23 Feb Information Marketing 101

Information marketing is an awesome tool for spreading your message and reaching your target market.  By offering relevant and helpful information products, such as e-books, webinars and other multimedia, your brand can establish itself as a knowledgeable industry leader.

It’s a pretty simple concept, but under no circumstances does that mean it’s an easy one. Information products can be very time consuming and completely fruitless if created and marketed without the right strategy. Before you begin marketing your latest information product, take a look at our step-by-step guide to guarantee the best result for your brand.

Step 1: Determine a Topic

Of course, before you create your information product, you’re going to have to decide what it will be about. Consider the following questions: What are you an expert in? What does your audience already know about the subject? What do they need to know?

Step 2: Do Your Research

Of course, information products are supposed to be informative. To be a successful information marketer, you need to know your stuff. Take the time to really research your topic. Providing supporting facts, statistics and additional reading material and resources along with your original content will prove your value.

Step 3: Select a Type of Information Product

Now that you’ve selected your topic and done your research, you need to decide the form in which you’ll offer your product. Common types of information products include: e-books, webinars, videos and audio.

Again, you will have to consider your audience and which medium would work best for them. What type will be the most useful when presenting your content? You should also consider which is the best method based on your topic and subject matter. For example, if your topic is more data-heavy, you may want to consider an e-book where you can neatly display charts, statistics and other graphics.

Step 4: Develop the Content

Once you’ve narrowed down your topic and done some research, it’s time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard?). While writing, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

It’s About the Customer

Keep your audience in mind when writing every sentence and speaking every word. Your product should be informative, not salesy. It’s all about the customer and what they want – do not disappoint.

K.I.S.S.

We’re all busy people, so remember to keep it simple. Brevity is the key to engaging your audience. You need to grab your audience and offer value right away, otherwise you’ll find your potential customers jumping ship.

Likewise, when writing e-books, be sure to write in short paragraphs so that people are able to skim through the information easily. Aim to use images and graphics as much as possible to break up a lot of written content.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Remember to always stay focused on your brand’s business goals. While it is true that your information product concentrates on informing the public, the ultimate strategy is lead generation. Be sure to subtly suggest how your brand can help with the topic.

Step 5: Distribution

One of the best things about information marketing is that you’re your own publisher. If your brand already has a website, e-mail service or a social media platform, there are virtually no printing or distribution costs involved. The information becomes available to your audience in a quick and timely fashion.

You have a few options when it comes to distributing your information products: do you want to give your product away for free or would you rather offer it for a fee?

Many brands offer e-books and webinars for free via simple website download. This option will likely give you the widest audience. Similarly, some brands offer information products for free, but only if the visitor provides certain information, such as an e-mail address. If you think your product is simply too good to be given away for free, you can also charge for downloads or views.

Once your e-book or webinar sign-up goes live, you’re ready to start driving traffic. Advertise it on your website, reference it in a newsletter, post it to your social media channels. Spread the word!

Step 6: Track your Success

If you’re capturing contact information via squeeze pages or purchase transactions, be sure to follow-up with your customers, ask for their feedback and see if you can offer any further information or service.

Track how many people are downloading your e-book, watching your videos or attending your webinars. See how people are responding to your product. If your turnout is less than you expected, test something new. If you’re seeing a ton of interest – good work! – but what can you do to grow that number even more? There’s always room for improvement.