Build it and they will NOT come!

by Banned 43 replies
59
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.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #build
  • 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
  • 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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  • 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.
  • 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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    • Banned
      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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  • 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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    • Banned

      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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  • what are you selling broham?
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    • Banned

      Hair nets.
  • 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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    • Banned
      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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  • Title of the week prize.

    lmao :-D
  • 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:


    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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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    • Banned

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

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  • Very informative post. Lot of good ideas.
  • Just created mine in feb. Not getting as many conversions!
  • Thanks for the great advice, this is fundamentalist stuff, very much appreciated.
  • 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.
  • 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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    • 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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