Hello everyone, my name is Clay Collins and welcome to today's
episode of The Marketing Show. In today's episode, I'm going to be
talking about the top two bestselling types of information products
of 2012. A lot of people don't know this, but there are consistently
two types of information products that outsell the others online, and
it's really easy to see when you know what to look for, so I'm going to
be unveiling this and going deep with this material in this episode of
The Marketing Show.
So if you follow The Marketing Show for any length of time, you'll know
that we usually do it on a live action set. We spend a lot of time on
motion graphics and making it look good. This week, I do not have that
luxury. I'm flying out to Austin and I'm doing a number of things, and I
don't have the luxury of doing it how I normally do it. So I'm going to
do it old school.
Anyway, Tracy was like, “You know, you should still have a picture of
you so people know that this is coming from a real person and not from
some disembodied marketing weirdo.†So that's my girlfriend and I at
Seal Beach, and it was during a recent trip up the coast of California.
We're just about to go into a wine tasting. My girlfriend wanted to
include this picture as well. No comment. I guess that's a penguin on
the right side of the candle and a ground hog on the right side of the
wine glass.
So like I said earlier, I'm going to be telling you the top two
bestselling types of information products of 2012, but before I do that,
I want to lay out five different types of information products, and
then I'm going to tell you which of those work the best.
Types Of Information Products
So the first type of information product is the identity-based product.
This is the kind of product where you're selling someone an identity
that they want to have, so an example of this might be the Third Tribe
or Rich, Happy, and Hot, or Experts Academy where people are wanting
this identity in a lot of ways in your marketing for these products.
What you're selling someone is the identity that they're seeking to have
and you make the connection that if they buy your product that they
will then be able to have that self image and that identity.
The second type are mechanism-based products, and these are products
that help people accomplish their goals through a mechanism that you're
giving them, and a lot of times, people have goals, but they don't
believe that they are achievable and tell you, point them to a mechanism
that can help them accomplish those goals. And this is another type of
information product. So an example of this might be Product Launch
Formula or the Interactive Offer, and I have some more examples. We're
going to be diving into these in more depth.
A third type of information products is the goal-based product. So these
products are basically about how to do X, right? So how to get up your
WordPress website, or how to become a golf pro, or how to write a New
York Times bestseller, or something like that. A lot of times, these
products have how to in the title.
Another type of product is the philosophy-based product, and these
products are all about a certain philosophy on life. They don't focus at
least in their marketing on mechanisms or identity, but upon the
philosophy that is often created by the author of the product. And the
fifth type, I call this stupid-based product, and I'll be explaining
what that means in a second.
So I'm going to tell you which kinds tend to sell the best in 2012. So
the first kind is the identity-based product, and this is one of the top
two bestselling types of information products of 2012, so an example of
this is the Third Tribe. People who see themselves in the third tribe
– and this is a community created by copy blogger media – purchased
this, and a lot of times, they actually aren't in the third tribe, but
they seek to belong to the third tribe. Other people certainly are in
that tribe. A lot of times, these things are aspirational or these
identity-based products are aspirational, so people don't necessarily
have these self images or these self identities, but they are purchasing
that product because they want to have that identity.
So for example, a customer of mine, Jonathan Mead, has a product called
the Trailblazer, and it is for people who aren't currently trailblazers
who want to become trailblazers, and you know, inevitably, people do buy
it who are trailblazers and want to become better at being
trailblazers. So I don't want to speak for Jonathan as to what that
product is for. Rich, Happy and Hot by Marie Forleo and Laura Roeder is
another example of an identity-based product. Presumably, someone
purchases this product who is not rich, but they want this identity, and
in selling this with the marketing around this program from what I've
seen is selling someone the potential of having this identity and having
this be the reality in their life.
Another example of this might be Experts Academy by Brendon Bruchard.
Someone wants to become an expert. They want the identity of being an
expert. They want this self image of being an expert. And so Brendon
sells them that identity or at least sells them a product that
potentially will help them have that identity, help them become an
expert. This is all about becoming. That's what these products are
about. It's about becoming a trailblazer; becoming rich, happy, and hot;
becoming an expert.
So the first type is identity-based products, and usually, when you're
doing this, when you're selling identity-based products, you're selling
to your prospect's fantasy identity. There's Jonathan Mead in one of his
launch videos. He's about to go on a run at this point in the video.
He's explaining that the way he lives his life is the way where when he
gets up in the morning, he does whatever he wants to do, and he goes on
running. That's part of the video. So that's part of the identity that
he has and that's part of the identity that he's offering to his
customers.
In Rich, Happy and Hot launch video, you see Marie Forleo and Laura
Roeder walking around the streets of New York. You know, they are
wearing expensive clothes. They got that rich part. They are smiling so
they look happy, and people tend to think that they're hot. So the
second type of information product that tends to do extremely well is
the mechanism-based product, and this is one of the top two bestselling
types of information products of 2012. You know you're dealing with a
mechanism-based product when you hear the word formula or blueprint in
the title.
