Board Shorts Clearance Sale: Product Creation

Showing posts with label Product Creation. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Turn Your Products and Services Into Experiences

It's easy to think you offer unique products and services, but in today's world, you're probably wrong. It doesn't take much for a competitor to start offering the same products or services - and often that competitor can be somebody in China building the same product, or somebody in India offering the same service. Sometimes your competitor is even the customer themselves!

Travel agents are a perfect example. In the past, consumers used travel agents because they had access to special information - flights and fares, accommodation discounts, package deals, and the like. Now on-line travel agencies have equal or better access to those facilities; and consumers themselves often book their own travel.

To compete, the travel agent has to offer better experiences - for example, by organising customised tours, special packages and personal service.

Joseph Pine, author of The Experience Economy, describes different kinds of economies, and how they have developed over time. We started with an agrarian economy, which became an industrial economy, which became a service economy, and we're now moving into an "experience economy".

As the economy has changed, so has the value we place on products and services. Pine uses coffee as an example:

As a commodity, the coffee beans required for a cup of coffee are worth about 2-3 cents. Grind them, roast them, package them and sell them as goods on a supermarket shelf; and those same beans are now worth about 10-15 cents. Brew them in a diner and offer this as a service: That's worth about $1. Turn this into an experience at a café or restaurant, and now you can charge $4 (for what started out as 2-3 cents worth of coffee beans).

What changed? Clearly there are more raw ingredients in a cup of coffee than just the beans, but not $4 more (A friend of mine who owned a small café estimated a coffee cost her about 50 cents in total - including the ingredients, labour, and other overheads). The answer is that we're paying for the experience surrounding the coffee, not just the coffee itself.

Clearly this applies to some other products and services as well:

Apple users pay more for a supposedly better user experience. Dining at a five-star restaurant is as much about the experience as it is about the food. A day at Disneyland is all about the experience. The premium for flying first class far exceeds the airline's cost of providing the additional services.

In these cases, it's obvious the customer is paying extra for the experience, because the experience is part of the product.

What can you do to build - and sell - better experiences to your customers and clients? If you aren't constantly looking for ways to improve your customer experience, you'll be at the mercy of competitors, and you'll be missing out on profitable opportunities.

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Types of Information Product That Sell Best Online

In this article I am going to share which types of information product sell best online. Information products, generally, are some of the most sought after products on the internet. I am going to start by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the most common formats for online products. Then I will talk briefly about which topics sell the best.

The most common formats for an online product are ebook, audio and video. Ebooks are great to use as incentives for people to sign up to your email newsletter and there are a lot of places on the internet where you can put up your ebooks either for free if you are looking to generate leads or to sell if you want to generate an income. The downside of ebooks is that they have a lower perceived value than other types of product and they can take more effort to produce.

Audio products are really easy to create. You just need a microphone and some way to record and you probably already have these resources, even if you're not aware of them at present. Many newer computers and laptops have inbuilt microphones or you may have a headset with a microphone that you use on Skype. If you are a Windows user you can record using Windows Movie Maker (click start and programs to find it) and I believe Mac users have access to something similar called Keynote. Alternatively you could download free software from Audacity to record your audio products. Other advantages are that they are easy to host on your website and for people to download and listen to on a variety of devices and situations such as playing a mp3 whilst on the way to work in the car. The only downside I can see is that some people prefer to learn in a more visual way.

It depends on which type of video you are going to create how easy and quick it is to do. A simple speak-to-camera style video or one using screen capture technology is pretty simple and fast to create. However a slide show style presentation involves a lot more work. Other disadvantages of videos are that they require more space and bandwidth to host and there can be issues with viewing them on some browsers. Also if your customers don't have up-to-date computers they may well experience frustrating delays as the video stops to buffer every once in a while.

The best-selling products fall, for the most part, into one of these three niches: health, wealth or relationships. These cover a wide range of more specific challenges that people want help with. To compete in the market you will need to find a problem that is not being tackled but is in demand or to come up with a new angle for solving a common problem.

How to Create a Three-Dimensional Product How to Make an eBook Into an AudioBook Working With Top iPhone Developers for Best Solutions How Gamification Can Turn Businesses Into Winners Easy Ways to Find Content For Your Audio Products 5 Simple Steps To Creating A Digital Information Product Using A Resource Report

Hire Dedicated Mobile Developer For Excellent Application Development

Today, we all are largely dependent upon highly technological mobile phones.

Mobiles are certainly the most desired invention for conveying information to each other. Mobiles are the trusted devices for calling and receiving, we could go far with many other purposes like chatting, surfing Internet, checking emails, or even making transactions via bank account and purchasing stuffs on-line, which all can be done through smart phones and are facilitated with such kinds of applications using which, one can save a lot of time. Introduction of smart phones brought the inventions of many smart applications by which many personal and organizational works can be finished in just seconds.

