Build it and they will NOT come!

13 years ago

Wow, I think you covered it all here. I plan on copying your post and making it a checklist for myself in creating a plan.

Thanks for this! Val

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marcuslim

13 years ago

Thanks for the post. If you build something no one wants, no one will come. One of the best things we can do is to write the sales letter first. Come up with a list of benefits that people want, and then work backwards and create the product that delivers on each of the benefits.

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Marcus Lim
Silver Bullet Publishing

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FreeMeal

13 years ago

great post.

I will have a none IM product coming out this year, and these are the issues that are worrying me before the product has actually been made.

Thanks

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Zeus66

13 years ago

Great stuff, Thomas! But then, that's no surprise. We beautiful bald men have such a huge evolutionary advantage over the common haired rabble.... it's really not fair at all.

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Zeus66

Great stuff, Thomas! But then, that's no surprise. We beautiful bald men have such a huge evolutionary advantage over the common haired rabble.... it's really not fair at all.

I have a hypothesis about that...

I believe that solar power has actually awakened more sections of our brain. The sun can't penetrate the hairy ones and thus can't fully utilize their potential.

Next post I will dissect wind resistance and how we are streamlined for faster thinking.

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Duncan

13 years ago

Have you established a set of problems you product solves, that target the people that have that problem. Once the people with the problems find out about your resolution they will come. Seems simple, but it works. Generally, you know where the people are before you create the product.

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Duncan

Have you established a set of problems you product solves, that target the people that have that problem. Once the people with the problems find out about your resolution they will come. Seems simple, but it works. Generally, you know where the people are before you create the product.

Duncan, yes, you may know where the people are. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have access to those people to sell your products.

Let's take forums for an example. You may know of some forums that have huge numbers of leads that would be ideal for your product. If you can't get access to market to them it doesn't matter.

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Duncan 13 years ago

You make a very good point, thank you.
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KarimPPC

13 years ago

what are you selling broham?

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Tom B Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by TigerUK

what are you selling broham?

Hair nets.
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jamesrich1

13 years ago

Great thread. You covered all the bases without writing a book. Love the title. When I first begin IM I thought that if I build it they will come. I realized after the first couple of months that the amount of competing websites in full was more severe than any other industry on this planet. Getting traffic is newbies biggest problem but that is only the beginning of bases to cover.

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by jamesrich1

Great thread. You covered all the bases without writing a book. Love the title. When I first begin IM I thought that if I build it they will come. I realized after the first couple of months that the amount of competing websites in full was more severe than any other industry on this planet. Getting traffic is newbies biggest problem but that is only the beginning of bases to cover.

That is exactly why giving the advice "Take Action" can be misleading. You need to take action but that doesn't mean blind action.

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Tim3

13 years ago

Title of the week prize.

lmao :-D

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Michael Oksa

13 years ago

What do you really know?

This question refers to two groups of people:

1. Those who are afraid to create a product because they think they don't know enough. While they may not know enough to teach the pros a whole lot, they most likely know enough to create a product for beginners or intermediates.

2. Those who figure out one small thing, or have a small taste of success and suddenly think they DO know everything.

It can be summed up like this:

You don't have to know everything, but you need to know something.

For the record, I believe that most people can create at least a few decent products based on their current knowledge, and it does NOT have to be in the IM niche.

All the best,
Michael

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travlinguy

13 years ago

The first thing a new product creator needs to ask him/herself is: Do I have anything of value to offer? How many people come here and before they even have 20 posts are asking the community what type of product they should create. Ugh.

Too many people have bought into the sizzle of: The money's in creating and selling your own product. So they bebop into Internet marketing with few skills and even less knowledge and create a crappy product. So it goes...

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J Bold

13 years ago

I think if Kevin Costner created a product, they damn well would come!

In any case, one of the temptations is once you've made the product, you pat yourself on the back for actually doing the first part, and then relax. Then the promotion becomes half-hearted or virtually nonexistent because you feel like you've already done the hard part that other IMers have drummed into your brain. Then nothing happens and you make little or no sales because nobody will buy your product if they don't even know about it.

I speak from experience!

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by redicelander

I think if Kevin Costner created a product, they damn well would come!

In any case, one of the temptations is once you've made the product, you pat yourself on the back for actually doing the first part, and then relax. Then the promotion becomes half-hearted or virtually nonexistent because you feel like you've already done the hard part that other IMers have drummed into your brain. Then nothing happens and you make little or no sales because nobody will buy your product if they don't even know about it.

