There are certain things that every business owner needs these days. A web site is a must, business cards, the ability to be contacted by e-mail, and Information Products. There are many different types of Information Products (Info Products) and they can be used in different ways. Here are some examples, together with how they can be used:

E-Books
This is probably one of the most familiar types of Information Products. Just about everybody has seen an e-book. The advantages are obvious – there are no publishing or printing costs; you don’t have to find a publisher or agent or mess with things like bar codes; it’s easily updated; delivery is immediate; the customer gets to print out their own copy, or they can read it on-line. It’s an easy and affordable way to get your message out. Also, a good e-book can often sell for more than a printed book.

Reports and White Papers
Again, these are easy to put together, they don’t need to be long and they can be good ways of emphasizing your status as an expert in your field. These types of Info Products are usually given away as bonus items or in exchange for someone’s contact information to build a mailing list. These are particularly good if you have a lot of statistical data to share with your audience.

Newsletters – Print and On-Line
These are a great way to keep in touch with your clients and contacts. You can share what you’re doing, sell products, promote an upcoming event, and so on. If you use a print newsletter, you have the cost of printing and mailing to consider. If you use an on-line or e-mail version, you will need some method of creating it, such as publishing software or a template based program. You will also need some kind of Contact Management software so that you can send it out by e-mail: Constant Contact and Swiftpage are two that are well-known. You can also use autoresponder software, with which you can not only send out newsletters, but also set up other e-mail campaigns. Well-known autoresponders include Aweber and 1Shoppingcart.

On-Line Courses
You can create courses with material being in written form, audio, video or a combination. These can be sold or delivered all in one, or you can use autoresponder software to deliver lessons at regular intervals. Once the courses have been set up on-line, they can also be converted into CDs, DVDs and workbooks and sold as a physical product.

Downloadable Audio Programs
If you teach workshops, you can also give tele-seminars. Essentially a tele-seminar is simply a workshop that’s given over the telephone. Tele-seminars are a great way for people to attend a workshop because they don’t have to travel anywhere, which gives you the opportunity to make the tele-seminar very affordable or even free to participants. It widens your audience, enabling people from all over the world to participate. These tele-seminars can then be recorded, so that participants can receive a copy of the audio file (as a downloadable MP3 file). They can they replay the audio to reinforce the information you delivered.

You can also sell the recordings of your tele-seminars after the event, so people who didn’t get an opportunity to participate at the time can purchase and listen to it later. This gives you the opportunity to continue to sell and promote a workshop (tele-seminar) that has already taken place.

CDs and Videos
These are a little more costly to produce, since you have recording and editing fees, duplication costs, cover design and packaging costs, also the cost of mailing. Although they are more expensive to produce, they are great to sell at the back of the room if you do workshops or presentations and can help you to generate a lot of income.

As you can see, there are many different ways that you can create and use Information Products. More and more businesses are creating and using them because people are hungry for information and they can be a very easy and effective way of getting your message out to more people.

If you are not using Information Products in your business yet, I recommend that you start. They can help you become an established expert in your industry and help you make more money – isn’t that what every business owner wants?

Note: We can quickly and easily create audio Information Products for you. Within a week you could have your very own products. Find out how by going to Fast Start Information Products now.

Technorati Tags: Information Products

Writing articles can be one of the most effective ways of promoting yourself and your business, establishing yourself as THE expert in your industry, and even generating more revenue. This happens when you start to use articles as Information Products and create a strategy around exactly how to use them (see this Special Report on the most effective ways to use your articles).

Using articles as Info Products in this way has proved to be successful time and time again. This is also one of the easiest, most affordable ways to market your business, yet many people hesitate because they think they can’t write or they don’t know what to write. In my opinion, if you can talk about your business, what you do and how you help people, then you can write about it. If you’ve been hesitant to start writing, here are some tips that might help.

