
You’re thinking that is the big tip on how to increase the value of your product? No, that’s just a mini-tip on the way to a bigger one.
To really increase the value even more, you have to go a step further again. What is the next step up from a ‘Manual’ … it’s a Course. Now Courses are big money, you are talking hundreds – maybe even thousands in some cases. Where Manuals have a higher perceived value than mere Books, so Courses have a higher perceived value than Manuals!
But there is a small problem, how can a Book be a Course?
Now we come to this cheeky little re-packaging trick as taught me by one of the big chiefs in the Information Publishing business. He told me – are you ready for this – that in his eyes a Course was simply a Book or Manual that had been split into smaller parts and put into a ring binder type folder!!
That’s it, a ridiculously simply tactic to increase the value of a book or manual. Now it’s not going to work on a very small publication of just a few pages, but let’s just for arguments sake take 150 pages worth of information – that could either be a manual, or with a bit of a re-design and re-packaging … a 5-Part Course of 30 pages per month. It’s the same information but one sells for considerably more than the other.
In short, to increase the value of an information product – if possible re-package it to something of a higher perceived value.
Please leave a comment if you would like to share any similar marketing tips.
If you have any intention of selling products or services online, then at some point you will need to get some sales copy typed up for your website. There is no getting away from it, if you want site visitors to part with their cash you will need to persuade them to do so…
Solution – get your sales copy done by a professional.
Great idea, but copywriters cost money and those who could probably shift bucket-loads of your sexy new product with their sales copy cost a lot of money, and I mean A LOT OF MONEY. Those who don’t and can offer you a sales letter for buttons – well, let’s just say you get what you pay for, and chances are you could do a better job of it yourself.
So unless you have a few thousand dollars lying around, your best option is to write your own sales copy. After all, you know your product/service better than anyone else.
There is no need to recoil in horror at the very mention of the word ‘copywriting’ – yes it is a skill, but writing sales copy is not the domain of the English Language Professor’s amongst us, indeed most of the really top guys in the industry have no background in language studies at all. They are not writers – well they are – but not in the traditional sense, they just happen to specialize in one particular type of text, the type that makes people want to buy things.
Do you think you could write half decent sales copy for your own products, or does it still scare you?
Think of it another way, imagine being sat with a friend of yours having a chat, do you think you’d be able to practice on them and use the spoken word to persuade them to buy your product – of course you could. Well that is copywriting in a nutshell, it is not the Queen’s English with perfect grammar, – it is simply chatting to someone in print – someone you know is already interested in what you have to sell…
Clickbank is full of Sales Copy
Clickbank is an ideal place to learn more about copywriting, not by buying a ‘sales copy’ type of product, but by checking out the thousands of sales letters that accompany each product. Jot down all the various parts of various letters that appeal to you, you could even use them as a basis to write your own – but for goodness sake don’t copy them word for word under any circumstances – just take the general message and re-write in your own words.
Writing great sales copy doesn’t need to be a major problem, with a bit of research and a bit of practice you could very easily put together a piece that brings in the cash like it was going out of fashion.
People don’t want to research a market for their business or product, it’s dull and boring and time consuming (apparently) – why waste the effort when you can just get your product sorted out and dive into promoting it?
Why, because it’s not the right way to approach things, it’s a mistake many in business make – whisper it quietly but it’s a mistake I made myself many moons ago and it cost me big time! Hence why I know it’s a mistake…
Researching your chosen market is essential because there is one golden rule that applies to virtually every type of business, – ‘Find a hungry market full of buyers first, and then give them something to buy’. The mistake is obviously going about it the opposite way around, creating, manufacturing or taking stock of the product first – and then trying to find someone to sell it to.
So we’re all agreed then, researching a market is a very important initial step to take, – and it’s not actually a difficult thing to do. There is no need for surveys or any of that nonsense; your market research can be done very easily from the comfort of your own home by simply popping along to the Internet.
- Check out the magazine subscription sites, if your niche has a magazine then you have a market – the magazine wouldn’t survive otherwise.
- Have a look around Youtube for related videos, how do the viewer numbers stack up?
- Forums and message boards, are they a hive of activity or do they resemble a ghost town…
- Facebook groups and Fan Pages etc, similar to the forums, are they buzzing along with a lot of interest.
- Google’s free keyword tool, type a few common keywords in that relate to you niche, see how many times they have been searched – type them into Google itself and see how many websites are listed or indeed Adword adverts on the right of the page.
