Digital vs Physical Products - Making More Money With Both!

Transcription

1 Lesson #6 Digital vs Physical Products - Making More Money With Both! By Jay Jennings

2 NOTICE: You Do NOT Have the Right to Reprint or Resell this Report! You Also MAY NOT Give Away, Sell or Share the Content Herein If you obtained this report from anywhere other than you have a pirated copy. Please help stop Internet crime by reporting this to: support@productcreationstation.com 2009 Copyright Jay Jennings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, mechanical, or electronic, including recording, photocopying, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without explicit written permission from the author. DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented in this report represents the view of the author as of the date of publication. Due to the rate with which conditions can change, the author reserves the right to alter and update his opinion based on the new conditions and/or information. This report is for informational purposes only. While every reasonable attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this product, neither the author nor his affiliates and/or partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are probably unintentional. If advice concerning legal or related matters is needed, the services of a fully qualified professional should be sought. This report is not intended for use as a source of legal or accounting advice. You should be aware of any laws which govern business transactions or other business practices in your country and state. Any reference to any person or business whether living or dead is purely coincidental. Page 2

3 Foreword Welcome to the sixth Product Creation Station lesson! Today we re going to be looking at an incredibly easy way to increase profits by creating a physical version of your info product......including one way that doesn t require handling inventory or shipping. Some people would rather have a physical copy of your product -- even if it s just your ebook burned onto a CD! Making that an option for them will put more money in your pocket -- and give you a happier customer at the same time. Just a quick note for anyone who s still struggling on putting the content together for you info product -- if it takes you a week or it takes you 12 weeks, who cares? As long as you keep taking the steps that point toward your goal, you ll get there. If you do seem to get bogged down, grab one of the previous lessons and make sure you covered all the steps included. Now, let s look at making more money with the same product Note: All lessons include download links for the previous lessons in the course. So, if you completely space out on where something is, check the last page of the current lesson for links to anything you might have missed. Page 3

4 Profiting From Physical Products When selling birdhouses you don t have the digital option you have a product that exists in the real world and so have to sell it that way. But with info products and software you can sell it as a downloadable digital product. The lure of digital products is strong -- they re just a bunch of 1s and 0s and your customer can download them, which means you don t have any inventory to store, you don t have to ship anything -- it s just easier. A digital info product is almost the perfect product. So why even think about a physical product? There are two big reasons: 1. A physical product has a higher perceived value. Even though we all know it s the content that s important, there s something about opening a package and holding a real book that makes us appreciate the product more. 2. Returning a physical product is more hassle, so fewer refunds happen. While I think it s good marketing to give someone a refund if they want it, I also know some folks just decide to get a refund because they have buyers remorse, they figure they could use the money in some other way, etc. But if they have to go through the hassle of shipping a physical product back, only those who are really dissatisfied will go to the trouble. That second reason all by itself might be enough for you to look at going the physical product route. Of course, if there was some way to get away from the whole inventory and shipping thing... There is, and we ll discuss that as one of the options in this lesson. If you re going to create the physical product yourself, make sure you have a good laser printer that can print quickly -- you don t want to be waiting around forever for a job to get done. Also, if you re using a black and white laser, a color ink-jet printer is great for printing full color covers, pages with illustrations, etc. For creating CDs and DVDs, I recommend staying away from the systems using labels that stick to the discs -- that s too time-consuming. For somewhere between $100 to $200 you can buy an ink-jet printer that prints on the backs of special CDs and DVDs -- look for the ones that say printable. Page 4

5 Memory Success - A Case Study A few years ago I created a product called Memory Success -- it s a home study course that shows you how to memorize anything quickly and easily. I wanted to have both digital and physical versions available, partly as a test just to see which would be more appealing to my target market. And also, since I knew that most people won t take the time necessary to develop their memory, I wanted some way to keep people from asking for a refund simply because they were lazy. At the time I launched this product I didn t know what the demand would be, so I did something I still often do -- I created the product as the orders came in. I bought packs of binders and other things at the local office supply store, a stack of blank CDs (with backs that could be printed on using my ink-jet printer), etc. I could print all the pages on my laser printer in 5-10 minutes, could burn the CDs in about 10 minutes, and could put the pages in a binder, add the front cover, and package everything in about 10 minutes. Since most of the activities could go on at the same time, and I could get a kind of assembly line going with my kids, I could crank out 4-5 packages in an hour. Time-Saving Tip: If you decide to put together a binderbased project, look for reams of paper that are already 3- hole punched. HP is one company that offers prepunched paper. You just print and put it straight into the binders without the hassle of punching the holes yourself. As nice as digital products are to sell, there s nothing quite like holding a real physical product in your hands -- and when it s one you created, it s even better. At the current time sales have slowed down to the point where I only offer the digital version, but when I decided to give the package a face-lift and relaunch I ll offer a physical version using one of the methods talked about in this lesson. Page 5