New and more complicated mobile applications have their own share of challenges, but those can be solved by outsourcing your business to offshore mobile developers company who hire dedicated mobile developers so that you not only get the latest updated application at an affordable price, but can also focus on your core business.

There are few challenges in front of the offshore mobile developers company and the dedicated mobile developers team they have-

1. Developing applications which consumes minimum battery power and less bandwidth to provide speedy user experience.

2. Applications must support a variety of operating systems and mobile instruments.

3. Ensuring same user experience on mobile handsets as surfing on a computer.

4. Building mobile applications to improve payment gateways for smoother on-line transaction.

Mostly, these hurdles are very difficult to surpass and therefore it is very important to hire dedicated mobile developers. There is a high competition in market to provide best applications for smart phones and for this a company has to hire mobile developers who not only have the experience, but also the creativity and innovation to make something new and different every time. But before your offshore company start with their mobile projects, you must know your potential customers and business requirements clearly. Below are few suggestions on the same:

- Before you hire mobile developers and professionals, you must stand clear on your target customer. There are many offshore companies who are trying to take any and every type of project and has no clear focus on their vision and prime objectives. There are many different kind of mobile applications, for example, traveling sites, games, business process applications, social media and many more. If you are targeting an application for the gamers, then we can ignore some feature like weather report notifications which would better be for travelers.

- Every mobile device is different from other in terms of hardware as well as software. You should be well-aware of different features while creating an application.

Outsourcing Mobile solutions is the best thing to do and if you are are looking to hire dedicated mobile professionals, then this article is the best place you have reached. To hire mobile developers at the best available rates in the big Indian market is not a difficult task anymore.

But there are thousands of offshore mobile developers company providing a variety of services at a wide range of prices. You can hire dedicated mobile developers at a price less than half if you live in the United States. But before you close a deal, do proper research on the background of the company and the niches on which it is expert. It is always better to find a company which has more experience in projects and are able to provide you end to end solutions.

How to Create a Three-Dimensional Product How to Make an eBook Into an AudioBook Working With Top iPhone Developers for Best Solutions How Gamification Can Turn Businesses Into Winners

Ebook Vs Audio Mp3

Are you thinking about creating your own information product to sell online? Are you wondering which format to use to deliver your valuable content? In this article I am going to compare the advantages and disadvantages of ebooks and audios for you. Then your decision should be fairly obvious and you can get on with the actual business of creating your product and getting it out into the marketplace.

Ebooks

I'll start by looking at the advantages of ebooks. Ebooks are relatively simple to create and generally don't involve any costs. There are two main formats for ebooks: pdf and EPUB. You can find free services online that will help you to convert your Word documents into these formats or you might opt to either buy the appropriate software or pay someone else to convert them for you. Another advantage is that there are lots of places where you can promote your ebooks online such as specialist eBook sites and Amazon.

From the point of view of the customer ebooks can be scanned and skimmed quickly to find the golden nuggets and you can highlight, annotate and print them out easily. They can be accessed on a range of devices.

So what are the disadvantages? Well you've got to write it and writing takes longer than talking. You also need to be more fussy about things like spelling and grammar. Another disadvantage is that they generally don't command very high prices.

Audio Mp3s

So what do audios have going for them? One of the biggest advantages is that they are super quick to create. Basically a 1 hour audio takes not much more than 1 hour to record, allowing time for setting up and saving. They also don't need any costly equipment and you may find you already have what you need. You need a microphone and recording software. Many computers have in-built microphones although it is worth investing a small amount to get an external USB plug-in one to improve the quality. As for the recording software if you have Windows then you will almost certainly have Windows Movie Maker as standard which can be used to record audio tracks (Macs have something similar) or look for a free program called Audacity. Another advantage is that they require less storage and computing power to load and listen to online.

For the customers they have the advantage that they can listen on the go in the car etc and make good use of otherwise redundant time. Finally they command much higher prices for the same information than ebooks do.

I can't really think of too many disadvantages. I guess some customers may not like them because if they want to go back to just one section to review it then it's not as easy as with an ebook. You can solve this, in part, by breaking your audio product down into shorter time chunks.

Conclusion

Both ebooks and audios have their roles. I suggest ebooks are good to use for giveaways or to support audios as part of a package. For a main product that you are actually going to sell then I recommend you go with making an audio product.

Please Create Responsibly To Avoid Prolonged Exposure to Useless Marketing

Are you creating products that people aren't interested in? Are you spending good money to market them all over the web?

