Capture Email Addresses

Building your target email list is important, but segmenting your list into actual  buyers is your golden ticket.  By capturing the email addresses of people that are buying your informational product you can add them to another “segment” of your auto-responder system that knows they trust you and value your expertise enough to open their wallets to you, now you can build on that trust, expand on what they are interested in and prepare yourself to sell to them again with another offer.

If you offered them a short report, now is the time to offer them an up-sell on the same topic, perhaps an audio or video on the same topic but goes into more details or shows them exactly the steps they need to go through.

It is important that you add your email capture system to the download page or require the customer to “opt-in” to receive your product.

You can position it as “Please make sure you register your product by entering your name and email so we can notify you of any updates, changes or related product offerings and as a special thank you we will send you a complimentary copy of our weekly newsletter XYZ that provides you up to date information, hot topics and resources to save you time, frustration and money”

Stress the benefits of your newsletter, what will they get out of it? What value does it give them? This will also make it easier for you to follow up with them if you need to provide any updates or send them out new information pertaining to that topic or even gaining testimonials.

Testimonials

This brings up an often overlooked area of social proof and testimonials. It is important to try to capture testimonials from every customer you have and asking them right after they get your product or service is the best time because it’s still fresh in their minds.

You can then add that testimonial to your next product offering, advertisements, sales copy, and more. Just think that you may have a few clients that are on the fence about investing money in your product/service and you send out a newsletter with a statement like,

“Thank you for all the kind feedback on my latest service/seminar/program. I am so glad that it helped you save a few pennies during this tough economic time (your benefit). I can’t include all the feedback here but I wanted to share a couple:…include testimonials

This may help give a few customers that needed a little extra nudge click on the buy button.

Promotion

The last piece of the puzzle now that you created your product, you have it posted in the public view with the ability to collect money is to promote it!

There are a few quick and easy ways to start your promotion:

• Send a notice out to your mail list that you are giving them the first “Sneak Peak”. People love being part of an exclusive group and this option can kick start your sales while making your customers feel special.
• Post information about it on your blog.
• Create a special banner on your website
• Contact your networking group and ask for help in spreading the word. Provide them with a paragraph description that is short and sweet, most people will help if it’s easy enough for them to cut and paste.
• Craft a Press Release and send to local and industry news publications
• Add a promotion to your business cards so they work double duty
• Post about it on your social networking sites
• Add a link in your forum signatures

You will start seeing traffic rise and the wonderful feeling of waking in the morning and seeing you made sales while you slept!

Every time you create a new product the process gets faster and faster because you have the infrastructure ready and you know how to connect.

Your business will build if you continue to put out high quality information that people are able to put to use and they will be chomping at the bit for the next product to be released.

Keep an idea notebook and include common problems or challenges you hear people talk about and you will never have trouble creating a new product again.

Brainstorm other options to bring your product to market:

• Video tape your speaking engagements
• Record interviews
• Video tape interviews
• Host paid seminars
• Volunteer to speak at related industry meetings

Remember to learn how to re-purpose everything you do!

Process: Creating Your Transaction Process

The options for selling your product depend on your current online infrastructure and knowing how you can leverage what already exists.

You can offer this on your current website, build a simple html web page as the sales page or create a blog post that includes information on the report and you copy and paste your html code directly into your blog post. Better yet, you create a “buy now” button and insert it directly into your newsletter.

If you want to make a double hitter, after you create your product contact a few local businesses that have the same target market and would compliment your product. Offer the business the opportunity to promote your product and split the profits with you. This would be considered a “Joint Venture” because you are leveraging their customer base, exposing them to your business, while creating an income opportunity for both businesses.

You will need two web pages: a Sales Page and a Download page. Once you have that first set complete you can then customize for any future product offerings.

Create a “Buy Now” button.

For money to change hands, from the customer to your bank account, you will need a secure method of collecting their personal and payment information.

Depending on how many product offerings you want to create you generally have three options.

