The Magic 7: Seven Ingredients You Need To Sell Your Product Online

The number one task my clients ask me to do for them is to help them take their ideas and turn them into online products.  It is fairly easy to do and it is a great way to monetize their knowledge.  My clients are coaches with hard drives full of articles, handouts, etc.   But, before a product goes online, a few things must be in place.   Here is a list of what is needed to put a product online.

1. WEBSITE

Obviously, if you are going to sell a product online — you need a place to sell it from.  The first step is to sign up for web hosting and to purchase a domain name.  When choosing a name for your site, try to choose something that clearly conveys what your product is about and/or the problem it solves (i.e. loseweightquickly.com)
2. SALESLETTER (Website Sales Copy)

Think of the salesletter as your sales pitch.  Why should somebody buy your product?  What problem do you solve for them.  When you’ve written the copy, you need to attach it to a payment button - and then you are ready to sell.

3. GRAPHICS

A picture is worth a 1,000 words and quality graphics make a huge difference.  The good news is - there are many competent designers out there who don’t charge a fortune.  To start with, you’ll need a banner and an e-book cover.  Don’t overlook this step.  It is worth paying for something eye-catching and professional.

4. PDF Creation Software

Most e-books are sold as PDFs.  Saving your document as a PDF ensures that everyone can read it no matter their computer set up and that people can’t edit the file.  To get started, you need to have access to either Adobe Acrobat or some other PDF making software (note: there are many good free pdf options online — just google).

5. PAYMENT PROCESSOR

You need to have a way for the money to get from your customer’s bank account to yours.  This is called a payment processor.  The easiest one to use when you are just getting started is Pay Pal.  But, be sure to check out other options such as Google Checkout or Amazon Payments.  You can also get a merchant account to process credit card payments.  Eventually, you may want to look into a shopping cart program which will allow you to set up products, take payments through both Pay Pal and your merchant account and automatically enter your customers into your autoresponder system.

6. SALESPEOPLE (AFFILIATES)

One of the things that makes online marketing work is affiliate marketing.  Although you may not start out with a product with a high enough price point to justify an affiliate program — you should work toward getting there.  Good affiliates can drive tons of traffic and sales to your site.

7. PROMOTION

You can build it — but without an effective promotional strategy — they won’t come.   And, you need to promote in more than one way since people need to see you many times before actually checking out the site.  Article marketing, joint ventures, social networking, press releases and teleseminars can all be part of an effective online marketing strategy.
Take the seven ingredients above and mix with your outstanding product — and you have a recipe for success.

Need more information?  Jimmy Brown has an excellent product - Small Report Fortune that goes through this process step-by-step in more detail.