Creating Audio Info Products

Creating Audio Info Products

Creating audio tapes or online audio is a lot easier than you'd think but we've got to get you over the first 'hump' of actually doing it. In some ways, this is much easier than creating an ebook or written how-to course.

Everybody, even you and I, can think much quicker then they can speak, and everybody can speak much quicker then they can type (even if you're a professional high-speed typist!).

And, if you have no confidence in your writing skills, are suffering from writer's block, or are intimidated by the blank screen or paper on your desktop, audio is likely the solution to your problem.

I only suggest creating an audio info product for niche markets if you are an expert and know the subject well. If you have a product idea however and you don't the topic well, the solution is in an interview with an expert (see below).

You can create niche market audio products a few ways:

• Buy an MP3 player with a built in recorder. You can get these really cheap now on ebay, at your local Radio Shack or do what I did - borrowed my teenage daughter's when she was at school! Her's cost lest than $50.
• If you are on a really tight budget, just buy a computer microphone or headphones with a built in mic. Tie your hair back, don't move your head around too much, close your office door so the dogs don't come in and bark, etc., and record right onto your computer. This is the simplest, and cheapest way to go.

If you have a CD burner on your computer, you can create the audio file, then turn it into a CD. Now you have an audio course on CD, which raises the perceived value over a downloadable info product. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...

Getting Started with Your Audio Product

You are going to want to write down the titles and sub-titles to the subjects you will be talking about on the audio tape. This will obviously help you to flip right through the content and talk about your topic with some organization.

Tips to get you talking and recording:

• Sit in a comfortable chair in a quiet room completely alone. You are going to have to translate your thoughts into words rather quickly and distractions will not help. Some people like to pace as they record, but if your equipment is very responsive to external sounds your listener will hear your footsteps. This is why you should always run a quick sound check.
• Follow the guidelines laid out in writing your niche market info product. Use examples, personal accounts, be exciting and interesting, don't talk in a monotone voice, stay on topic, and so on.
• Usually, you'll have to do a few practice runs to get yourself going and the audio adjustments set just right for your surroundings and stirrings (computer fan kicking in, children reminded not to disturb you, etc.) After those trial runs, you will get 'on a roll' with it, and if you're really excited about your topic you'll probably over-run your pre-alloted time.

How to Get More Money for Your Niche Market Audio Products

This is so easy that I don't know why more marketers, authors or experts don't do it more often. If you make a professionally edited transcript of your audio product, you can charge about 20% more to your sale price.

How to Create Transcripts from Your Audio Product

Audio transcripts help customers to research key points within your product without having to listen to the entire series again or skip through your audio product. Transcripts are a huge value-added service to your customers and they'll recognize it immediately. Some will even read along as they listen - but often the content in a transcript will vary somewhat to the actual audio (we like to edit out the "ahs, ums, and okays"). However, by reading as well as listening more information is absorbed.

Now that you know the reasons to provide a transcript, how will you create it? If you're on a tight budget, type it out yourself, turn it into an Adobe pdf file and offer it as a bonus within the niche market audio sales page of your website or ebay auction. You can also hire a transcripter or typist from elance.com or any other freelancing website at around $1 per page.

Physical Product Sales PLUS A Bonus Download

If you using direct mail to sell and distribute your audios, you can still use the power of internet access and instant gratification by promoting your niche market audios as "Order today and receive instant access to the transcript of this audio course while you wait for your CDs to arrive."

Audio Interviews - What to Do When You're Not the Expert

If you haven't gotten your head around the fact that you have something of value to offer to potential customers, you can still create great niche market audio products by simply finding and interviewing experts. Experts (in any field) love to be interviewed. Interviews give experts exposure, status and an opportunity to promote their own products or services.

Audio interview niche market products are very powerful, instantly credible in your customers mind, and easy to sell. Credibility ensures sales success when woven neatly into a sales letter as it is one of the difficult hurdles that your customer must pass over to click that order button.

If you interview an expert (or how about a few experts?) in any industry, then write your sales letter around that expert (or experts) and the benefits he/she talks about in the interview, then you are selling the expert's knowledge, you are simply the brilliant marketer that has brought the information to the masses. Once you've created audio interview products with some success, you may find that the experts start seeking you out, so be ready for future products! You never know what's coming next!

How to Get An Expert to Commit to An Audio Interview?

As I said above, experts love to give interviews. Just pick a few experts (from the yellow pages, trade magazines, newspapers, etc.) and give them a call. A phone call works far better than an email. Emails are deleted and forgotten, or filtered out by spam software. Phone messages left on professional's machines are never ignored.

Write out the questions ahead of time and collaborate with your expert on sub-topics, items of interest, etc. Remember that this is a partnership of sorts and since they know their market best, they should be allowed some input into the content and topics discussed.

You can perform the interview right over the phone and record it directly to MP3 or any other format you choose. In a few days I'm releasing a product that makes this dead easy and very inexpensive. Drop me a line if you want to be notified as soon as it's released.

Once you have the audio interviews ready to sell start transcribing or seeking a typist to add extra value to your niche market product package.