Any online marketer (regardless of experience) will often say that one of the biggest mistakes they’ve made is spending money on digital products which are hyped up – but just don’t work.
In fact, the ‘make money online’ scene is awash with so many low-quality info products and rehashed courses that one could almost consider it the norm.
The average decent person just getting started in the business struggles to come to terms with the fact that many unscrupulous marketers will sell products that are built on false promises and untested theory.
And if you are a beginner just finding your foot in the online business world, the power of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and Shiny Object Syndrome are really difficult things to ignore, but these things can (and will) cost you time and money.
Many business owners develop a business with a genuine desire to help their customers, but the ‘make money online’ internet marketers are a definite exception to this.
Just wrapping one’s head around this fact is a monumental feat. But yes, many marketers will take your money and take you for a ride – but only if you let them.
Not all are bad, but you must do your due diligence to avoid those that are unscrupulous and selling you vapourware. Find the good marketers and stick with them, and generally stay away from marketplaces like JVZoo, WarriorPlus and Clickbank because the vast majority of products sold there are low quality and the platforms are not doing a very good job of policing what is being sold on their platforms.
So, if you wish to steer clear of these scams and save your money, here are a few pointers to take note of BEFORE you buy any digital products/training.
This is the MOST important point of the lot. Join a few Facebook groups dedicated to online marketing and ask around there. Very often, you’ll find people mentioning bad experiences they may have had with the vendor.
You’ll also want to see what other products the vendor has created.
Very often, the vendor’s friends will be promoting the product and telling you what you want to hear… or they may be part of a ‘back-scratching cabal’ where everyone praises everyone else in the group just to appear legit.
You need to be sharper than that. Do your research on the vendor thoroughly.
The next step will be to take a logical, unemotional approach to the sales page. Very often, sales copy is designed to play on your emotions – to hook you in with the promise of quick and easy money – without any work on your part.
You’re told about ‘push button profits’ and ‘million-dollar loopholes’… and you end up believing that it’s really possible for you to be making 5 figures a month within 2 weeks.
Really?
Do you really believe that?
Doesn’t that sound too good to be true?
Yes, it does… and it is.
Almost all of these hyped up products do not work
They’d be laughing all the way to the bank. Not trying to get you to buy their products. Do not be misled by their fancy sales pages and sugar-coated sales copy. The brighter the picture, the darker the negative.
Making money online is hard work – and anyone who tells you otherwise has something to sell you.
When you’re on a sales page, go ahead and try closing the page. If you see a pop-up box suddenly appear and it’s offering you a discount of a few dollars, that’s a sure sign that the product is best avoided.
This is not generosity on the vendor’s part. It’s a last ditch attempt to hook you in. Don’t eagerly grab the product just because you got $3 off and think you got a deal.
You didn’t. You really didn’t. You got scammed.
If you stopped for a second to think about it, you’d realize that people who didn’t try closing the page wouldn’t have gotten the discount and would have paid more for the product.
Does that seem legitimate to you? After all, you could have been one of them.
If that doesn’t sit right with you… then do you think the product will be any better than the disreputable tactics on the sales page?
Sure, there are attention-grabbing income stats on the sales page – but whose stats are these and where are they coming from?
So many questions… so few answers.
See, it’s these questions that you should be asking yourself before you buy any product. You need to be a cynic par excellence.
This is NOT one area where you want to be overly optimistic. Scan the sales page like a hawk. Ask around about the vendor.
Exercise due diligence before buying. You could spend years and thousands of dollars spinning your wheels and going nowhere – trapped in a vicious cycle of buying products that are all foam and no beer.
Or you could stop buying products on a whim and proceed cautiously. There’s no need to kiss so many frogs to find a prince.
There are many good products out there that will help you in your online marketing. You just need to ask around for recommendations. If you follow the pointers in this article, you’ll most probably make an informed decision.
Caveat emptor.
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Anyone who’s been trying to make money online for more than 2 minutes would have heard this line repeated ad nauseam – “You need to create your own product!!!”
Maybe 2 minutes is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
If you’re competent at traffic generation, you’ll get to keep 100 percent of the profits from the sales you generate. You can also recruit affiliates to promote your products and expand your market share while skyrocketing your income.
Once you’ve mastered product creation, the possibilities are endless when it comes to boosting your online income. As good as this sounds, there are a few fundamentals that must be in place for you to succeed at digital product creation.
