Sales & Marketing Authority, Bestselling Author & Business Motivational Speaker

Okay, so maybe that title is a bit misleading. I may not actually be able to tell you, step-by-step how to create the next website which will make you the youngest billionaire on the planet. However, I can give you some valuable insights into the process of creating new products.

Product creation is an essential part of any business. In fact, without product creation, there is no business. Even if you only do affiliate-based work, you should still understand that product creation process, as it will make you more aware of which products are worth marketing, and which affiliates stand the best chance of putting some money in your pocket.

Start with Yourself

Naturally, the product creation process begins with you. Any time you’re developing a product, it should be within an area in which you have considerable experience or expertise. So, for instance, as interesting as it might be to try and write an ebook about rock climbing in the Himalayas, I don’t plan on doing it any time soon.

On the other hand, I have extensive experience in the sales and marketing industries, and hence have some pertinent knowledge which can be turned into an information product, or some knowledge of inefficient industry processes which can be leveraged into a product.

Develop for the Market, Not the Other Way Around

The key to developing and marketing a successful product is finding a market niche that you know a lot about, and then building a product specifically designed to fit into that niche.

By doing so, not only are you positioning your product to move and making the marketing process easier on yourself, but you’re also likely to find yourself in a position where you’re not confronted with immediate competition. This will allow you to set the market price, and make a healthy return on the time and money you’ve invested in the development of your product.

Among the best ways to identify a new market niche are to think about the areas in which you have expertise, and look at what products are missing.

For instance, if you’re an SEO expert, you’re probably qualified to create an information product about SEO. However, this marketplace is already extremely crowded. But that doesn’t mean its full. Look at where you struggled to find information about SEO, or think about how you could streamline the process of keyword selection, and create your product around that void.

Product creation can be a difficult and arduous process, but it is an extremely rewarding one as well. Not only will it allow you to develop additional expertise in your field, but it will also put you in a commanding market position once you’ve done so.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

Valentine’s day has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still show your love. After all, each day is an opportunity to show the people who you care about how much you really appreciate them. And when was the last time that you really showed your customers how much they mean to you?

Alright, timely-holiday references aside, there are some serious benefits which come with making your company one that customers think of as something more than just a product or a brand. Besides engendering increased customer loyalty, you’ll also see a dramatic increase in valuable social media references and word-of-mouth referrals.

In short, by showing your customers that you care about them, you’ll see that they start to care a lot more about you in return.

Fortunately, there are a handful of quick and easy ways to show your customers that you care.

Exclusive Offers

Some business owners like to tout every offer as an exclusive offer. Hopefully that is not you. And that’s not what I’m talking about here regardless. Create some real, valuable, exclusives that make your customers feel appreciated.

If you’re developing a new version of your most popular software, let a few valued customers test a beta version. Or offer them a special discount only available to long-term customers.

Get Feedback

Beyond engaging your customers and making them feel appreciated, this one gives you legitimate business building advice. No one knows your business better than your customers.

But more importantly, everyone likes to have their opinion valued. And what makes you feel like your opinion is more valuable than having a company whose product you use regularly come to you and ask you how you think they can improve the product? You’ll create a life-long fan.

Reward Your Best Customers

Rewards programs are another great way to show your best customers that you care about them. The classic was Subway’s Sub Club. Every time you bought a sandwich, you got two stamps. 12 stamps got you a free sandwich. Not much money out of Subway’s pocket, and it created a lot of customer goodwill, and a lot of customer loyalty.

This is easiest to do with restaurants, but there are plenty of other ways you can implement a rewards program. For instance, if you offer a subscription service, you could provide a certain number of points with each month’s subscription. When your customer accumulates enough points, perhaps let them upgrade to a premium subscription for free.

These are just ideas to get your thought process going. How you can show your customers that you really care about them depends on your specific industry. The key is making your customers feel appreciated, and making them feel like their relationship is more than just a plain old buying and selling relationship.

Do this successfully, and you’re sure to reap the rewards.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

YouTube has celebrated its 5^th birthday this week, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to pay homage to the video sharing site which has revolutionised the way people interact online.

Here are some interesting facts and figures about the rise of YouTube:

• YouTube gets over 2 billion views a day – YouTube Press Statistics
• A whole 24 hours’ worth of video is uploaded to the site every minute – YouTube Press Statistics
• The first video on YouTube was only 19 seconds long – YouTube Press Statistics
• The founders of YouTube all originally worked for PayPal – YouTube Press Statistics
• Google bought the site for $1.65 billion in November 2006 – YouTube Press Statistics

Over the last 5 years, YouTube has seen off some stiff competition from other video sharing sites such as Vimeo and Viddler to claim the number one spot, and the site has now become so engrained in our day to day lives that it’s hard to believe there was a time in the last decade when it didn’t exist.

Not only has YouTube allowed the masses access to all manner of video content across the world, but it has also made it possible for the public to reach a vast audience they would normally not have been able to connect with – which makes it a very powerful business tool in the right hands.

Through YouTube you can literally promote yourself and your company to the world, without having to spend a single penny on expensive advertising campaigns. Many big organisations have used the site to create viral video advertisements and build their brand globally.

The Cadbury’s Eyebrows advert, in which two young children do a fantastic eyebrow dance to “Don’t Stop The Rock”, became an overnight sensation and has now had nearly 9 million views.  A great example of video marketing if ever I saw one!

So, I’d like to wish YouTube a happy 5^th birthday and look forward to seeing where the next 5 years video sharing will take us.    

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

(Image by www_ukberri_net)

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

While I was looking through some old marketing notes the other day, I came upon something that I’d written about balancing the creative side of marketing with the technical. I write quite often on this blog about the creative side of marketing – making new content, building your social network, retaining customers, and so on and so forth. That is not to suggest in any way that the technical side of marketing – the science, if you will is less important. In fact, it may be even more important.
The problem is that making your marketing efforts more technical can be a difficult and demanding process. Fortunately, learning how to properly test and analyse your marketing moves can go a long way toward making the whole process much more scientific and analytical.
Trust Your Instincts
Well, trust your instincts up to a point. While you are engaged in the creative process, there is nothing more valuable than your instinct. When you’re writing copy for your website, or putting together the pieces of a new advertisement, there is no amount of analysis that can tell you what you should write, or what your advertisement should feature for maximum response. This is the place for creativity and judgment.
However, when you’re looking to judge the response of your customers and potential customers to the marketing materials and sales offers that you’ve created, then you need to get analytical.
Testing, Testing, and more Testing
By designing your marketing campaigns with testing in mind from the beginning, you’ll make the testing process much easier. So, for instance, if you’re thinking about sending out an email with an offer to a few of your clients, write up two versions of the email and check which one returned better results. Even better, test just the subject line by sending the same email to everyone, but with a few different subject lines. You’d be surprised how big a difference something as small as the subject line makes.
The key is just to make sure that you’re learning with every marketing move you make. Every time you send an email, you should be honing your marketing instincts by sending out multiple versions and checking which one did the best. Keep this process underway for some time, and you’ll find that everything you do gets more scientific, more technical, and more effective.
Happy marketing!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert – Motivational Speaker