Get someone to write for you
There are many writers out there and it although this can be an expensive option, it certainly doesn’t have to be. You can find writers at elance.com. You submit the project and they will bid on it. You get the opportunity to review work that they’ve done before and each time someone on e-lance does a project for someone their work is rated. You can also look for writer forums or groups, such as LinkedIn for a writer to work with. The most important thing is that you’re clear about what you want them to do for you. For example, do you want them to research the topic and then write it? This will be the most expensive option, since it will take more time. Ideally, you would tell them what you want the article(s) to be about and provide all the information that they need.

One method that I have used that works well is to ask for someone who can take an audio file of a tele-seminar, interview or presentation that I’ve done, listen to it and then create articles from it. This is a very effective way to get several articles from something that you’ve already done. You’re providing them with the information that they need to write the articles and it’s a great way of leveraging your time and expertise. Not all writers will want to work in this way, so it’s important to find someone who would enjoy doing it. You also want to find someone who has an interest in your subject – that makes it easier for them to write about it.

Get help with editing
This is another strategy that I used for years before I became more confident in my writing ability. I would simply write what I wanted to say – like doing a ‘brain dump’ really. I would put it all down and then hand it over to a professional writer and she would write the article for me based on what I’d written. Getting someone to edit for you works well, particularly when you are submitting articles to publications because you really want them to read well and be grammatically correct. Some people specialize in editing and some writers will do editing as well as writing. Again, search on sites like elance or ask in the forums or writer’s groups about how to find the best person for you to work with.

Use what you already do
You probably already have lots of things you’ve already done that you can resurrect and turn into articles. If you’ve put together a presentation or educational program or if you’ve ever been interviewed, for example. You could even take your brochure that describes your products and services and create articles from that. Just look around to see what you already have that you can turn into articles.

Finding content
If you’re still having trouble knowing what to write about, it can be a good idea to find out what others are talking or writing about related to your topic. Do a search for forums and groups related to a specific topic and then subscribe to the RSS Feeds. Also, give Google Reader a try, if you haven’t already. With Google Reader you can enter subjects that you’re interested in, such as Vegetable Gardening or Cat Behavior and Google Reader will collect information for you to look at on those subjects. It’s very easy to use and organizes everything very nicely so it can be very quick for you to go in and find things of interest. Seeing what others are writing and talking about may spark some ideas of your own. One word of warning – never, ever take someone else’s content and claim that it is your own. What you can do, if you see something you like is to quote and reference somebody else’s work (making sure you provide full information about who wrote it, and even a link to their article) and write your thoughts about it – add your spin to it.

You could even write about a book that you’ve read, or a seminar that you went to or a presentation that you heard, and what you got out of it, how you applied the information you learned, etc. Just be sure that if you’re talking about somebody else’s work that you reference that person and their work.

One method I like to use that works very well for me is to post a question in groups or on forums. I tell people that I’m writing an article and ask how they feel or what they think about a certain thing. I always get some fabulous responses – but you must make sure that you’re genuinely interested in hearing other people’s thoughts and opinions and then thank them for responding and use their input. If you want to use someone’s name be sure to ask them first. Not everyone wants to be directly quoted.

It’s always a good idea to get someone to review your articles once you’ve written them. They may pick up errors that you don’t see. I used to be very hesitant about writing but now I actually really enjoy it and where before I used to think I needed someone to write my articles for me, now I write them myself. I’m sure that a professional writer will find grammatical errors and I know that from that perspective my articles are not perfect. But I get far more feedback from articles I’ve written myself – and that’s because when you write it yourself, it comes from the heart, and people feel that.

Most articles only need to be 300 – 500 words – that’s not a lot. As you can see, I have trouble keeping to that limit! What you do want to do is ensure that you provide valuable information in your articles. Don’t just write fluff. Give people something that they can use, and make it easy, keep the language simple – particularly if yours is a subject that may be difficult for some to understand.

If you would like more information, help and guidance on creating Information Products, go to Fast Start Information Products and sign up for more helpful tips.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Articles, Info Products, Information Products