1. Shopping cart system, virtual terminal
2. Paypal
3. Affiliate Networks

Paypal.com offers the quickest option to create an instant transaction for your report. You can create a free account that allows customers to pay you via their Paypal balance, direct from their checking account or by credit card without having to worry about merchant fees or gateways. This can truly add a “fast cash” system to your business on auto pilot.

Once you create a Paypal account, you click on the “Merchant” tab and enter the product name, price, select your buy now button and copy the code to paste into the bottom of your sales page, blog post or newsletter.

Shopping Cart Systems can become more complicated to install and set up. You have everything from the simple point and click options for only a few dollars a month, like E-junkie, to the bells and whistles at a hundred dollars a month such as 1ShoppingCart. Most shopping cart systems require you to submit paperwork to obtain a full merchant account and “gateway” account with a company like Authorize.net that will help connect your shopping cart to your merchant account with a secure transaction.

Affiliate Networks are another option for a full “done for you” experience. If you create a product that sells at a good price point you may choose to utilize a one stop shop such as Clickbank.com.

Clickbank requires a one time small set up fee of under $50.00, then takes care of all the transactions, returns, and administration. They take a percentage of your sales instead of a monthly fee. The benefit of an affiliate network such as Clickbank is the exposure your product has to millions of people that are searching their marketplace to buy or help promote products as an affiliate. Clickbank also takes care of the affiliate commissions it’s a set and forget system.

Creation: Creating Your First Special Report

Open Open Office (install from openoffice.org if you do not have this program). Open office is free and is a word processing system similar to Microsoft Word. You can use Microsoft Word if you choose, however, Open Office if free and has the built in ability to create pdf documents with a click of the mouse.

Write your problem solving report. Depending on the content and you goal of the product, it can be anywhere from one page to 151 pages.

If you need a framework for your report sketch it out on paper to brainstorm the topics you want covered then break it into three areas:

Introduction: Tell them what you are going to tell them

Content: Tell them

Conclusion: Summarize what you told them

When creating your first report often a “Top 10” or “5 Secrets of XYZ” are often the easiest format to get started with.

Remember to include a call to action at the end of your report. Tell your reader exactly what you want them to do next. Do you want them to call you for an appointment, do you want to sell them a product that will help solve the problem they are having?

Save and Export as a pdf document. This option is located in File- Export As PDF in Open Office.

For those that are saying now, “I DON’T WRITE”.. there is still great opportunity for you, no worries!

Technology today is at your feet. Need a fast product? Grab a co-worker, partner, expert in your industry, a client that will let you record their session with you, and sign up for a free account at http://www.freeconferencecall.com.

Record an hour long interview or just the conversation of a couple experts batting around information or even just record a case study of someone that has been successful. When the call is over, FreeConferenceCall.com will send you the audio file within minutes for you to download.

You can burn it to a CD and offer it as a stand alone product, sell the digital download or better yet, send it out to be transcribed by a service like http://www.transcriptionplus.com and have them create a pdf of the recording and sell the recording with the document for a higher price!

Create a video by importing that audio into the free program, Microsoft Movie Maker, and adding title slides, images or PowerPoint slides and you will have a full video product.

You now have your product completed and ready for the framework to make the transaction.

To avoid time conflicts with other scheduled PAL events, Canada Screenwriters Meetings have been rescheduled to be held on the fourth Wednesday of each month at exactly 7:00 pm.

Script Feedback

Usually, we critique one or two original shorts, one original feature, or one play per meeting, going around the table one by one, with others throwing in relevant comments from time to time.

Special Meetings

• practicing pitches
• writing loglines
• treatments
• crafting a script synopsis
• scripts from the actor’s perspective
• putting together a series Bible
• the creative process
• developing characters
• Genres such as mystery writing and writing for animation
• writing a documentary script
• industry trade events and networking strategies
• utilizing the latest strategies in internet marketing to promote screenplays/film projects.
• applying the screenwriting craft to making money between gigs or before the “big break” such as in the creation of information products.

