Internet Marketing For Solopreneurs

Here is a conversation I’ve had with more business owners than I can count:

Business Owner: I created a great new product that I love, it is going to do great! I just need some help with getting the word out about it. Once people hear about it, this product will sell itself!

Me: That’s great, so you surveyed your target market and found out they everyone in your target market needs this product?

Business Owner: Hmmm, I didn’t survey anyone.

Me: Ok, so who is the target market for this product?

Business Owner: Everyone! This is a great product, and everyone needs it!

Me: So if you haven’t done any market research, have you created a marketing plan to promote this product?

Business Owner: Hmmm, no. But I think once I get the word out about this product everyone who hears about it will want to buy it.

…..

I have had these conversations with business owners too many times. The issue is that the business owners are so excited about the products they are creating, that the product creation takes up all of their time.

Marketing is forgotten about, or the business owners think that the product is so great that it will sell itself. The truth is, nothing sells itself. Behind every successful product there is a good marketing plan, good marketing people and lots of marketing and promotion.

So if you want to bring a product to the market and make it into a best-seller, here is what you should do:

- Find a target market for your product. And “everyone” is not a target market. A target market is a group of people who want, need and can afford your product.

- Do market research. It is not enough that you think that your product is going to sell great. Your target market has to want your product if you want to make money with it. Do research and survey your target market to find out if your product is going to sell.

- Spend the time and money on creating your product ONLY if there is market for it. Don’t spend time and money on creating something if you don’t know if it is going to sell. Only bring the product to market if there is enough demand for it.

- Create a marketing plan for the product BEFORE you actually create the actual product. If you want to make money with your product, marketing should be one of the first things you start doing. So create a marketing plan and start promoting your product BEFORE you even have the product for sale.

Need help bringing your product to market? At MarketingSalad.com, only business community for business owners I teach business owners how to create, market and sell extremely profitable products.

Biana Babinsky

Back when I just started teaching, I realized that different students learned differently. Some came to every lecture and wrote down every word said by the teacher and used their notes to study later.

Others never took any notes — instead they just listened intently in class. Yet others never bothered showing up at the lectures and read the textbooks instead. Some articles I have read recently report that now students rely on audio/video recordings of the lectures…

Continue Reading Your Clients Want Different Formats

Many professionals I know have found a new approach to solving an old problem that their target market experiencing. Once they turn this approach into a program or book or a class, the question becomes how to sell this brand new approach to their potential customers.

Do you market and sell it by concentrating on the approach? Or do you do something else?

I recommend that instead of focusing on the new approach, you should focus on what your customers get when they learn and apply this new approach.

Always remember that your customers want to know what’s in it for them, what the value is of what they will receive and what the benefits are going to be. They are much less interested in a brand new revolutionary approach; they are much more interested in the results they will receive get when they use it.

My recommendation to you is to market using benefits, and explain about the new approach and how it works after you have explained the benefits.

This is how I teach my clients to create winning sales letters - first you explain the benefits of whatever you are selling. Only after you explained the benefts you should explain what you are offering (new approach, e-book, seminar, etc). Benefits always come first.

Biana Babinsky

The price of How To Make Thousands Of Dollars With E-books Teleseminars Series is going up
tonight at 11pm Eastern (NY) Time. Register before the price goes up at

http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zebookt

Spring is here! Spring is the time to start something new and now is a great time to create a new e-book for your business. Join me for How To Make Thousands Of Dollars With E-books Teleseminars Series to discover how to create an effective e-book and make thousands of dollars with it.

Here are just a few of the things that you will learn:

- Why an e-book is the easiest information product to develop

- How to find the most profitable e-book topics

- How to decide on the best e-book format and use it as a selling point

- Advice about making money with your e-book

- How to avoid all the mistakes that many first time e-book authors make

The price of the Teleseminar Series is going up today, March 7th at 11pm Eastern (NY) Time. Learn more about the Teleseminar Series and register at

http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zebookt

Are you thinking about publishing your own ebooks? It is much easier to publish an ebook than to publish a book, so many people choose to use this publishing route.

Here are three things to pay attention to if you want to publish and sell your ebook online:

- Does your target market need your ebook? If you want to sell many copies of your ebook, there has to be a need. Also, your target market has to want and be able to afford your ebook.

Before you go ahead and publish your ebook, you need to evaluate the demand for your materials.

- Build a big list of people in your target market who need your ebook. Many people won’t buy your ebook the first time they hear about it. Therefore, you need a mechanism to continue to reach out to them and sell to them long after they leave your web site.

Make sure that they subscribe to your newsletter, so that you can continue marketing and selling your ebook to them long time after they leave your web site.

- Market, market, market. Did I mention market? In order to get sales, you need to constantly market your ebook.

I will be sharing all of my ebook publishing and marketing tips and secrets during the Make Thousands Of Dollars With E-books Teleseminar Series. You can register for it at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zebookt

Biana Babinsky

Many people have asked me how to price their ebooks. Should you price them high? Should you price them low? Should you price them somewhere in the middle?

I have seen ebooks priced as low as $7 and as high as $297. It is all about three factors - how much value your ebook offers, how well you can sell it (your sales copy + marketing) and how many people you can reach with your marketing.

