You know your audience. You know the value you want your product to provide. Now it’s time to design your ideal product. This means creating a product that’s aligned with what your customers want and what you are known to deliver. This means figuring out your product-market fit.
How?
You’ll accomplish this in three steps:
· Step 1: TOPIC: Chart Your Product
· Step 2: TYPE: Choose a Format
· Step 3: TITLE: Connect Buyers
Let’s get an in-depth look at the process…
Step 1: TOPIC: Chart Your Product
You’ve completed the previous steps, so at this point you have a pretty good idea of what your prospects want. Now we’re going to narrow down and choose a topic for your info product.
TIP: Through your initial research, you should have already developed a pretty good idea of the general type of product your prospects want. You can further confirm this by researching marketplaces (like Amazon) to see what types of products are selling well. Look for bestsellers, as well as multiple products on the same topic on these platforms as well as on your competitors’ sites. These are all signs that a particular type of product is in demand.
At this point, you need to narrow down your topic. Now you’ll return to the previous work you’ve done in developing your customer avatar and developing your value proposition. You need to align these to find your product-market fit.
Take a moment and answer these questions (these should be easy, as you’ve already determined the answers in the previous steps):
1. What do your customers WANT? ______________
(Specifically, what outcomes/progress/results do they want?)
2. What does your value proposition offer? ______________________
3. What pains and problems are your customers currently experiencing? _________________________________
4. What would they rather be experiencing instead? ____________________
Now take a good look at the answers you’ve written down. Now do this:
· Note the overlapping areas between #1 and #2. Any place where you see overlap is the sweet spot with regards to the product-market fit. This is where you determine the topic of your product.
· Now look at #3 and #4. Currently, your prospects are at #3, as that is their “before” position. Meanwhile, #4 is where they want to be. And the topic of your product is the BRIDGE between these two states.
In essence, what you’re determining in this step is:
· Which pain point you’re going to eliminate.
· Which goal you’re going to help your customers achieve.
· Which set of benefits you’re going to provide.
This is the TOPIC of your product.
Let me give you an example…
Let’s go way back to the example of a personal trainer who’s looking for diet and exercise information (preferably in group settings) in order to better train his clients and grow his business.
One of his pain points is that he has a hard time differentiating his fitness boot camps from others in the area, so he’s not getting very many sign ups. That’s a pain point and a challenge because he’s not making enough money for it to be worthwhile to continue offering boot camps.
That’s his current “before” state. His “after” state is that he wants to have fun, exciting boot camps that attract a lot of clients, get good results for these clients, and grow his business.
This is where your product comes in as a bridge between the “before” and “after” state.
Perhaps you’ve determined that your value proposition is based on providing a full suite of tools so that personal trainers have a business in a box. That’s the product-market fit… the value you provide is in line with what prospects want.
So, consider this with regards to a nutrition/exercise product for personal trainers…
If you just provide the programming, workouts and nutrition for an eight-week boot camp, that’s not going to help your customer with his main pain point, which is that he’s not attracting enough sign ups to his boot camps.
The solution? You create an ideal product that bridges the “before” and “after” state.
This means you create a complete, re-brandable boot camp that’s based on a unique theme that’s sure to help your personal trainer attract plenty of sign ups. And not only that, you also provide the marketing tools (emails, graphics, press releases, display ads, flyers, etc.) so that your customers can easily attract clients without having to spend time or money creating the materials themselves.
End result: your customers move from their before state (poor sign ups and attendance for their boot camps and zero business growth) to their desired after state (a booming business with sold-out boot camps).
Now it’s your turn…
Mini assignment: Go ahead and spend a few minutes thinking about your product-market fit. If you answer the questions above carefully, then it should become clear what topic you should choose.
Then move onto the next step…
Step 2: TYPE: Choose a Format
Now you need to determine the type of product you’re going to create. Here are the most common formats:
· Physical book
· Ebook
· Membership site
· Ecourse
· Video
· Audio
· Software/apps/plugin
· Tools (templates, swipes, checklists, planners, etc.)
Now what you need to do is figure out which format most closely aligns with your value proposition.