I speak from experience!

Kevin Costner did create a product. It was an oil spill cleanup product and he didn't sell any until we had that major oil spill.

No one wanted to purchase it for ten years.

Gulf oil spill: 'Kevin Costner solution' has green light, but no green - latimes.com

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Ryan Martin

13 years ago

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Ramo

Coming from the man who created a post awhile back on a finished project with absolutely no plan on whether to sell the product or give it away for free. I suppose I am a bit of a hypocrite along with Thomas because I was irritated he hijacked my thread telling me I did not plan. So right back atcha buddy!

When was that posted? Something like 2008. haha

I answered this same question in your other thread.
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-what-now.html

We can either continue in this thread or that other thread. Cross posting arguments in multiple threads is bad form.

I would have done a lot of things differently with what I know today. You would be surprised at how much you learn after 6/7 years.

So, please try again, buddy. You're just irritated because you have a product and no traffic, no sales and no idea what you will be doing with it.

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J Bold

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap

Kevin Costner did create a product. It was an oil spill cleanup product and he didn't sell any until we had that major oil spill.

No one wanted to purchase it for ten years.

Gulf oil spill: 'Kevin Costner solution' has green light, but no green - latimes.com

Well it was probably because baseball player ghosts didn't tell him to create that one.

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CDarklock

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap

Do you have a long term plan for your customers?

What do you plan to do with the people that don't buy?

These are the big things I neglected when I started creating products. I just figured these situations would take care of themselves. They don't.

So yeah, what Thomas said, pretty much. This stuff's important.

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by CDarklock

These are the big things I neglected when I started creating products. I just figured these situations would take care of themselves. They don't.

So yeah, what Thomas said, pretty much. This stuff's important.

I still end up neglecting some of that stuff. The great thing is you can still make money regardless if you miss things.

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Randall Magwood

13 years ago

Reminds me of a website that i used to own. It was over 500-webpages long, and i thought it was going to bring me boo-koo traffic. Sadly, my Alexa rankings for this site never surpased 1,000,000. Now i get more traffic from my 5-page website than i did with the major site that i mentioned earlier.

I mention this because it's similar to selling and creating ebooks. Don't think people will read it and that you will make sales - because in the end, if you cant drum up traffic to your ebook sales page, people won't buy, cause they don't know that you exist.

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Troy_Phillips

13 years ago

If build it and they will come was a reality .. I would have to change business models.

So would the majority of the people who do SEO .. Website Promotion .. Media Brokerage and the likes.

Thomas .. as usual .. great thread

Troy

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tpw

13 years ago

I recently did a WSO with someone who had never done a product launch before.

During that process, I kept her advised via Skype as to each step taken and the progress.

She was blown away at how much work went into it after the product launch, and all of the details involved that she had never considered previously.

Sam recently did a WSO with a new person also. His new person was surprised also by the same things.

Which just goes to show that people who do not do a lot of product creation do not really understand what makes a product launch truly successful.

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LindseyRainwater 13 years ago

That was a good post. Since I got into IM and making money online I've done a lot of reading, and have been well-coached into making sure I'm thinking about all those topics, and I STILL fall behind on them sometimes.

That's why it killed me when someone I know (who knows I'm in IM and have a bunch of websites) told me they were going to start a website. The idea was brilliant, and on a topic they were REALLY passionate about (bordering on fanaticism.) I figured they had a great chance of success.

So I asked two simple questions: Where are you getting the products to put into the site? (It was a combination affiliate sales and drop-shipping type site.) And: How are you going to get traffic?

There was silence for a moment, and then they took off on how important more sites like this are and that they thought it would be really popular. (They had no plan for getting products.)

No matter what I said, or how I worded it, they did not believe me that people wouldn't come out of the woodwork, cash in hand, and buy from this site! Even though I know a little about this (not everything, but a little) I basically got a "It's a website, and it's an awesome idea - how hard can it be?"

Insert facepalm moment here . . . Thankfully, that is the last I heard of the project.

So on top of just missing some of the key things mentioned in this thread (on accident,) there are still many who are in total DENIAL that if they build it, people will NOT come. It's astounding.

I should bookmark this and send it to the next person who mentions product creation to me. "I don't want to talk to you until you read this post!"
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- Tom B Banned 13 years ago
  
  Great stuff guys.
  
  I am in the beginning stage for a project in the travel niche. I love to travel so this is something I wanted to do just for the tax incentives. haha
  
  I got on Skype with the travel niche expert Chris "Moonshine" Sutton and we chatted for about an hour. Too bad we didn't record it because it could have been a great product in itself.
  
