A Guide on Successful Product Creation and Internet Marketing

Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.

The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.

It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!

With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.

With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.

A Simple Product Creation and Product Launching Formula

If you tried to think of people involved in product creation, who would come to mind? You may think of Edison, Franklin, or maybe Henry Ford. Would you ever think of yourself as someone who can create a quality product? Product creation is actually relatively easy and product launching is not that tough either! If you follow a few easy to understand steps, you could be starting the product creation and product launching process sooner than you think.

The first step in creating your information product is to know and understand your market. This can be very time-consuming, especially if you are unsure of what to do or where to look to know your market. Studying your niche market and understanding the buzz words and buying patterns can ease the process dramatically. Personally, I would recommend networking with someone who has had success in the niche market you are considering and learn from their results. If they are into product creation and not very business savvy expect some hesitation. If they only sell products and have nothing to do with product launching or product creation you may your first affiliate (sales person)! Something else you can use to find hot trends is with the Google Trends tool.

The second step is the product creation process. Take your niche market and brainstorm ideas and topics relating to it. There are a lot of product launching contests going on recently relating to a newly created internet marketing tool. There are so many aspects to the mentioned niche that literally, and unfortunately, anything can be considered an Internet Marketing tool. The reason that anyone can basically create an Internet Marketing tool is because of something called Private Label Rights products.

What I use private label rights products for, and highly recommend them in this specific manner, is to cure writer’s block especially when it is lingering. Many people base their entire product creation and product launching on a private label rights product. This is where you can start to shine and build a strong brand for yourself. If you set goals for yourself, short-term goals to be exact, you can see your product creation come into being much faster and there is a good chance with less revision needed. If you keep hitting time restraint road blocks; however there is nothing wrong with a slow and steady approach, you can consider outsourcing portions of your project. Outsourcing can be an extremely huge benefit or just as great of a disaster.

You can find someone to outsource work to at a freelance site such as Guru.com or eLance.com. When reviewing proposals it is almost mandatory you perform a background check on them as you are in essence hiring them. Doing a background check on freelancers is as easy as asking for samples of their work and reviewing feedback on the freelance site from previous customers. Depending on the size and requirements of your project this can add up to a decent sized investment, so caution is very important. One tip I always recommend to people looking to hire an individual is to ask them what they can provide you that no one else can. This simple question gives them a chance to “toot their own horn” and acknowledge where they feel most competent as far as their skill set.

The final portion of the product creation and product launching formula is the launch. This can literally make or break the effort, time, and maybe (if you invested) money you put in to your project. There are numerous aspects to product launching and although their relevance is debated in terms to their effect, experts agree all must be followed. The person in your field who you asked for product advice from can help you substantially if you have kept in touch. If not, the first thing you need to do is to create a visually appealing website with flawless design work.

I also mentioned outsourcing before, this is one aspect of product launching I have little strength in and I always outsource this portion. The website does not have to be large however the content (ad copy in Internet Marketing) must be stellar and as perfect as possible. This is where advertising knowledge or experience is beneficial. When the site is set up you now put a lead capture form on your website.

I put two lead capture pages on all products I create on the internet and is one of the best methods of getting a solid start when you are in the product launching stage. When you gain information from a prospect or someone looking to get paid for referring sales you are able to provide them updates or specials. Many people abuse their prospect or affiliate lists by in turn emailing them with a new product daily and I find the recommendations to be totally unrelated to their original need, problem, or interest.

Another stage in the product launching stage is creating a free report or demo version of your product to entice the product to sign up to your email list. Using proper follow up with this can help generate numerous sales for you. One thing you need to ensure is that your free product completely relates to your main product that you are looking to sell.

You are now ready to advertise your product launching to customers as well as the opportunity to sell for affiliates. This is the single aspect that many product creations and launches fail on. It is actually not entirely difficult. One thing you can do is write articles (and a good amount of them) on topics relating to your product. I am a huge advocate of giving a solution in forums. When you join a forum you are normally offered the opportunity to create a signature. In your signature, you should enter the link to your opt-in or lead capture page. When you respond to posts, you are advertising your opportunity.

It is not impossible to create a product and it does not have to take a long time. You need to setup a plan and stick to it. If you get stuck, look at similar and successful products to your own and try and see how they did it. When you sit down and brainstorm you will be surprised with what you can imagine.

Real Estate Downturn Will Create 360,000 New Jobs

Many of the challenges we face in the real estate sector are merely a repeat of what we experienced in the late 80s. What no one is talking about is the tremendous opportunity we have to create over 360,000 new jobs in our struggling economy over the next 12 to 18 months.

The domestic real estate industry represents $1.6 Trillion or 8.5% of the U.S.’s Gross Domestic Product. The global capital crisis is impacting all aspects of the real estate market including brokerage, development, asset management, lending, and the countless support industries to the real estate sector.

