Product Launching - 7 Smart Steps to Producing Audio Reports For Informational Products

If you are a marketer, you must market your own products... you HAVE to admit.

So what is the number one hurdle for creating and launching your own products?

Is it TIME? Sure, it takes long time if you're still creating products and using conventional methods.

Myth of PDF Reports

If you are a marketer like me, you sign up for special reports. These are made out of PDF files digitally delivered to you.

The problem for a marketer with "PDF distribution approach" is that writing is not for everyone. Worse, depending on the demographic, if your writing is less than perfect, your special reports can damage your credibility.

Give Audio Reports

What if you started giving away audio reports? You have been told all this time that you thought you must give away a special report in PDF.

Sure, everyone else does this, but to stand out from the rest in a competitive market, you have to zig when everyone else zags. So give away audio for a change.

Why Using Audio Is Smart

The good news about publishing audio is you can outline what you want to say and record it. Unlike written reports, your grammar does not have to be perfect and listeners are more forgiving.

Audio reports are easy to consume - think about this, with iPod, in the car, MP3, it provides great passive modality. In fact, you can podcast your way to iTunes to leverage even more.

If you sell premium products, people need to know you better. With voice and passion coming through your audio stream, you can better turn subscribers into paid customers. Especially if you're selling high-ticket items, your audio will paint a better picture of you to the audience.

Here is the 7 steps you should follow when launching a quality audio product. Keep in mind, the best audio recording style (or most entertaining style) is when you team up with another like-minded partner and speak in a group.

Even if you're the absolutely the best in your subject matter, listening to your solo recording will get boring. So get yourself Skype, download free MP3 recorder and outline with a partner what you want to talk about.

1. Give a nice intro and ask a pop question. If your audience doesn't know the answer, you got them pay attention to you the rest of your podcast. Let them know they need your info.

2. Tell them what's in it for them.

3. Tell them why they should listen to you.

4. Tell them what's NOT working, like in this article, PDF is not working for everyone.

5. Introduce solution - in this article, I used audio report as its solution.

6. Validate - share example of your solution is helping as opposed to the conventionally used solution

7. Call to action - now they heard you, you need to ask them to do something.

There you have it, you'll have an audio product to launch it. Hey since it's not another PDF report, why don't you charge more money than what others normally charge for similar written reports?

By the way, do you want to learn more about creating product funnel to drive sales for your online business?

If so, I suggest you to check this out: Turning Point - A Marketer's Guide to Changing The Rules for Extraordinary Results.

How You Can Use Facebook Ads To Dominate In Product Launches

The following are common questions people have in regards to promoting product launches as an affiliate when you don't have a list.

1.) "Can I still do well and make sales?"

2.) "Is it even worth it?"

3.) "How can I compete with gurus who have lists of 20,000 people plus?"

And they are all good questions. Here are my answers:

1.) Yep.

2.) Sure is.

3.) Easily.

Now let me explain.

First, size is not everything. I'm talking about the size of someone's list. Your list could be in the thousands or even hundreds and, yet, you could still consistently beat the gurus in product launches that have lists of over 50,000+.

How's that possible? Because more important than size of your list, is the responsiveness of your list.

Some of the gurus who've built lists of hundreds of thousands, have pummeled their lists for years with offer after offer, while never adding any real to the lives of their subscribers. As a result, there list is pretty much dead. They send an email to 100,000 people, and are lucky to get 2,000 opens, and a few hundred clicks. So don't get too hung up on the size of your list.

Now, as for the third question about competing against other affiliates with much bigger list, (when you have no list at all), let me show you how...

First, you need to put together a bonus blog. This is a simple WordPress site that outlines your bonus offer for anyone who buys the product through your affiliate link. And then you need to get traffic to that bonus blog. But not just any traffic. You want the best traffic! The traffic of the top 10 and top 20 affiliates in the product launch that already knows about the product launch.

They've already been marketed to.

And in many cases, they've already made the decision they're going to buy when it goes on sale... or at the least; they're very receptive to the offer. And then you come along, and say:

"Hey, if you buy from me, not only will you get the product being launched, but you'll also get my bonus package which is worth $599 absolutely free!" And you scoop up a whole bunch of easy sales.

Now the next thing you're asking, is "so where do I get that traffic?"

Well, one of the places is with Facebook. You target the fans of the top 10 and top 20 affiliates with your ads. You find out who the top 10 and 20 affiliates are, by keeping an eye on the leader boards which the affiliate manager for the launch you promote will be sending you. Now, this is just one of a dozen tactics that you can use. If you plan on making the top affiliates in the next launch you promote, then you need to learn this method. It's what all the top affiliates in the game know, that the rest don't. And it's the reason they make 95% of all the money in the big launches.

You may be wondering how difficult it is to create your own bonus package. It's actually incredibly easy, once you follow the methods.

Timeline Management for Product or Program Launch

After being a project manager in the digital marketing industry for 10 years, I am pretty sure I know a thing or two about launching stuff. So here are a few thoughts on taming the timeline monster and the tasks dragon...

When it comes to launching a product or program, there is usually a deadline, date that you start work, and how much time you need to achieve all the steps. The best way to go about planning your timeline is to reverse engineer, starting from your launch date. Of course, this launch date has to be reasonable, not two weeks from today, but know that you can compress and/or overlap some tasks in your timeline so that you don't have to have absolutely the "ideal" amount of time to bring everything to perfection (which is overrated).

Your launch date can be affected by many factors - your target market's schedule and lifestyle (is middle of summer a good time if you want to attract busy moms whose schedule may be filled with shuttling kids around?), you own marketing calendar, seasonality of your offerings and of course, you own schedule such as travel, vacation, and family obligations.