This is without a doubt the most important factor of the lot. While creativity is a marvelous trait to have, trying to invent a new digital product that sells like hot cakes is infinitely more difficult than improving upon existing ones.
The case of not reinventing the wheel holds true here, and the key to succeeding with your digital product is to see what’s currently popular and selling well – and emulate these winning products.
You’ll create a similar product which addresses the same topic, but from a different angle. This is where your creativity needs to shine.
Both Nike and Puma sell athletic shoes, but the former tells you to “Just do it!” with a swoosh symbol, while the latter is the only major sports manufacturing company on the planet with no slogan but lets the logo of the powerful leaping puma say all that’s needs to be said about the brand.
Similar products… but very different USPs.
Spend time researching and making notes on what products are selling well and think of how you can improve upon them. Then go ahead and create a better product.
Watching what your competitors do will help you navigate the marketplace and understand why some vendors excel and some fail.
Can you create a product that bridges the crevasse of customer dissatisfaction? If you can, you’ll have people flocking to buy your product.
Once you’ve done your market research, it’ll be time to niche down and create a product for a specific topic.
So many newbies falter here and make the cardinal error of trying to create a 5000-page magnum opus that aims to fix ALL ills in that niche.
Need to lose weight? Here’s a weight loss book with a 5-step plan. Want to get build a chicken coop? Here’s a manual with 50 chicken coop plans and instructions you can use today.
Specific problems and specific solutions. That’s your secret to creating a digital product that’s not only valuable, but doesn’t overwhelm the reader either.
Your digital product is not the bible. It’s not supposed to be for everyone. You must create a product that addresses a specific type of person.
You’ll need to construct a customer avatar before you start working on your product.
For example, if you’re writing a weight loss book, is it going to be for women? How old will the reader be?
So many questions and so few answers.
What do you do?
Simple. You hang out in forums where your target market congregates. Spend time reading their questions, issues, comments, etc. This will help you to understand their problems intimately and you’ll have a finger on the pulse of your market.
Now you’re ready to create a product that speaks to them better than their best friend could.
This is the part where you create your product. It goes without saying that you should produce the best possible product that you can. Aim for excellence, NOT perfection.
If you’re using video, it’s ideal to break down a 1-hour long video into six manageable 10-minute videos. In our noisy world, so many people have the attention span of a housefly. So, you want your content to be short enough to hold their attention, but long enough to give them the information they need.
Times have changed. PDFs alone are not enough. Some people prefer reading. Others prefer watching videos… and many like listening to audios.
Provide your digital product in different formats (text, audio & videos) so that you capture as many customers as possible without inadvertently excluding any. Of course, you may choose to sell your audios and videos at a higher price.
Last but not least, you’ll need to price your product according to what the market is willing to pay. If you overprice it, you’ll alienate most of your potential customers, and those who do buy it may feel like they’ve not gotten their money’s worth because they expect a lot more.
If you underprice it, you’ll be devaluing your product and leaving money on the table.
To conclude, once you have these 7 fundamentals in place and you have a great product to sell, you’ll then need to market it well… but that’s a whole different topic for another day. For now, get the product creation basics right and it’ll be half the battle won.
If you want to know more about creating a profitable online course, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
If you’re an entrepreneur and into online marketing and planning to create a video-based digital marketing course, you’ll want to look at SkillShare. This is also a great place to start because they let you upload individual lessons rather than having to create a full-length course.
Lessons must be 10 minutes or longer, however most videos range from 15-25 minutes long, on average.
Best of all, there’s no approval process, so you can get started right away.
It’s one of the best places for those who are just starting out because there aren’t a lot of requirements and it’s really easy to put out a simple course just by uploading a single lesson.
Here’s the link:
Another course marketplace that I really like is Teachable.
Teachable provides you with the ability to fully brand your course, including creating and customizing a complete online school using their easy website building tool.
You are charged a 5-10% commission fee per sale unless you choose to upgrade to a paid membership plan but when just starting out I recommend testing out the free plan to get a feel for how things work, and then upgrading later.
You can find out more information here:
https://teachable.com/pricing/comparison
Now you have a platform to sell your course, you need to ensure that there is a market for it…
“Validating” your market simply means taking steps to ensure that the market is there and that there are people likely to pay for a course on your chosen topic.