  Basically, I picked his brain about the different ways to monetize that niche. We talked about building separate sites for each country I visit or creating an huge authority site.
  
  After talking with Chris, I know how I will monetize the site. I will be monetizing it in many ways. Hell, if it got big enough it would be pretty easy to create a travel agency around this lead source.
  
  I also know how I will be bringing traffic to the site. Since I want this project to be more passive, I will be relying on more organic searches. Not just keywords but lots of videos since my site will be heavily into travel videos.
  
  I also have my own unique twist to set myself apart from all other travel sites. I can't emphasize how important this is, especially in a highly competitive niche.
  
  I also have plans for a huge product line for various countries.
  
  I know there is demand for this stuff since I have been active on many travel forums. People want to be entertained and love the idea of traveling to far off lands. Even if they don't ever plan on leaving their country they can still be a customer of mine.
  
  I have an idea of the type of squeeze pages I will be testing with video and without video. I also know how I will be setting up my split testing.
  
  I did this all before writing one word or booking a flight. This is a project that I will absolutely love.
  
  Thanks
  
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Ben Armstrong

13 years ago

Originally Posted by tpw

I recently did a WSO with someone who had never done a product launch before.

During that process, I kept her advised via Skype as to each step taken and the progress.

She was blown away at how much work went into it after the product launch, and all of the details involved that she had never considered previously.

Sam recently did a WSO with a new person also. His new person was surprised also by the same things.

Which just goes to show that people who do not do a lot of product creation do not really understand what makes a product launch truly successful.

Care to elaborate on some of these things?

I'm still relatively green but I have a method I used last year to make a decent amount of money and I've been building a product to teach the method to beginners. Still not sure if/when I'll release it.

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Tom B

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Ben Armstrong

Care to elaborate on some of these things?

I'm still relatively green but I have a method I used last year to make a decent amount of money and I've been building a product to teach the method to beginners. Still not sure if/when I'll release it.

Hey Ben,

You got your product done and ready to sell so... this list (of the top of my shiny head) is only based on selling on the wso forum and not getting traffic from other sources.

Sales Page.

Videos if you are using them.

Squeeze pages.

Auto responder messages if you are using them to sell.

Graphics for sales pages, product shots and squeeze pages.

Backend scripts if you're accepting payments or signing up for services.

Setting up your split testing if you want to test different variations of your sales page.

Customer service.

Membership site scripts.

Upsells, downsells, reach around sales :p (graphics and videos for those as well)

Testing your complete ordering process which could mean getting the download or checking membership site access.

Affiliate program (graphics, video sales page for affiliates, graphics for affiliates to use).

Affiliate recruitment.

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Black Hat Cat Banned 13 years ago

Just build a blog, and call it curation. The visitors will appear as if by magic, without even marketing it.

/sarc.
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- CDarklock 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat
  
  Just build a blog, and call it curation.
  
  You can't just do that. You have to steal other people's content before it's curation.
  
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  "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
  
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  Christines Dream 13 years ago
  
  Solid advice. I think a lot of people (self included) get sucked into the moment and forget to do the planning side of things.
  
  Thanks for the reminder.
  
  Thanks
  
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  Black Hat Cat Banned 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by CDarklock
  
  You can't just do that. You have to steal other people's content before it's curation.
  
  Well, you don't HAVE to steal it...you can just borrow it, lol.
  
  Thanks
  
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Ben Armstrong

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap

Hey Ben,

You got your product done and ready to sell so... this list (of the top of my shiny head) is only based on selling on the wso forum and not getting traffic from other sources.

Sales Page.

Videos if you are using them.

Squeeze pages.

Auto responder messages if you are using them to sell.

Graphics for sales pages, product shots and squeeze pages.

Backend scripts if you're accepting payments or signing up for services.

Setting up your split testing if you want to test different variations of your sales page.

Customer service.

Membership site scripts.

Upsells, downsells, reach around sales :p (graphics and videos for those as well)

Testing your complete ordering process which could mean getting the download or checking membership site access.

Affiliate program (graphics, video sales page for affiliates, graphics for affiliates to use).

Affiliate recruitment.

Thanks for the list Thomas!

Definitely a few on there that I hadn't considered (especially the reach around sales :p)

Thanks

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DianaHeuser 13 years ago

Originally Posted by tpw

Which just goes to show that people who do not do a lot of product creation do not really understand what makes a product launch truly successful.

