First Info Product. Ebook or website?

[4hourworkweak]

Hi,

I have been thinking of giving an info product the 4hww treatment. This isn't a product I have made yet, so I will do a dry test etc.

One of the (few) things I know about is Intellectual Property, especially how to start building IP assets such as trademarks and patents for next to no money when you are a small inventor or a start-up. These are the kind of things that look mega expensive when you first look at them, but you can actually get 90% of the effectiveness for 10% of the cost if you know what you are doing. I was thinking of something along the lines of "Secrets the Patent Lawyers don't want you to know...". You get the idea.

I have never made an info product before, but I could imagine doing it one of three ways...

1) A straight e-book. A downloadable PDF with more or less just text. Possibly split up into a couple of ebooks to make it look better value i.e Buy "Patent Secrets" and get "Trademark yourself" for only $8.99 more, but wait... buy both and get a free copy of "Copyright Magic!"." :D

2) A set of downloads with an ebook or two, some videos on how to fill in the patent forms, a step by step guide to searching for prior art, an example of how to make an Intellectual Property plan for your company etc.

3) A website service where you pay for a login to a members only website where you basically get the same as 2), but it is presented online as a mixture of text, video etc.


1 is probably the easiest to make, though I do have quite good webskills to be able to make 3 without too much worry.

I have a funny feeling that 1 could probably only be sold for about $59 tops where 2 and maybe 3 could be around $99.

Any thoughts from those with info product experience or even just opinions?

[blackhatontherocks]

2 is the way to go these days. Ebooks are good, but you can always get to a higher percieved value by adding some VIDEO content.

Cheers,
Bhotr

EDIT: Fixed to remove obvious "thinking something while typing something else"-Stupidity.

[Caesar_X]

Blackhat, don't mean to sound stupid, but what is the difference between an eBook and a downloadable? Are you talking about downloadable audio? or video? or an executable program?

[officer_dibble]

3 might be interesting to do - if you built it into a community (such as this one...).

It would give you a ready made focus group/pool of fresh ideas for new products in the future.

[4hourworkweak]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree that 2) gives the impression of added value as it has video components etc. But the nice thing about 1) is that it can be easily understood. "The value proposition" (whatever that means, I'll Google it later...) is easy to put across in simple terms.

One thing about No. 3 that interests me is the fact it can be made into a community, takes a lot more work, but the value per customer could be higher. I've never really liked the idea of selling something to someone and then the relationship is over. I like recurring payments and subscriptions much better.

I guess the cool thing about dry testing is to try them all and let the market decide.

Any ideas on price positioning?

[AntonTheKhan]

Here are my 2 cents.

1 and 2 are good ideas for starters. Ideally, you want to build a business that has reoccuring income and a continuity program, such as a membership. The thing with memberships is that you have to provide constant value on at least a monthly basis.
Do you think you have enough information to provide on a monthly basis? And I m not talking about the occasional pitch ,etc. Maybe you can sell your product on the front end, and then do a forced continuity program, where for $20-30 a month they get a list of leads for companies looking for inventions in all kinds of industries.
This will mean that you will have to do lots of research on a monthly basis, or do the research once and then break it up in 12 months chunks and send it to members.
Or something. you get the idea.


Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree that 2) gives the impression of added value as it has video components etc. But the nice thing about 1) is that it can be easily understood. "The value proposition" (whatever that means, I'll Google it later...) is easy to put across in simple terms.

One thing about No. 3 that interests me is the fact it can be made into a community, takes a lot more work, but the value per customer could be higher. I've never really liked the idea of selling something to someone and then the relationship is over. I like recurring payments and subscriptions much better.

I guess the cool thing about dry testing is to try them all and let the market decide.

Any ideas on price positioning?

[blackhatontherocks]

Dude, for that reason *customer lists* have been invented ;)

No need to really make an online community out of it, just throw in some follow-up email and then upsell then on something bigger later on.

[4hourworkweak]

Cheers BHTR and ATK,

@ATK Definitely, you need some good information to keep giving every week or so for people to keep subscribed, can't really imagine selling a product that in week 37 says "oh, and by the way, here's some mega valuable information that I've been keeping from you for the last 37 weeks" :) At first glance this niche doesn't really support that. Nice idea about the customer leads etc.

I guess that's what BHOTR is on about, I don't really have to solve all the issues at the start and I don't need to think about every sale as a purely one off customer. With every sale, I will now have the name of someone else who has payed money for similar information in the past and would be a perfect target for other paid information. I can picture it now, for example the "2009 Inventors guide to companies who will buy your invention", then of course the "2010 Inventors guide to companies who will buy your invention", so on and so on :)

Cheers for the brainstorming guys.

[blackhatontherocks]

Or you have the 2008 guide-ebook +bonus-audio, the 2009 video-course+bonus audio+ebook and the winter 2009 physical course on dvd + some audio on cd + a physical book printed (which then of course can easily go for 120-180 dollars since it's percieved value will be through the rough, compared to your competition who probably only sells ebooks). You can also all do this within 3 months, rather than 1 and a half years, of course.

Chances are you probably won't answer every question every customer might have about the topic in your first attempt to create a product for them. Use that to your advantage, as well as the fact that after they've bought from you, you can survey them on demographics and what they'd want in addition to what they've already bought from you.

[LivetheDream]

Quickie here:

Take into account piratization. If your product becomes popular it likely will be available on thepiratebay.org or elsewhere. Look at the Pick-up Artist stuff after "The Game" came out. Great book and because I was interested to see what they really were hawking I looked on pirate sites. Boom, a ton of stuff available. Live sessions will be where you make the money and where you can't be pirated. Think about adding that to your portfolio.

Ebooks IMHO, suck. Very few people actually buy them, they have limited distribution, etc. Make a real book or make videos. Don't shoot too low man, look at Tim, he called up execs and had an 80% hit rate. I've done the same in searching for a new job. Talked to Curt Schilling himself about his company. It's not hard, just believe you can and don't stop until you succeed. Think of the story about the Princeton class where he gave kids 48 hours to get a response from a major star.

I don't mean to get down on you here bud. I think it's a smart idea and one that could have success. I just see too many poeople shooting too low. If you want a hand on the marketing terms and/or with marketing your product shoot me a PM, I'm available pro bono for 4hww folks.

Good luck chief,

Dreamer

[4hourworkweak]

Actuually, living in the land of "the Pirate Bay" I was also very concerned about piratization, which was one of the reasons I was thinking of a web/login service instead of a book.

But I think I'm getting ahead of myself here. A little market testing with a dry test offer is what is needed first to see if the market exists and is ready and willing to pay...

Cheers for the info guys.