Pricing is never exact and it is all you, your expertise, your market and your marketing abilities. Sometimes I advise my clients to have an introductory ebook offer and then raise prices afterwards. Sometimes you want to price it higher as soon as you release it and keep marketing at that price.

If you under price your product, your potential customers will be suspicious since you are offering a deal that seems too good to be true. If you overprice your product, you will not get many sales.

There are many factors that go into pricing of your product:

- The purpose of the ebook and the value of the ebook

- The topic of the ebook - is it very specialized or very general?

- Market and competition research. How do you distinguish yourself from others? Do you have a unique twist on the concept that makes the ebook/ideas/methodology uniquely yours?

Here are a few more ebook pricing resources for you:

- Free article, Are You Pricing Your Products Wrong?

- A step-by-step guide for creating, publishing, pricing and marketing ebooks, Make Thousands Of Dollars With Ebooks Home Study Guide

- Online business mentoring program, MarketingSalad.com. There I teach members everything about creating ebooks and marketing them online (and much more!). As a member you can ask me for recommendations for pricing your own ebooks and other products.

Biana Babinsky

Many coaches, consultants and other service business owners have asked me how to sell more copies of their e-books

Just like with any product, in order to sell your ebooks, you need to bring a stream of interested people to your sales page.

In order to sell your ebook you will need:

- An effective sales letter that can convert your target market into buyers. It is very important to have a good sales letter for an information product. Even if you can get good traffic to your web site you will not be able to convert traffic into sales without a good sales letter.

- A good price/value offer that your sales letter presents to your web site visitors. Can you convince them that they need your product and not someone else’s?

- An effective marketing strategy that brings targeted traffic to your ebook page, every single day.

There are many different marketing techniques you can use to do that. Your own newsletter, article marketing, blogging, search engine optimization and more.

In the Make Thousands Of Dollars With E-books Home Study Guide I discuss how to sell many copies of your ebook. You can see it at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zebookt

Read more on selling ebooks and sales letters:

- Longer Sales Letters Produce Better Results

- Show that you are providing value

- How To Create Effective Web Site Copy

Biana Babinsky

The Hollywood writers have been striking since Monday, November 5th. This action sent late night talk shows into re-runs immediately.

What is interesting is why the writers are striking. According to this article, writers are striking because they are looking for more profits from when their writing is used in new media. They want to earn money when their work is sold on DVDs, when their work is a part of online shows, etc.

As you can see, writers are paying attention to the Internet and new media and want to profit from it. And what they are looking for is a true passive income - they write their copy once, and they want to make money every time it is used or sold through the new media.

What about you? Are you creating passive income streams? Are you using the new media to profit? Here are some of my blog posts to help you create more products and profit from them online:

- How To Publish Your Ebook Online

- How To Record Your Seminars And Use The Audio As A Product

- Create Another Income Stream By Teaching People In Groups

Biana Babinsky

So you wrote a book, now what? How can you find people who want to buy your book online? Here is how:

- Define the target audience for your book - who are the people who want to buy your book? Who is the target market for your book? Your book is very targeted, so you should be able to pinpoint a very specific group of people who wants the information you are sharing in the book.

- Start a newsletter to collect the email addresses of people who visit your web site. Not everyone is going to buy your book the first time they visit your web site. If you can’t keep in touch with them AFTER they have visited your web site, you have lost them forever.

If you are able to get their email address you will be able to market your book to them for a long time. Plus, if you decide to offer other products based on your book (teleseminars, ebooks, etc) you will be able to use your e-mail list to promote them as well.

- Create a marketing plan for your book. There are lots of things you can do to market your book - article marketing, blogging, search engine optimization, public speaking, etc.

Make sure your plan addresses how to get traffic to your web site, how to turn your traffic into leads and how to turn your leads into buyers.

Have you written a book? Do you want to sell more copies of your book online? Listen to my FREE Audio Recording, 5 Steps To Selling More Copies Of Your Book. You can download the audio recording, free at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zbusiness

Biana Babinsky

Many people have asked me - what is the best marketing technique to use to sell more books? If I start blogging, will I sell more books next week? Will article marketing sell 100 more copies of my ebooks?

Truth is, no marketing technique - blogging, search engine optimization, article marketing or any other one - will increase your sales immediately.

What you need to find out is how a particular marketing technique will fit into your overall marketing plan.

Many marketing techniques are designed to bring people interested in what you do to your web site. However, those techniques don’t account for what happens AFTER you bring them to your web site.

If you do absolutely nothing in addition to blogging, people will come to your blog, read it, linger for a bit and leave. This is because there will not be any incentive for them to stick around.

People are bombarded with tons of marketing messages every day. Many of your blog visitors will forget about your blog and its address two minutes after they leave it.

Therefore, it is imperative to make sure that you can collect the e-mail addresses of people who visit your blog. If you can get their e-mail address, you will be able to e-mail them, market to them, and sell your books to them long after they have visited your blog.

You should do this with every marketing technique you use - figure out how to use it to add people to your list, so that you can continue to market to them long after they have visited your web site.

Next week I am teaching a free teleseminar, 5 Steps To Selling More Copies Of Your Book Or Ebook.
I will be talking about creating a marketing plan to promote your book online and get more sales. You can register for the teleseminar FREE at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/books.html

Biana Babinsky