Canada Screenwriters participants with a yearly Canada Screenwriters membership ($48.00) and who have reviewed at least one work by another club participant can get feedback on their work. If you want your work discussed at a future meeting, please bring at least five hardcopies of your script to a meeting or send it to Adam Fulford in an email attachment, so he can in turn email it to other members.

Choosing a Topic for Creating an Info Product

1. Finding a Topic

Deciding on your topic may be the most daunting challenge because it’s a clean slate that might overwhelm you until you go through it once or twice. Then it will be old hat and you will realize just how many ways you can leverage this skill.

Offering Solutions

To come up with a topic, think about the biggest problems people have that you provide a solution to or your most frequently asked questions.

Example:

A trademark lawyer, knowing most of his clients are boot-strapping entrepreneurs, may want to create an information packet that he can offer for free to clients or as a paid product “How to save $500.00 in fees when filing your trademark” do you think someone would spend $20.00 on information when a lawyer would bill them $250.00 for one hour or they could make a mistake and spend more money then they needed too?

Spin-Off Products

Think of the splinter products they could offer on their website to offer people that find their services via the search engines but do not live local- How to avoid trademark scams, How to protect your brand or 10 questions you must ask your trademark lawyer during your first meeting.

If you are really stuck for a topic to cover, visit Amazon.com

ook at books that are selling on the topic. One chapter topic would make a great short report.

After the Report is Written, What’s Next?

Once you create your report and set up your selling system, this turns into a cash machine 24/7 on autopilot!

This report will cover the fastest ways for you to create your first product and have it for sale in 24 hours. The process is broken into three sections: Creation, Process and Promotion.

Visit CanadaScreenwriters.com for the next installation

Georgia Straight Listing for First Canada Screenwriters Meeting

The Georgia Straight has long helped broadcast local Vancouver and BC events of interest for the arts and a wide array of other areas.

That said, the meeting will actually be on the 3rd floor (not the 8th as they asserted for reasons unknown).

What is a Logline?

A logline is a short description of a script (one line, or two lines at most) that entices the reader (or listener) to want to find out more about it and read the script.

Loglines are vital in capturing the interest of producers, agents, networks, or investors enough for them to either want to read the script or make the movie (since many of them don’t necessarily read the script, truth be told). They often serve as the enticement that will inspire a producer to invite you to make a pitch (or maybe email over a one paragraph synopsis).

Selling An Film Concept

Anyone who has been in sales may find the concept of loglines eerily familiar because it really is sales — selling an idea. Films are a collaborative medium and you really do have to “win friends and influence people” to get them made.

How Do You Write a Logline?

Writing loglines can prove to be quite tricky, to be sure. It must somehow capture the essence and reveal the premise, genre, and main character of a story in one sentence.

Examples of Loglines

TV guides are a good place to begin. Just read the one liners used to describe films. Here are a couple of loglines I’ve quickly churned out to describe famous films. My loglines may be less than sterling but they encapsulate what a logline essentially is:

The Godfather
After a mafia kingpin is shot and badly wounded, his son abandons his dreams of leading a civilain life and joins the “familiy business” to save his family from being decimated by rival mafia families.

Antwone Fisher
A young navy sailor unleashes such violence against someone who offends him that he has to see a psychiatrist in order to save his career, and the story of his harrowing childhoold begins to unfold.

Taxi Driver
A taxi driver, back in America after fighting in Vietnam, becomes so obsessively fixated on a young woman working in a political campaign, a teenage prostitute, and a pimp that extreme violence is the inevitable conclusion.

Erin Brochovich

A single mom without law school training uses her natural wit to land a job as a legal assistant then goes on to lead the entire law firm into a battle against an industrial giant that is polluting the drinking water, or else more people will be poisoned.

