All Its Own - Giving Your Info Products a Look

Dear Info Marketers,

I just got a letter from a contracting friend of mine. Yes, that's correct. A hand written letter, composed on two sheets of motel stationary pad paper and complete with his comical verbage. He's in Thompson, Manitoba right now doing an engineering contract for a large firm. This place is over 700 km north of Winnipeg and bloody snowbound this time of year. I really enjoyed getting his letter though. While I love getting e-mails and texts from friends, I really appreciate the personal feel of hand written letters, greeting cards, and post cards. You can tell someone has actually put some real physical effort into writing them.

Obviously I could tell this was my friend's letter by his lively and doctor's grade handwriting. It had its own look and feel. And that's what your information products should all have. Their own look. You can create a mass amount of appeal and gain new clients by just investing some time to create a visual display for your products.

A good way to start is to create a logo and/or header for all your products. If you're more graphically inclined, you can do this by just using some pen and paper, and then doing the design on Adobe Studio or even Paint.net. Logos are meant to be simple so you may just want to create one making the text of your business name more graphically appealing. My superior Michael Lombardi did this, as you can see here. Other times you might want something with a picture or symbol. If this is required, come up with an idea and take it to a graphic designer. They can be done reasonably quickly and cheaply.

Designing both your print and online product pages is important too. Make sure they have a similar look, page-to-page, and do not radically differ in their appearance. At IMI we work closely with our in-house graphics people to make sure each page has the write logos, text fonts, layout specs, everything. I learned a bit of this firsthand from, again, watching Michael Lombardi, who always tried to keep his direct mail, newsletters, and web pages looking consistent.

Keep your writing consistent too. There can be a tendency for some people to fall off their path of best judgement after writing a lot and shoot for more "poetic" written passages. This can often fail as people will not understand what you are trying to communicate. Your writing should be kept simple and easy so that someone can pick it out of the mailbox or inbox and start reading immediately.

Once you get going with your business, you might want to send out a survey or do a product test by getting feedback on a new design. You should monitor which product designs have the best response from clients and which ones generate more negative feedback. Beverage companies will often do this, and hold market research meetings to get the public's response.

Fashion and trends work in tandem with public taste. It can be difficult to keep up with this and, let's be honest, a pretty shallow past time. But it can also be fun too. If you think of yourself like someone working for Coca Cola or Planter's Peanuts and how they have managed to continually rework their looks to changing times, you can utilize creating a look to your advantage.

Good luck and have a good week,

J.

P.S. For more information on info product marketing, click here for the Information Marketing Institute website, or go here to the E-Wealth Daily website.