6 Book Print On Demand While you can have a local printer whip you up a batch of books, there are quite a few print on demand (POD) companies available via the web that are much cheaper than what you ll find from a regular printer. Plus, the POD companies will actually ship the product for you as orders come in. However, this section of the lesson is going to be very short because I ve never used any of the print on demand companies and I don t want to teach you theory. I have done two kinds of physical products -- those I ve put together myself, such as the Memory Success course I just told you about (it was the binder, 2 audio CDs, 3 computer CDs, plus a set of practice cards in special holders -- it was a good-sized package) and CD-based products. Some people think physical product means a printed book, but even sending out a CD with your ebook on it counts. Plus, here s a big secret -- use a DVD case with a full color cover even if you re sending out a CD. The DVD case is bigger than a CD jewel case, plus you don t have to worry about people calling and saying their case was busted when they received it. =:) A DVD case looks nice and gives people the feeling that the content is more valuable. It s a perfect example of judging a book by its cover. So let s take a look at the best way I ve found for publishing CDs and DVDs... CD/DVD Print On Demand If you re offering a CD or DVD it s much easier to publish that yourself than it is a book, but it s still something that s very easy to outsource. Note: If you have a kid that wants to make money, hiring out the burning and packaging of CDs and DVDs to them is a good way to let them earn some money as well as keep the money in the family. =;) Just make sure you do some Quality Assurance spot-checks every now and then to make sure what goes out is high quality. For publishing CDs or DVDs I ve found nobody better than a New York-based company called Kunaki ( I ve used them many times and have Page 6

7 always had a good experience -- and their prices are so cheap it doesn t pay for me to do it myself. Here s the process with Kunaki: 1. Get the content just the way you want it and burn it onto a CD or DVD. 2. Launch the Kunaki publishing software and fill in the blanks. 3. Show the software which drive your master disc is in and hit Publish. The software sends all the data to Kunaki and after it s done will give you a link showing where it is on the system. At that point it s live -- you can order a copy yourself! In fact, when you first join Kunaki as a vendor (it s free) you can have them send you a sample of your product free. Be sure and do that so you can see exactly what the customer experience is like. There are a couple different ways to use Kunaki as a supplier: First, you can have them take the orders and ship out the product. That s right, a shopping cart is built into the system. That means you can start taking orders and making money immediately, even if you don t have a merchant account. Second, you can send Kunaki customer data and they will drop-ship the product to your customer. In the first instance Kunaki collects all the money, takes out their fees, and sends you the rest once a month. In the second instance, you collect the money from your customers, and Kunaki bills you for the cost of the goods and shipping. At the time of this writing, Kunaki charges $1.75 plus shipping for a CD or DVD. And that includes the following: Manufacturing / assembly Full color CD or DVD printing CD or DVD case Full color insert and full color case cover Cellophane wrapping Page 7

8 UPC bar code 24-hour rush manufacturing All that and there s no minimums, no hidden fees, nothing. You can twist that old saying around to say, If it sounds too good to be true, it must be Kunaki. =:) The only downside to using Kunaki is they don t do multiple CD/DVD packages. So if you have something that s on more than 1 disc, you ll have to use someone else. But for single CD or DVD products it s wonderful. The only bad thing I have to say about Kunaki is their publishing software is Windows-only. So if you re on a Mac you ll have to get access to a Windows machine for a couple hours to publish the disc. But after that you can use the ordering options with any type of machine. Here s another tip that works well with Kunaki... If you don t mind mailing out your own discs -- maybe you want to include a catalog, or some kind of bonus material -- you can have Kunaki create the discs for you, and then order them in batches of 10 or 100 at a time, at the wholesale price of $1.75 each plus shipping. Now you have your physical product, all shrink-wrapped and ready to go, and you didn t have to mess with the creation of each individual disc. And as long as we re talking about the mailing of a disc, if you re in the USA, check out the USPS flat-rate Priority mail option. They give you the boxes so you don t have that expense, and the price, in a lot of cases, is very reasonable. Plus, people get your product that much sooner and it makes a good impression that you sent the product faster than normal First Class. Page 8

9 Summary If you have an ebook or some other digital product, you can create a physical product simply by copying it to a CD and mailing out the disc. Voila, instant physical product! Or, you can go all the way and create a printed physical product. Either way you decide will give you some of the advantages we ve talked about in this lesson. Your Assignment This Week Set up an account at Kunaki ( -- odds are that you re going to use them in some capacity for your business. Look at the competition in your niche -- are they offering physical products? If not, there s a way to differentiate yourself. If they are offering physical products, model what you re doing from the successful publishers in your niche. Coming Up Next Week... I ve been looking forward to the next series of lessons. We re going to get into something that I have a lot of fun with, and it s something that s been very profitable for me -- and can be for you, too: Using Audio To Increase The Value Of Your Product. A whole series on audio and video, coming up! To your success, Jay Jennings Jay Jennings Product Creation Station Page 9

10 Previous Lessons Here are the download links for previous lessons in case you missed one. Lesson 1: Lesson 2: Bonus MP3: Lesson 3: Lesson 4: Lesson 5: Bonus MP3: Page 10