Product creation and Marketing go hand in hand when developing a product for sale. To avoid useless marketing don't sell what people aren't looking for, or put another way create what the market is looking for. Find out what it is people really want and create and market your product to them in that light.

The big fish are the established sites, not just Google there are thousands of sites that are out there primarily aimed at helping you spend your money on useless advertising. Don't get me wrong they operate above-board and put you as close to the top as they can. But what good does it do if you're at the top when no one wants what your selling?

An effective marketing campaign will consist of many elements and be presented in a neat one dose package that's easily swallowed. The reader, listener, or viewer will have very little problem understanding what is in it for him. Your job is to diagnose his problem, tell him that he has a problem and provide a solution to the problem in such a convincing manner that he has no other choice but to purchase the product or take whatever action you are requesting he take. The campaign will be omnipresent that is all places at the same time. This causes the potential customer to see your product in multiple locations heightening their curiosity and creating a built-in trust.

Once you have the correct marketing formula you will be unstoppable.

Effective Marketing Plus;

Active Ingredients: Marketing 72%, Content 12%, Site 9.4%, Social Media 6.3%. Other Ingredients: Talent, Knowledge, Follow through, Timing

Warnings

As with this and all other product marketing campaigns please use extreme caution. Do not attempt to combine campaigns as this may cause disruptions, frequent click backs and bounces. Excessive tweets may reduce the effectiveness of the campaign due to tweet-blindness. Extended periods of Social Media inactivity may cause a feeling of disconnection, please avoid at all times. If while on the campaign you experience a decrease in traffic it may be due to technical failure, please consult your site administrator.

Do Not Use

If your site crashes easily, as an effective campaign may cause an overload in traffic. If your ability to respond to multiple emails and product requests is impaired. If you find that you must reply to requests while driving or operating heavy machinery. If you experience dry mouth or heart palpitations due to an increase in your work load.

What drives your customers to purchase? Is it the desire for your product or service or is it what they get out of it? It's more than the perceived benefit. Most customers believe that their decision to purchase is based on sound rationale but the reality and our ancient history tell another story. We buy because our nature tells us that we need it to fill a void and in reality we are usually not consciously involved in the decision-making process. Find out how to market your product to fill that void.

Tips for Editing Your Audio Products

You don't have to be an audio engineer to create a high-quality audio product. All you need to know is how to do basic editing to polish a recording, and that's good enough for most audio products. Here are some tips for editing and polishing your audio products.

Record at high quality

The easiest way to create a high-quality product is to record it at the best quality possible. Although it's possible for a skilled audio engineer to improve a poor recording, it does take a lot of work. So it's far better if you can get it right the first time.

So choose a quiet environment, block out outside noise, use a good microphone, and speak clearly. Also do a short test run to be sure everything is working as expected.

Keep going when you make a mistake

If you make a mistake during the recording, don't stop it and start all over again. Instead, keep the recording going, pause for a few seconds, and then repeat that section. Later, when you're doing the editing, you can identify these sections (because of the long pauses) and delete the mistakes. This is much faster than starting all over again.

Use simple editing software

The world of audio editing has a language all of its own, and it's confusing and daunting if you don't have a background in it. So use simple editing software only - such as Garage Band for the Mac, or Audacity for the PC. You should only be doing basic editing only, so you don't need the fancy features of more advanced software.

Remove mistakes

Play the recording in your editing software, listen for any mistakes (which you've corrected immediately afterwards - as described earlier), and delete them. It should be easy to select and delete that precise section, and the listener won't be able to detect anything unusual in the final product.

Adjust the volume for different speakers

If one speaker is particularly soft or particularly loud, you might need to adjust their volume; otherwise, it can be frustrating for listeners who will be straining to catch one person's words. However, it's better if you detect this in the test run, and adjust the volume during the recording (for example, asking them to speak louder, or moving the microphone closer).

"Top and tail" with music

Adding a short burst of music to the start and end of your audio product makes it seem more professional.

Don't use copyright protected music, though! This means only using music you have explicit permission to use. Search Google for the phrase, "royalty free music," and you will find a number of Web sites that provide music clips that you can then use in your programs. "Royalty free" doesn't mean that the music itself is free; rather, it means you can buy it and use it without having to pay a fee (royalty) every time you use it. For example, you might use one piece of music as the "theme music" for all your products.

Of course, the other way to get music is to have somebody compose and perform it for you. That's obviously more expensive, but if it's something that you're going to use over and over again, then you might consider it a very good investment.

"Top and tail" with a professional voiceover

An alternative is to get somebody to do a professional introduction and close for your products (sometimes this is backed with music as well). For example, if you're publishing a regular podcast, you can have a standard introduction and close, which you simply add to the start and end of each episode.