Particularly with the ease in which material is transmitted and shared on the internet, such products as training videos, ebooks and articles, have become an incredibly powerful means to get your brand in front of many targeted people. Creating information products can help you gain exposure to potentially thousands of people, no matter what your profession.

Apart from allowing people to learn more about the way you communicate and express yourself, producing information products are useful for you in the following ways:

1. They will help you get more clients because such products will give people the ability to connect with you and learn more about how you communicate and what you know about before taking further ‘risks’ with you.

2. They create opportunities for ongoing passive income that requires little ongoing work.

3. The opportunity for your product, your name, your brand to go viral (spread through word of mouth), if the product is free.

4. Having an information product improves your credibility as a creative freelancer because it establishes you as an expert in your field and will distinguish you from others in your industry.

Whether you’re a musician, illustrator, writer or painter, there are information products that you can put together to sell or to give away to boost your self promotion dramatically.

.

Here are some product ideas to think about:

• A free e-book full of special tips
• A full e-book to pay for (usually in the form of a pdf file)
• An audio mp3 or CD
• Training videos
• Teleseminars
• Ezines
• Charts, maps and information graphics
• Write an article

.

Make sure the product relates to the work you do, is straightforward and isn’t overworked. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

An example of this in action is a web designer putting together an ebook on how to best optimize a site to make navigation as easy as possible. This way the product would be of interest to other web designers and site owners, and people who run blogs, but also potential clients who want to know whether the navigation on their own sites are as easy as possible, who may eventually use that web designer’s services.

It is ok to put together information that has originated from elsewhere, as long as it is presented in your own words and isn’t an obvious copyright infringement. You can also get the majority of the work outsourced, although for your credibility’s sake, you’ll want to exert a fair amount of control over the finished piece.

Does anyone have any further ideas?

One of the best ways to do this is to have people in your network, including fans, friends, previous clients and potential clients, sign up to your email mailing list.

Although it doesn’t have to be termed as such, a newsletter is the best way to attract people onto your mailing list in a mutually beneficial way.

Here are some great benefits for creative people of sending out a newsletter to your list to drive your promotional activities:

1. Building Validity. Getting a newsletter out to members of your mailing list will strengthen the way people view you as an expert/specialist/devotee to your area of interest. This will build trust in those following you in this way. This is why it is important for your newsletter content to regularly focus on your speciality or area, or at least be consistent in what you write about.

2. Receiving feedback and gathering testimonials. Keeping people updated on what you are doing will allow you to see what people think of your work if you request feedback from them. This feedback can be posted as testimonials (once permission is asked) on your site, to add value to your products and services.

3. Building loyalty. Keeping people updated through a newsletter, reminding them of you and providing them with good content, will have the benefit of increasing their loyalty to you.

4. Ability to introduce new products/services. Newsletters are a very practical means of keeping people updated with new projects you might be working on, products you’re marketing, exhibitions you’re in, as well as any changes you make to your set up as a freelancer.

5. Maintaining traffic. Newsletters can regularly boost traffic coming to your site through a link you place on the newsletter. Those coming to your site will then have a chance to potentially browse through whatever else you have to show/offer on your site.

6. Strengthens your own brand. If your newsletter content stays consistent, your personal brand as a creative can be strengthened over time. This is not only reflected in the information and expertise you provide, but in the way you transfer your personality, attitude, passion and everything else associated with ‘brand you‘ across to your readers. All these elements are important in creating a brand of yourself that people will remember you (and come back to you) for.

7. Improve your skills. Regularly writing for a newsletter, although this doesn’t have to be more than once a month, will improve your writing skills over time, but also add to your creativity, as you think of and apply new things to keep your readers interested.

8. Keeps you focused. Newsletters will improve your focus as a creative in aiming to succeed, producing and showcasing high quality work etc. Ideally you’ll want to be updating your readers with positive things that are going on in your freelance world, so newsletters help you set goals and hopefully get things done!

9. Re-establishing connections. Contact with a proportion of your business network in this way will help fire up relationships with clients or fans that were perhaps previously lost.

10. Expands your network further. Newsletters are a useful platform on which to hint to readers the other ways they can keep in contact with you. This can enable your network to strengthen and build further. For example, if you let readers know of your LinkedIn profile, and they connect with you through this, you receive the benefits of having a new LinkedIn member, which includes their access to your profile and more regular updates, their LinkedIn contacts being aware of you, receiving recommendations and so on.

If you have any suggestions or comments, don’t hesitate to contribute using the comment form below!

Thank you.