Ain't that the truth

Good thing is that we can learn. So what exactly does one have to do once the product is launched?

I know that driving traffic is critical but my newbie brain can only think of a few strategies : affiliates, email to my lists, Facebook Ad campaign and spam every family member I have ...

Ok, the last part I was just kidding about

Di
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Jonathan Joseph

13 years ago

Well written Thomas!

This just goes to show that nailing down an actual organized plan, and DIVERSIFYING our marketing is crucial when it comes to providing a product or service, and growing our business. Knowing exactly what our prospect want's and providing it to them in a high quality offer is just as important.

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Martin Lee Jr

13 years ago

It's also has become apparent that you must plan how you will collect payments also. I have read a few complaints on here and other sites of paypal canceling accounts belonging to Internet Marketers, because they feel not enough value is being delivered to the customer

Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap

Ok guys, I am seeing a recurring theme here when it comes to product creation.

Just because you make a product doesn't mean traffic and conversions will automatically come.

The hard work goes far beyond simply creating the product.

Please don't create products without having a plan in place. I just wanted to type up some things that you should be thinking about before you even create the product.

First of all where is the traffic coming from?

Map out a plan of attack to get people to your website. Networking with affiliates, sorting out keywords you want to rank high for, can you get enough numbers on facebook, ppc campaigns, video marketing...

No matter what type of product you have it will be worthless if no one knows about it.

What type of plan do you have to convert that traffic into sales?

Do you have a sales funnel set up? Squeeze pages, sales pages and any email autoresponders need to be tracked to see what is converting.

Tweaks can be made during but you should have an idea of how you will be testing and the stuff you will be tweaking before you get traffic.

Do you have a long term plan for your customers?

Selling one product is great, but what do you plan on doing afterwards?

You should have an idea of what type of other products that can be sold to increase your customer's lifetime value.

What do you plan to do with the people that don't buy?

You should have a plan on what you will do with the leads that don't convert for that product.

Promoting another one of your products, affiliate products, cpa offers... whatever, but you should have something in place to capitalize on this resource.

What type of product should you create?

Will the product be more evergreen or have a short shelf life.

There is no right or wrong and I truly believe you should consider a mixture of both. Having a more evergreen product will give you more of a set and forget income source while you can still capitalize on market changes with other products.

I like longer term products that I can continue to make better. I don't want to set this all up for a product that will be useless in a year.

I tested many product ideas right here on the forum. Those that were successful have been built into a product line that I am still working on. I have the next 5 years planned out with new products, product changes and services in this niche and others.

I believe in synergy and developed a product line that can be tweaked and sold in many niches.

Yeah, it takes some work to set this all up. Once it is all in place it get a lot easier and this is a lot more profitable.

I would appreciate if you could add more additional aspects that should be planned prior developing a product.

Thanks

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martworld

13 years ago

Very informative post. Lot of good ideas.

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aizaku

13 years ago

Just created mine in feb. Not getting as many conversions!

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Brett Hitchcock

13 years ago

Thanks for the great advice, this is fundamentalist stuff, very much appreciated.

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sal64

13 years ago

Finding a hungry audience is just one piece of the puzzle.

You also have to know where to find them and how to reach them... and are they spending. Simple basics - yet often overlooked.

There seems to me to be a trend emerging where people do not survey their lists any more. All the lists I am on send me promo offers, but never ask me what I am looking for.

Overall, a very informative thread. Thx Thomas and others.

Thanks

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JeremiahSay

13 years ago

Come to think of it, yes.. it's not about just creating products and hoping that people will see it.. it's definitely more than just creating product.. it's also about how you gonna market it, how you gonna plan your next move etc etc.. (just like chess)

There's a saying: "people don't plan to fail; but they fail to plan" This quote applies in the IM world.. If you fail to plan, then come on, you are planning to fail..

Praise the Lord,
Jeremiah

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AndrewCavanagh 13 years ago

Probably the biggest marketing secret you can learn is to find a hungry market and easy economical access to that market BEFORE you create a product or service.

In other words you should work out who your potential market is, how you're going to market to them (specifically...who is willing to email to their list or have you done some pay per click or SEO to be sure you can drive prospects to a site etc etc).

And then really get to know the prospects in that market...what's important to them...what they really want and need.

And THEN create a product or service that meets one of their needs or wants.

Creating a product then trying to work out how to sell it is a losing proposition.

Find easy economical access to the market first.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh
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