As you can see your best market research tool is right at your fingertips, and it’s far from difficult or time consuming to go floating around the Internet in search of evidence of a suitable marketplace. Why skip something that is so easy when it can help tell you so much?
Research your market, make sure you have a group of buyers and put something in front of them that you know they’re already interested in!
Information Publishing – Know Your Numbers.
By Paul Johnstone · CommentsFollowing on from the previous post, Digital Publishing comes under the broader term of Information Publishing, and if we take away the digital variety, what are we left with? … Good old fashioned paper products, the type that made many fortunes prior to the Interweb being invented, and indeed still do for that matter.
Now as you may have gathered from my last post, I personally feel that digital products are the way to go – certainly for anyone just starting out – but the fact remains that some people like the idea of getting into Information Publishing, with the intention of producing and promoting an actual physical paper product, – books, newsletters, magazines, manuals, courses etc.
I’ve had experience of that myself, I published a dog breed mini-magazine in printed format for 10 whole years – so I’m familiar with the ins and outs of what you might call ‘traditional’ Information Publishing – and there are certain aspects you need to guard against should you go down that road yourself.
Information Publishing – Know Your Numbers.
Here’s something that will shock you to your very core – printed products have to be, erm, … printed! The point is that printing costs, and even with the invention of digital printing which allows for printing in small quantities – it can still be quite costly, or very costly in some cases. The first thing you need to determine is how much will one unit of your product cost to print?
The unit cost will be lower the higher quantity you order – BUT – the higher quantity you order the more you have in stock … and that will be wasted money if you can’t sell them! Order a very small amount and the unit cost is much higher – so you obviously need to do your homework and strike a balance somewhere.
The partner in crime to the printing costs is the postage costs, and again these can be on the hefty side at times, very hefty if you offer to post your products worldwide. But again, you need to know how much one complete packaged unit will cost to post and add it to your printing cost per unit to give you a total.
- Now here comes the killer tip, if your intended selling price is NOT at the absolute very least 3 times your combined printing and postage total, then you’re wasting your time. Indeed I’d go even higher still; it should be at least 5 times higher – preferably 10 times or more.
Basically what it boils down to is this, if you’re going into the Information Publishing business aiming at selling printed products – make sure you go for the ‘high ticket’ items – ideally courses that sell for hundreds. The spiralling printing and postage costs of recent times make it very hard to make big profits on lower priced printed information products like books and newsletters. Small profits are all well and good, but big profits are so much better!
An Information Publishing business can get you those big profits…
Digital Publishing Is Where You Want To Be!
By Paul Johnstone · Comments
Let’s face it, any business can set up a website and operate from the Internet, but the one big piece of advice I’d give anyone looking to start an online business from scratch … get into Digital Publishing.
Why would that be I hear you ask…
Many reasons, but in general the big attraction of Digital Publishing is that it eliminates so many of the costs involved that usually come with a business centred around more conventional products – and sometimes those costs are big, seriously big! Eliminating the big expenditure means we keep more of the proceeds, bigger profits and more money.
Some advantages a Digital Publishing business offers:-
- Products can be produced without spending any money on them at all.
- Even if you decided to turn a digital product into a physical product (e.g. an audio file into a CD), the costs involved are miniscule – CD’s and DVD’s are literally pennies.
- Most digital products can be instantly downloadable, hence no waiting around for the customer and no postage or packing costs incurred for you … and obviously no stock to keep.
- Again, even in the case of a physical digital product, they are so small and lightweight that postage and packing costs would not be too severe as in the case of bigger, bulkier items.
- Your whole business can be operated with just a computer from anywhere you choose to be – no premises, no expensive equipment or machinery required.
- You can run it all by yourself without having to employ anyone, and even if you did need some help you could simply hire someone on a site like elance.com
- And of course – HUGE PROFITS – the downloadable digital files are almost entirely profit, and the mark-up for the physical products can be, for want of a better word … obscene! Something that costs just a few Dollars or Pounds to produce, pack and post – can easily be sold for hundreds, even thousands at times.
I think you get the picture, getting into the Digital Publishing arena could be the best decision you’ve ever made, why on earth would you bother with rush hour traffic, bosses, irritating workmates and low pay when there is a far better alternative? For further information download my FREE e-book above.
Trust me; Digital Publishing is where it’s at!
SEO For Blogs – This Is Almost Cheating!
By Paul Johnstone · Comments
Fact, Google loves WordPress Blogs – therefore SEO for Blogs (Search Engine Optimization) should be seriously looked at by any online business owner who uses a blog as part of their website? Absolutely right, we can gain some major traffic from a correctly highly optimized blog post.
