Yet more on information marketing - Ideas and action steps

The types of information offerings you can provide your prospective and current customers are many and varied.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Tips booklets
• Articles and ‘how to' reports
• Newsletters/ezines
• Reports of new research, surveys, etc.
• White papers, case studies
• Check lists, statistics
• Questions and answers
• Formulas and calculations
• Quizzes and puzzles
• And many more...

To create your information marketing materials, think about the information your audience is likely to find most useful. A retail crafts shop, for example, might offer a collection of tips sheets on the most popular craft hobbies, and a software developer might provide a list of keyboard shortcuts, or a printer, a tips booklet on how to increase sales with powerful brochures.

Mini reports, fact sheets and 'Q and A' documents will enhance your image and increase sales. Offer your clients advice on how to get the most from their product, how to build something using your product, how to care for your product. For example, a hardware store would offer 'how to build a deck' information sheets. This will increase sales and enhance your relationship with your customers.

You can take this idea one step further and develop a series of how-to reports and/or white papers that pitch your company as the expert in your field. This will increase leads and enhance product positioning at the same time.

Another important area is in offering course, seminars and workshops. You might want to offer an e-course that is delivered automatically via autoresponder. This will attract people who are interested in your products and will encourage sales. This could easily be a sampler, or cut-down version of a full course you offer, or could simply provide useful information as an introduction to the products and services you offer.

Teleclasses are another variation on this idea. These days it's easy to set up a phone line that people can dial into for information and discussion on a specific topic. Teleclasses can either follow a presentation format, a question and answer format, or a mixture of the two.

Following the training theme, you might consider holding seminars or workshops for prospects to give them a brief overview of the benefits of using your services. The seminar must focus on interesting topics that relate to your business and add value and excite your prospect into investing in your services. A free seminar attracts large numbers of clients but they're not necessarily all well qualified.

So if you want to take it one step further you could hold fee-based seminars to prospects giving meaty information and enticing them to invest. Again, these should provide prospects with relevant, in-depth information which entices them to invest. This is a great way to attract prospects to your business. By putting a value on the seminar you sift out the tyre kickers. Have add-on products displayed at the seminar.

Speaking is a great way of demonstrating your expertise. Give talks on relevant and useful topics to local chambers of commerce, networking groups, and anywhere else members of your target market gather. Appear as guest speaker on radio/television and at relevant conferences. This will boost credibility, increase conversions, increase leads and naturally increase profits.

Another type of excellent information to make available to current and prospective customers is of course testimonials and case studies outlining success stories that you've created for your clients. Remember to always ask for testimonials as often as you can, and ask for permission before publishing any customer details you use.

The internet is another excellent option for putting information marketing principles to work. For example, enhance the content value of your website by including statistics, valuable "how to's", freebies, profiles, testimonials and case studies. You could also add a news section on website and start a blog (search engines love regular fresh content). Also add a resources section for your visitors and add links to and from other web sites.

A great way to get your information out there is to submit articles to magazines on topics of interest. You might also approach the editor with an idea for a regular column. Make sure the articles you want to write are suitable for the publication you approach, and that your content and your writing style are compatible with the publication's content and style.

There are also lots of places to submit articles online. Ezine publishers in particular are regularly on the look out for useful, interesting content to include in their online newsletters. Your article must be of genuine interest to readers, not just a pitch for your business. However, you get to include an outline of your business and your contact details in the resource box at the end.

More food for thought:

Most of the information outlined here is focussed solely on promoting you and your business, and is therefore described as something you offer free of charge. But bear in mind that many of the ideas we've mentioned can also be used to create additional revenue streams.

For example, you might decide to make speaking or seminars part of your paid service offering, or you might want to add information products (ecourses, ebooks and information manuals, etc.) to your product range.
Suggested action steps

• Make a list of the types of useful information you could provide for your target audience

• Decide the most useful and appropriate formats for the information

• Collect any facts, figures and statistics to back up your information

• Start writing and get your information out there!