Let’s go back to the example of the nutrition, exercise and marketing materials for a personal trainer. In this case, you’d want to offer a set of tools as this most closely aligns with your value proposition of making it easy for a personal trainer to grow his business.
To that end, the re-brandable tools would include:
· Workouts
· Meal plans
· Recipes
· Shopping lists
· Marketing tools such as email templates, ads, graphics, press releases, social media blurbs, lead magnets and more.
Now let me give you a few other examples of how to tie the format of your product to your value proposition:
· If your VP is all about helping someone achieve a goal more quickly, then you might create an app to help them do exactly that.
· If your VP is about simplifying a complex process, then you might offer content in a multipart format, such as via an ecourse or membership site.
· If your VP focuses on convenience, then you may decide to offer your product in multiple formats (audio, video and ebook).
Mini assignment: write down the product formats that most closely align with your value proposition.
Now, in some cases you may have several types of product that align with your value proposition. So, the next thing for you to do is determine what types of products your market is comfortable using.
To figure this out, you’ll need to do some market research. This involves two steps:
1. Seeing what types of products they’re already buying.
2. Surveying them to see what types of products they prefer.
Let me give you an example…
Let’s suppose you’ve decided to create a text guide, but you’re not sure whether to offer it as a physical or digital product. So, you go to Amazon and look at products in your niche both in the regular “books” section as well as the Kindle section. Then take note of how well those two formats are selling.
If you see that physical books greatly outsell Kindle books, then that may be a sign that your market prefers to purchase and use physical products. You can then survey your audience to confirm these findings.
Mini Assignment: Do your preliminary research to see what types of products your market is buying in your niche. What is their preferred format?
And finally…
Step 3: TITLE: Connect Buyers
Now you need to create a title for your product. This piece is important, because many of your prospects are going to use the title of your product to help them make the buying decision. That means your title can make or break the success of your product.
The functions of your title (and subtitle) are to attract your buyer’s attention and arouse their interest. You do this by creating a title that ties your customer’s wants with your offer.
We’ve been talking about using your product as a bridge between your prospect’s current state and where they want to be. Your title and subtitle are going to be most effective if they convey this promise of getting your customer to their desired state.
Generally, your title is going be just a few short benefit-driven words to capture attention, and your subtitle will elaborate on this promise.
Let me give you a few real-life examples:
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Note that the “4-Hour Work Week” provides a big benefit in just a few words, and the subtitle elaborates on the benefits. The author’s value proposition is based on helping people achieve their dreams in less time. Most people think you need to work 40 hours, 60 hours or more to become rich – thus this book’s title and sub-title present the benefits and desired state that the prospects really want.
Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale Into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days or Less
This title directly reminds prospects of their current state and pain point (losing customers and profits), and promises to get them to their desired state (loyal customers who buy again and again).
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
In three words, the title captures attention by telling people they CAN design their own life (whereas so many assume they can only helplessly watch their life unfold). The subtitle promises the desired state (joy).
TIP: It’s a good idea to brainstorm multiple potential titles and subtitles, and then test your top picks using randomized split-testing. In other words, let your marketing vote with their wallets.
So now it’s your turn…
Mini assignment: Brainstorm titles that align with your value proposition and promise to bring your prospect from their current state to their desired state.
Assignment
Throughout this step, I’ve given you mini assignments. Now it’s time for you to pull mini assignments together for this final assignment.
· Choose your TOPIC.
· Choose your TYPE of product.
· Choose a TITLE for your product.
Go ahead and complete those three items if you haven’t already done so.
Quick Recap
At this point, you have a nice road MAP for creating products that your prospects are sure to love.
This MAP includes:
Step 1: Define Your Customer PROFILE: This goes beyond merely knowing the age, gender and marital status of your customer. Because once you understand your ideal customer on a deeper level, then you’ll be able to specialize and give them what they want.
Step 2: Decide Your Value PROPOSITION: Next, you determine how to present your business in an appealing way. That means defining your value proposition so that you can be known for providing what your customers want.
Step 3: Design Your Ideal PRODUCT: This is all about product-market fit, where you’ll find out how to create products that your audience will absolutely fall in love with.
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