Background Information

As background, during the early 1980s, Congress granted the Savings and Loan (S&L) industry new powers. Among others, these powers included lower reserve requirements and the ability to expand lending products and invest in real estate ventures. It wasn’t long before Congress corrected this mistake and tightened regulations, but for many S&Ls, it was too late. In 1989, the Federal Government had to step in and bail out the S&Ls by forming the Resolution Trust Corporation (“RTC”). The RTC was charged with liquidating these financial institutions and disposing of failed real estate assets and mortgages from the S&L industry. By the time it all came to an end in 1995, 1,043 Institutions with more than $402 Billion in assets (much of it in commercial real estate loans) failed. This cost the United States taxpayer more than $153 Billion.

During the bailout, the Federal Government spent over $400 Million in administrative costs that were not billed back to individual receiverships. According to the GAO, those bill-backs plus the administrative costs totaled over $87.9 Billion. Data is not available on specific breakdowns, but it is reasonable to assume that these bill-backs included all kinds of service fees to vendors including lawyers, property managers, brokers, and countless vendors supporting the property disposal activities.

What we are experiencing today makes the S&L crisis pale by comparison. Guarantees and cash payments by the Federal Government now exceed $7.5 Trillion. So far in 2009, 45 financial institutions are now in the hands of the FDIC with assets exceeding $11.94 Billion as compared to 2008 where 25 banks failed with over $17 Billion in assets. Another 114 financial institutions have taken TARP money totaling over $168 Billion more. It has been estimated that hundreds of additional banks will fail over the next 12-18 months.

At the same time, both commercial and residential real estate values continue to fall in many markets around the country. CAP rates in many markets for high quality investment product are up over 300 bps from levels of just six months ago. This increase alone wipes out any equity from commercial borrowers utilizing traditional leverage ratios. Coupling this fact with plunging tenant demand and falling lease rates means that even high quality real estate assets are in trouble.

In the current real estate downturn, it is likely that commercial loan failures will follow a similar pattern as to the residential failures we are already seeing. Unlike the 1980s though, it is expected that the magnitude of failures we are anticipating will dwarf what we experienced during the RTC bailout.

Although many lenders still have performing loans in terms of debt service payments, it is likely that many will find that their borrowers are in violation of loan covenants due to declining real estate values. How these lenders treat these activities on the commercial side remain to be seen. Federal regulations dictate that when a loan is in default, lenders must set aside cash reserve at substantially higher levels. With cash in short supply, lenders will be challenged with developing a strategy that may include utilizing TARP funds.

Opportunity

After researching past history and integrating current challenges, we believe that the opportunity exists to generate over 360,000 direct and indirect jobs to deal with the disposition of problem loans on both the commercial and residential side during this down cycle. These new job estimates are supported by the over $42 Billion in estimated fees that will be paid for services required to work through the problem loans and assets that will be paid for services required to work through the problem loans and assets that we anticipate will be coming back to financial institutions.

Direct jobs are estimated to total over 145,000. Many of these jobs are high paying – including advisory, legal, property and asset management, appraisal, underwriting, and numerous other real estate-related jobs. Additionally, utilizing real estate industry multipliers, it is believed that another 210,000 jobs can be created that benefit from the spending generated by the direct job sector. These jobs include countless categories occupied by people who provide goods and services to the new consumers that the primary sector jobs will create.

It is not known exactly how many jobs were created during the RTC crisis. We can only surmise by reviewing the available government data that a large portion of the $87.6 Billion in RTC administrative costs related to industry jobs. With the Trillions of dollars in hard cash outlays and government guarantees, it is difficult to imagine that the size of the real estate challenges will not be substantially larger than during the S&L crisis. Therefore, we feel our assumptions are likely conservative.

Our hope this time, is that the Federal Government takes a different approach to disposing of the real estate assets that will be coming back to the lenders. Rather than creating new government entities and jobs to work through troubled assets (FDIC and a potential new government agency), it appears to make much more sense to take advantage of an experienced and existing distribution network (our existing banking systems) specifically those who have received TARP funding.

As taxpayers we have already invested in TARP funds to banks plus the takeover costs of over 70 financial institutions in the last two years alone. With an estimated investment exceeding $200 Billion, It seems to make sense to utilize, that infrastructure, to work through the problem loans and assets. The $42 Billion in estimated fees will go a long way to stabilizing these banks and helping them repay some or all of the debt they have borrowed from the American taxpayer.

Some may believe that Government has all the answers. But, there are many others who have faith in the ingenuity of American business and the entrepreneurs that are out there, working every day, creating private sector jobs. A wonderful opportunity exists for the Federal Government to take advantage of our existing real estate and banking infrastructure to put countless people back to work.