If you are starting today, your reasonable launch date should be around at least 8 weeks away for a product that is relatively small in scope, and at least 10 - 12 weeks away if you are more ambitious. Then work backwards from you launch date to plan out the tasks and the milestone. If everything fits nicely with time to spare, great. If it turns out that, after putting down your ideal schedule, you should be starting 2 weeks ago... don't panic! You can usually find some tasks that you can work on simultaneously or in parallel, or compress the timeline for a couple of deliverables. If you do this, you just need to make sure that your schedule, your workload and your sanity allows a more aggressive work schedule. If not, you may just need to go back to your launch date and see if you can bump it down by a few days to make some room.

Keep in mind that your project plan or timeline should be a living document and you should be able to adapt as your project evolves so that your timeline meets the objective of your project. Use it as a reality check, and if you are not meeting the milestones, it may be an indication that you have to re-evaluate your expectation, change the way that you work, or see if there is something that is blocking you from buckling down and taking the necessary action.

So You Want to Launch a Product?

Launching a product can be one of the most lucrative and successful moves that any entrepreneur can make. It can also be one on the most confusing, overwhelming, and stressful projects that you ever complete. The number and series of tasks that are part of a successful product launch can certainly cause paralysis in any of us which is why it is important to do your research and learn how to launch a product successfully.

This article provides an overview of the steps involved in a successful product launch. There are many ways that one can go about launching a product and there really isn't one specific formula to apply. In fact, the way you go about launching your product depends on your industry, your target audience, and the type of product that you have. In order for your launch to be successful you really need to plan out your launch and not skip or overlook any important steps.

A product launch consists of 5 major areas of activity:

Product Feasibility Assessment - Do you have a quality product? Are providing a real solution or something of true value? What is the market demand for your product? How about the competition? Is someone else out there offering a similar product? If so, how are they marketing it? Are you a leader in your industry or at least perceived as one? These are all very important questions that need to be considered as they can very well influence whether or not your launch will be successful. Strategy Development and Preparation - This is the stage when you plan out all of the activities and sequence of events that will make up your product launch. You will literally map out the next 3 stages of your launch. What needs to happen before, during, and after the pre-launch, the launch, and the follow-up stages? This is a very important step that involves a lot of organizing, research, and skill. This is the stage when you build your team as you will more than likely need to outsource several activities. Pre-Launch - Do you have a squeeze page set up? Are you actively building your list? Do you know how to build a list? Have you set up all of your social media marketing activities? Do you have articles and press releases ready? Are you blogging consistently? Have you researched a list of potential joint venture partners? Launch (The Main Event) - Is your shopping cart set up properly? Are your auto-responders set up? Do you have a compelling sales page? Have you created an event for your launch day? How about an affiliate program, is it ready to go? Have you considered other advertising methods such as pay per click ads? Post-Launch - Are you tracking your stats properly? Do you have ongoing communication activities in place? Are you listening to your customers and their feedback? Are you continuing with your blogging and social media activities?

As you can imagine there are countless areas of activities each requiring research, strategy development, and implementation. Launching a product is not an overnight task but with the right team members and tools, it can come together within a month or two, that is if your product is ready to go. If you are interested in learning more or want to become a Certified Product Launch Support Specialist, I highly recommend VA Classroom's Product Launch Support Specialist Program. Their program has really helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together nicely so that I can offer quality service to my own clients.

Successful Product Launching

If you have to pick one thing that matters the most in the success of a new product, it has to be the product launch. No matter what kind of a product you are marketing, its launch will instantly determine the success or the failure of this product. A lot of research goes into the commercialization of products to derive maximum profits at the introduction stage.

Product launching requires a lot of planning in terms of targeting the customers, sales, distribution, sales force training and development, etc. This is because it is not just about bringing a product from your production setup to the market, but also about how well you are able to do it so that the product is visible and available to the right people, in the right manner, at the right place and time.

Before launching a new product, firms must do a lot of background research. They must identify best customer segments, and the best positioning strategy against the competition. Distribution channels and their management also play a key role in success of a product because the product must be made available to the right people who are your target market segment. It is also very important that the firm identify the best marketing mix for the new product, which includes the price, distribution, product features, and packaging.

Many things have changed today because of the sophistication of customers and technology. Firms need to have an integrated approach for launching new products. This integration requires firms to create and establish traditional, online as well as social marketing tools at the same time for launching their product.

Through the traditional methods such as television, radio, and print media products are exposed to the masses. Since these traditional methods still have a massive appeal, these methods are most commonly used for new product launches in retail and manufacturing. In addition to these methods, the importance of trade shows, promotional events, direct mail, advertising, etc., cannot be ignored. These are tried and tested methods that are sure to generate interest of the consumer.

Online advertising and email marketing are two great options that can be used for product launches. These are extremely popular tools amongst businesses and hold considerable influence over the customers. Email campaigns have proved to be quiet effective in brand building for a new product launch. Online advertising through popular channels such as Google AdWords or pay per click service also widely affects the buying behavior of the customer.

In this age of social networking, it would be foolish to overlook websites such as Twitter and Facebook. These websites are extremely popular in people of all ages and backgrounds. Therefore, you will be able to expose yourself to a huge audience both young and old.

On the other hand, blogs have also found their way in product launches because of their increasing appeal to the masses. Similarly, online retailing is another great way to influence successful product launch. If you can't open your own online retail setup, you can partner with big names such as Amazon, Google product search, and eBay, etc.

There are many forms of advertising that can be used for product launching. If you are launching a new product, there has to be some type of experience in marketing or either you are partnering with an individual or company that has experience. Product launches are very important and keep the energy up in businesses online and offline.

I love the excitement of launching new products. If you would like assistance or even advice in launching your own products, please look me up. I would be happy to meet you. Never say that you can't do it.