So you've often heard like traffic attraction formula or product launch
formula, or you know, commission blueprint, or you know, whatever things
like that, but these are mechanism-based products. An example of a
mechanism-based product in the golf industry is stack and tilt. They've
got a mechanism and the method for helping you achieve specific results.
The interactive offer is an example of a mechanism-based product. One
of the most popular in bestselling books on relationships is called the
Five Love Languages, and they're saying that if you understand these
mechanisms, these Five Love Languages, then you can accomplish your
goal. Another thing is called the Presence Process. So I'm reading a
book right now called The Presence Process. It's extremely good. It's by
Michael Brown. I highly recommend it. Product Launch Formula is another
example of a mechanism-based product, and by the way, there is me
speaking at Product Launch Formula, so I'm a huge fan of what Jeff has
done with that.
So mechanism-based products really allow folks to accomplish one of the
biggest and well-known goals in the market. So generally speaking,
mechanism-based products, if you're in the marketing space, it's going
to help address one of the biggest problems in marketing. If you're in
the golf space, the mechanism generally helps people accomplish their
biggest goal in that space, but it's not a goal-based product. So here's
the deal. Often, people have given up on their goals. They believe that
their goals are not possible, but when you introduce to them a
mechanism that can help them accomplish what they previously thought was
impossible, they will again renew their work in a specific area.
So marketing around mechanism-based products is all about convincing
people and showing them and proving to them that a goal that they have
or have had in the past is now possible or can be accomplished much
quicker with a specific mechanism that exists. And sometimes, and in
fact, in most cases, in some markets, the mechanism that is being told
helps people accomplish a goal that they didn't even know that they had.
So they are excited by the mechanism and the possibility that it can
create, and they go out, and now they've got a new goal that was
actually created by that mechanism, and in a lot of cases, that can
create confusion.
So you'll see this especially in the marketing space. You know, so many
products will come out that introduce so many mechanisms, and people
think that they have to do article marketing because they saw a good
mechanism for doing it, or they think they have to do social media
because they saw a great new mechanism for doing it, and they find out
about all these things, and they forget to focus on the basics, things
like having a good solid offer in place because they've been distracted
by these mechanisms which imply that they should have goals that in fact
they never have had in the first place. So that's something about
mechanism-based products.
A third type of information product, which seems to not do as well is
the goal-based product. Now there are some notable exceptions here.
There are some goal-based products that have done incredibly well in the
past, but on the whole, not so much. So examples in the past are How to
Win Friends and Influence People. These are usually how to. You see
“how to†in the title. The 4-Hour Work Week, right? So someone has a
goal of having a 4-hour work week. This is not based on mechanisms, and
it's not based on identity, and frankly, it's hard to sell goal-based
products without a mechanism that is front and center and usually in the
title.
So frankly, I had a difficult time coming up with goal-based products
that have done well in the past because there are not a lot of
goal-based products that have done well in the past. How to Create a
Killer Website? How to Create a Logo? You know, these are not things
that people are typically interested in because they do not believe,
generally speaking, that they can do these things unless you introduce
to them just an amazing mechanism for helping them accomplish this. And
unless you make the marketing about the mechanism instead of why it
would be great to have a website or why it would be great to, you know,
whatever you're teaching people to do.
The fourth type of information product, and this is a type of product
that tends to not do very well is the philosophy-based product. So
products like these are generally named after a philosophy on life or a
philosophy of doing things. So you know, Zen in the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, things like that, that's not really an information product
per se, but it was hard for me to come up with list of this because
there aren't a lot of these that have done very well.
And of course, the fifth type of information product I call the
stupid-based product, and these types of products tend to be inside
jokes among clever bloggers who have a great idea about what to name a
product, and these product names are generally an inside joke among a
particular community. They don't convert on cold traffic. They don't
convert on SCO traffic. They don't convert on paid traffic, but they're
normally like clever names, and they usually don't sell very well.
They're not going to be products that are sort of added to the cannon of
information products that exist in any particular market, and they can
be fun to name, but they're not going to be your bestsellers. So that is
the fifth and final type of information product.
And the winners are, right, the top two bestselling types of information
products, of course, are identity-based products and mechanism-based
products. Anyway, this episode of the Marketing Show was brought to you
by you. It was brought to your enthusiasm around what we're doing here.
It was brought to you by your hopes and dreams and goals. It was brought
to you by just the large number of people who have e-mailed me, telling
me how this information has impacted your life. And so, if this has
been a benefit to you, I would be truly grateful and humbled and honored
if you would donate a Facebook share or a Tweet, and let people know
about the work that's being done here and about the content we have.
Anyway, my name is Clay Collins, and thank you so much for watching the Marketing Show.
Best-selling information products of 2012