It’s clear to see why validating your market is so important, right, and this is important for any business venture, including internet marketing?
You don’t want to spend a lot of time working on a course that no one is willing to pay for.
Here’s how to validate your topic:
Then, run a test by entering these questions into places like:
Google.com
Why not start with the major search engine? You’ll be able to quickly spot the number of blog posts that address these questions as well as uncover social media accounts, and websites that cover this topic.
Pay attention to all of the following:
Are there any actual courses already available?
Try adding “course,” “lessons,” and “training” to your search terms in order to come up with relevant results.
Are there relevant ads on the page?
If so, chances are it’s a profitable niche market and one worth taking a closer look at.
Do videos appear on the first page?
If you’re finding lots of links to YouTube videos after running your search, it’s a good sign that the topic is in-demand.
Amazon.com
Run your searches through Amazon and pay attention to the number of books available on the topic.
Take things a step further by reading reviews left by customers, as well as the overall ranking of the top 50 books.
Udemy.com
Udemy is one of the leading marketplaces online when it comes to selling courses, but it’s also a goldmine of information when researching niche markets and possible digital products.
In fact, Udemy is one of the easiest ways to not only evaluate the profitability of any course topic you’re interested in, but you’ll be able to instantly come up with a complete outline in a matter of minutes.
Quora.com
Question and answer websites like Quora make it easy to conduct niche research and get a feel for what your market is most interested in. Browse for trending questions and open discussions, paying close attention to the thought leaders who commonly provide answers.
I hope this has helped you come up with a few ways to validate your topic.
Next, let’s look at a powerful way to deliver your course…
Have you ever seen a live session in action?
One of the most powerful ways to deliver your course related content is with live session training.
This lets you schedule meetings with all of your students which obviously will increase engagement and get people excited about your information.
Live sessions have huge impact on the overall value of your course and can really help you stand out in competitive markets.
The more you engage your audience – the more popular your course will be.
Make sense?
Here’s a great marketplaces where you can create a course designed around live sessions:
WizIQ: https://www.wiziq.com/
WizIQ has been around for more than 10 years and continues to thrive as a centralized community for live classes and popular courses.
WizIQ supports all file formats, so you can create a course that offers a variety of content ranging from video to audio, as well as include quizzes, surveys and tests that serve as auxiliary components.
Finally, let’s look at some ways to ensure your course is profitable from the very beginning…
I’ll leave you with a few last-minute tips and strategies to help you launch your course and maximize your income.
These 3 or 4 tips can really make a difference to the profitability of your online courses so please consider them carefully.
The four main content formats you typically see in online courses include: video, audio, text and digital downloads (like PDF’s, workbooks, spreadsheets, etc.)
For that reason, you should always include at least a few video based modules in your course.
Successful courses always have a targeted, clear title that appeals to the majority of their market.
It tells your prospect what the course is about and gets them excited about the possibility of earning 6-figures a year.
Don’t stick a price tag on your course without doing research. You want to make sure that you’re focusing on goal-oriented pricing.
You want to set a reasonable price without under valuing your content.
You also need to keep your personal goals in mind, such as:
And finally,
A course is a natural steppingstone to upsell from so keep this in mind when creating and pricing your course.
A course lets your leads get to know you!
I’ll leave you with a course checklist that will help you create a profitable course that will stand out to your audience.
Step 1: Validate your topic idea
Make sure you’ve researched your market in order to verify overall demand and give your course the best chance at success.
Step 2: Create your Course Outline
Building a course from scratch can take time but if you work with an outline you’ll have a strong foundation for your training product. It will also help ensure you stay focused while covering the most important steps needed for your students to be successful.
Step 3: Create your Course Content
Try to provide a variety of formats, and always include at least one video module in your training program.
Step 4: Give your course a sexy title
Come up with a powerful, attention-grabbing title that will stand out in the market while giving students a clear idea as to what your course is about.
Step 5: Launch your course!
Chances are you’ll sell access without doing any off-site marketing of your own, but if you really want to maximize your income you should do your best to connect with your audience and make them aware of your training program.
Spread your marketing message via social media, create a Facebook group only for students, create a lead page that offers a free incentive for those who subscribe to your list and always be on the lookout for new ways to increase visibility.
If you want to know more about creating a profitable online course, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
