Writers: One Major Strategy Change to Sell More Information Products
Instead of straight-teaching, do this…
I’m guilty of this. You might be guilty of this too. In fact, if I’m not careful this whole story could be guilty of it.
What?
Straight-teaching versus storytelling.
If you’re in the information business — whether you write non-fiction, you teach courses, you help others, or however you get your information across. There’s a danger in straight-teaching.
What’s straight-teaching?
You stand at the front of the proverbial class and lecture to your student. Whether your teaching is in article format, a YouTube video, or a live class, the information delivery process is one way.
I teach.
You listen.
Bleh.
Think of how school used to be before teachers figured out most of us don’t enjoy learning this way… and how most college courses still operate.
When I say information products it’s a catch-all for anything you created using your brain and delivered it to your end-user — helping her get from where she is to where she wants to be.
Whether that’s a book, course, video, mastermind group, or slideshow, information products are a one-to-many approach where you create a product once and sell it repeatedly. Many cases, the sales are done using automated processes (i.e. email).
But we can sell more than we do now.
Most writers (I’m included in this) are elbows-deep in their topic. We’re experts. We get excited about helping others. So excited we talk down to our audience. Or — worse yet — we fire-hose them with content until the drown with over-information.
…there’s a better way.
Not only do we have to deliver our content in a way that’s appealing to the end-user, but we also have to sell our content before we can deliver it.
This story is all about selling your content.
And we’ll use the power of infotainment.
Infotainment is the power of candy-coated salad. We take information we want to teach and deliver it in an entertaining way.
Look who makes the most money of any category? Entertainers.
Whether it’s actors, singers, or sports figures — theses folks are paid a disproportionate amount of money compared to the hours they put in. We want to get paid disproportionate amounts too, right?
Let’s do it.
How to sell more information products using infotainment
Infotainment is the ability to wrap straight-teaching with a candy-coated shell. Salad dipped in chocolate, so-to-speak. Yeah, gross. But you get the idea.
When you use the power of infotainment your reader gets the knowledge without being force-fed. She gets the vitamins from the salad while thinking she’s eating chocolate?
Make sense?
Use whatever food analogy you want. Gluten-free pancakes covered in bacon — anything.
Point is, infotainment is a sneak-attack to the parts of our brain where we glaze-over when someone tries to teach us something new.
In this case, you’re the teacher. You’ve got something really valuable to share with your readership. But you want her to absorb it in a way that sticks. No one remembers lists of facts and figures on the first telling. Most people will click-away.
But if you dip that broccoli in cheese…. even I will eat it (and I freaking hate broccoli).
It’s time to tell more stories.
We are hard-wired to remember stories on their first telling. Think of that crazy water-cooler gossip you heard this morning. Yesterday, I learned that Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan came from a guy on death row in the 1970’s.
Before the guy was executed he said “let’s do it.” Someone at Nike saw this in the paper and pitched it to Phil Knight.
I didn’t have to hear that story more than once to remember it. Maybe I don’t have all the facts right, but the point is great ideas come from many places. The little story is entertaining and informative — infotainment.
You can do this too.
Every sale has a good story behind it.
Lead with your stories. Your reader will remember your stories.
You probably know this, but there are two reasons we buy things: the logical reason and the real reason. We think we buy with logic, but we really buy with our emotions.
Infotainment hits our emotions straight in the gut.
We want our readers to remember the main message on the first telling. Later, when she goes home, she’ll think about your product, hem and haw, and maybe she’ll make a buying decision while she sleeps.
Yes, you need to deliver the facts, figures, and bullet points too, but the good stuff — the reason we buy — is all based on the emotional power of storytelling
Try to deliver more infotainment every time you interact with your readership.
You’ll sell more stuff, I promise.
Use the power of infotainment to build your tribe
Not only can you sell more of your info-products with the power of storytelling, but you can also use this magic secret to grow your tribe.
Using the power of email, you can build a list of hungry readers, excited to open your next letter.
When we teach and entertain simultaneously, it’s a rare combination.
Email is a great way to get this done.
I’ve developed a free email masterclass, just for you. It’s filled with not only New York Times bestselling writers, but people just like you and me. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,00 subscribers (and your next 1,000), without spending a hot nickel on ads.
Once you build your tribe you can use the power of infotainment to sell your writing — automatically.
It’s a lot of work to set up, but once done, email runs mostly on autopilot.
Email isn’t for everyone.
But it might be for you.
We’re waiting for you.
Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.