And yes I did just say post – as in singular – just imagine what you could get with pages full of search engine optimized blog posts – as in multiple?
SEO For Blogs Made Simple.
Luckily for us there is a tool out there that can help us with this, something that makes mastering SEO for blogs so much easier – in fact it’s just like having an expert with you while you write your posts, ensuring that the end result will float Google’s boat so to speak.
It’s a WordPress plugin called SEOPressor, it basically ranks your post for you and tells you what you need to add to it to boost that ranking and optimize it to its full potential. Of course, it doesn’t write the post for you – you still have to do that yourself – but it will show you where and how to fine-tune it.
There’s loads of reviews and information on Google to check out, but I just thought I’d pop a video from YouTube in here to give you an idea. Again, there are dozens more SEOPressor tutorials, reviews and such like on YouTube for further inspection … and I would highly recommend you give them the once over.
Using WordPress to build a site and including a Blog Page as part of it is undoubtedly a great idea, but adding SEOPressor will take it up a level and supercharge it – as far as plugins go for online business owners, this one is a must.
SEOPressor is SEO For Blogs!
A great way to get into business online is by creating an ebook, either as a free giveaway to build up a list, or as an actual product for sale. Today I’m going to tell you about the two main aspects you need to include no matter what subject your ebook may be about and no matter what purpose you use it for.
In fact this applies to most products you may plan on putting together, from a simple article right up to the biggest DVD course or Membership Site – but it’s a little trick that will help keep your customers happy, and happy customers equals more profits for you!
Creating An E-Book – Tip 1
You must never lose sight of the fact that by their very nature, ‘information products’ in whatever format are meant to inform. The clue is in the title, they are meant to educate, solve a problem, bring knowledge to the buyer or help them with a problem and so on – ideally in as simple and straightforward a manner as possible.
To stay with our example, if you’re creating an ebook, you need to ensure that the reader has learned something by the end of it, that you’ve supplied them with the information that they were specifically looking for – job done as they say?
Well no not quite, that’s the obvious bit – although many products out there don’t come close to doing what their owners claim they do – but it’s how to present the information that will help boost your success.
For example, let’s say you’re creating an ebook called ‘How To Get The Best Out Of Your Digital Camera’ – you could present it with all kinds of technically perfect facts and statistics, more akin to a manufacturers user manual … but that will come across as dull and boring.
Creating An E-Book – Tip 2
Here’s the big tip, people don’t like dull and boring – they like to be entertained. Your customers will be far happier if you present exactly the same information in a more light-hearted or even humorous way, the personality of the author or creator should come through, someone people like to read along with because not only are they being educated and learning what they wanted to learn … but they are ENJOYING it at the same time!
That is the secret - ‘Educate with Enjoyment’ – fix this quote in your mind and you won’t go far wrong, remember it every time you’re creating an ebook, an audio product, a video tutorial or anything else you are going to promote to your customers.
For more supersonic marketing tips, check out my FREE 94-page ebook above.
Go to any internet marketing expert for advice and chances are almost every single one will speak of the need to build a list, and that’s because it’s one of THE big factors of running an online business. You build up your list, you promote products to it, then you promote another offer to it, and then another one … I think you get the picture?
Without a list you need to find a constant stream of new prospects and if that’s the way you want to go then no problem, but all the leading lights in the business will tell you it’s far easier to sell a product to someone who has already happily bought something similar from you, than it is to sell the same product to someone who has never heard of you.
When we say build a list, we mean of course build an e-mail list – just a simple name and e-mail address – and as such you’ll see some kind of lead capture device on most marketers’ sites. Hey, look above; I’ve even got one – I must be a proper marketer like those famous dudes. Well no I’m not; I’m just following what they’re doing because it’s common sense.
But over the last year or two the explosion of Social Media – primarily Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – has given us intrepid marketers the opportunity to build up other types of lists in the form of Fans and Followers etc. Where once we would have one main site and one main e-mail list, we can now have Social Media branches of our online business with a following (or list) in each one.
The beauty of this is quite obvious, people who might not have joined your list under normal circumstances, could quite easily be one of your Fans or Followers on one of your Social Media websites, – your total number of prospects may be split into a few different lists or groups, but that total will be more than if you had just one e-mail list.
So keep that in mind, yes you still need to build a list of prospects from your main website – but you should also devote some time to boosting your fans and follower numbers as well. In fact given the ‘Social Media nature’ chances are they are likely to grow quicker and bigger than you can build a traditional list from your own efforts alone…