Qualities of a Good Logline:

• introduces the main character
• succinctly describes the story
• tells what is at stake
• hints at the genre

Here is a site that offers nice examples and analysis of good, bad, and so-so loglines:
http://www.norman-hollyn.com/535/handouts/loglines.pdf

I’m a friend of Adam Fulford.

A Canadian friend of mine named Signe holds a great writers’ event in LA every year where writers get to pitch their scripts/ideas to film executives in Hollywood. Free screenwriting classes are included on the first day. Those signing up, please email me at themandale@gmail.com with “pitch festival” in the email title as I will answer your questions and I may be holding a fun get-together for everyone going. Go to http://www.pitchfest.com for info and sign up. Please tell them Dale sent you.

I also may be organizing a screenwriters/screenwriting group and/or screenwriting workshops in the Vancouver area. Those interested, please email me back with “Screenwriters/screenwriting group” in the email title and if you’re interested in workshops, please put “screenwriting/screenwriters workshop” in the email title.

Thanks and Happy Screenwriting!
Dale

Adam Fulford, CanadaScreenwriters.com

Information Product Creation: An Exciting New Avenue For Writers to Make $$$

Information product creation is fast, easy, inexpensive and doesn’t require special technical knowledge.

A Way for Screenwriters to Make Extra Money (Maybe A Lot)

Are you are one of the few that are skeptical or unaware that people would actually buy information? What you are about to create is really no different then what is being sold in any Barnes and Noble, only this is better!

You are providing quality, expert information but in the comfort of your buyers own home without them having to go anywhere! If you can provide people the information they need, fast, easy and at a good price you are well on your way to being an information publisher.

The problem is unless you are aware of the opportunity, most professionals do not realize they can expand their expertise into other areas of automatic revenue streams.

If you are an expert on a subject, you can easily:

• Develop Audio or Video Products (Screenwriters have an advantage in this area)
• Create ebooks or workbooks
• License your content
• Develop training programs
• Record speaking engagements, keynotes or seminars

The possibilities of are endless!

The Key to Information Product Creation

The key is to record everything you do and learn how to “re-purpose and re-package” that content into a product you can sell over and over again.

This series will show you just how easy it is to bring one idea into a cash producing or list building product in less then 24 hours.

Visit CanadaScreenwriters.com again to read the next installments of this ongoing series

by Adam Fulford, CanadaScreenwriters.com

1. Biography back story.

Visualize the life of each character, including temperament, and place in society (the society of your story)

2. Detective strategy

Detectives take present day evidence and apply it to recreate past events. What quirks does a character have? Let’s say this character is a piano player who absolutely must use the same old fraying piano bench of unusual height (as Glenn Gould did). Why is this so? That elderly woman insists on wearing the latest in fashion, always — what led to this? Quickly visualize where they came from, where they are at present, and what compels them to lead their present lifestyle. Why would a mild mannered guy with a good job suddenly get enraged upon smelling boiled turnip? Why does that business mogul always carry a yoyo with him?

3. Personality Archetype approach,

Carl Jung’s archetypes have influenced generations of writers. What kind of character archetypes are in your story? Are they dragons or guardians at the gate (such as the father in “Father of the Bride)? Are they tricksters or shape-shifters? Are they mentors?

4. Freudian analysis approach

What childhood experiences does a given character have? Did mother smacking him when touched himself traumatize him and make him become fixated on phallic symbols? Is that why the real estate mogul always wants to build towers? Is Ms. Snidely the elementary schoolteacher taking out her hostility and resentment of her father on the little boys in her class?

5. Life patterns approach

Every person has a pattern in their life. Most people continue variations of the same patterns that began when they were children. Example: At the age of two, Rebecca’s mother handed her over to her aunt to raise her. After that Rebecca would have a pattern of getting close to people then suddenly dissociating from them. As an adult this pattern continued. She’d get a job, and establish herself there, then suddenly quit. Same with relationships.

Understand Your Character — Who, What, Where, When and How

There is a myriad of approaches to developing characters. The main focus is understanding the character and how he or she fits into the story and affects it.