Knowing the Market

Choosing the right price is one of the most critical parts of
the marketing process. Finding this right price will lead to
profit maximisation Your eBook has been written and compiled.
Now you have to decide how much you are going to charge the
public for the eBook. It is absolutely essential that you find
the right price for your eBook. If you don’t charge enough,
people will think it’s of little value, and they won’t purchase
it. If you price it too high when compared with your
competition,you will have to start lowering it, believe me this
can lead to some big problems. For example, if you sell your
ebook for $27.99, and later reduce it to $22.99, don’t you think
the people who bought it for $27.99 are going to be a little
annoyed.

Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of the most
critical parts of the marketing process. The one thing you
should never do is under price your eBook. You should first
determine, what would be the highest price your potential
customer would pay for your ebook, and then if it doesn’t sell,
reduce it accordingly. Before you take that step, make sure you
are promoting your book like crazy on the Internet and on
websites. When trying to set the price always remember that the
customer will rate the quality of your eBook according to the
price. So what you need to do is start with the highest price
and then you should start your launch and marketing campaign.

You must remember when considering your price, that eBooks are
not hardcopy books. Let’s look at the difference between a book
in print and an ebook. A printed book is an object you can hold
in your hand. It is priced on factors such as paper stock,
design and production costs, and marketing. It is the IDEAS that
are valuable! That is how you determine the cost of your ebook.

What should I charge for my ideas?

There are all different formulas and methods for determining the
correct price for your ebook. Decide if your goal is to get wide
distribution and maximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawing
customers to your business or service, or to establishing the
credibility of your reputation. If this is the route you want to
take you should aim to price your ebook on the low side. This is
an excellent pricing strategy if you are looking to acquire
long-term customers. Long-term customers are extremely likely to
buy from you again and again as long as the first ebook they buy
is of exceptional quality and benefits the customer.

However, if your book contains valuable information and more
importantly NEW information, references, or techniques, then you
should aim to price it higher.

After you figure out your goal, you must figure out what your
audience’s need is for your ebook. For example, does your book
solve a particular problem? If it does, and solves it in a way
that hasn’t been written about in one hundred other ebooks, you
will be able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your book
solves a problem or answers questions in a new and unique way,
you should price your book as high as you can go. You will
achieve larger profits this way, but bring in fewer customers.
Just make sure the question or problem that your book solves is
one that is important and relevant to the majority of your
market audience. If your ideas are not common knowledge, or you
are presenting a brand new technique, you will be able to sell
books at a high price. Just be prepared for your competition to
undercut you on price as soon as they hear about your book.

Marketing Strategies

There are several other strategies that can help you sell more
books. One is to give something away for free with your book,
such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle several ebooks under
one price, which lowers the price for each ebook if they were
sold separately.

An effective technique for figuring out a price is to send out a
survey to your current customers. If these customers have
already bought an ebook from you, ask for their opinion in terms
of price. Do this by creating a sales page for the new book, but
don’t include a price on that page. Instead, add a number of
links to survey questions that ask pointed questions to aid you
in assigning a price to your ebook.

Another strategy is to test out prices by creating a number of
duplicate sales pages with different prices on each page. Make
sure your sales copy is exactly the same on every page, and
includes your selling-handle sentence. Then figure out for each
page the conversion ratio between visitors to your site and
sales of your book. This will tell you what your optimum price
is.

Ultimately, if you’ve written a book that solves a problem or
presents a new technique, your book will bring in both traffic
and profits. So be sure to write that selling-handle sentence
that sums up what problem your book solves and what the benefits
of your book will be to the customers who purchase it. And then
watch your market come to you!

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“What’s blogging?” you ask.

“Where have you been?” I reply…just kidding, of course. Blogging has been around for quite some time, but there are still a few of us who are just getting started on it. A blog, which is a shortened version of the words “web log,” is basically an online diary, resource and commentary. It generally contains links to other blogs, websites and informational resources. And it has the ability to “ping” sites to get you more exposure.

I’ve been doing a blog for Marketing Idea Shop for a few months now. In it, I give my readers various resources, information to help their businesses, and links to websites that I find interesting. I also link to other people’s blogs whenever it makes sense. And I answer P.R. and marketing questions that my readers submit. Occasionally, I include complete articles I have written on marketing topics. You can take a look at the Marketing Idea Shop blog here: http://www.marketingideashop.com/blog/

I literally set this blog up in 5 minutes. I’m using the software “Blogger,” and my blog is being hosted at Blogspot and connected to my own website.

The Blogger software, which is owned by Google, is free and so is the hosting. A couple of people have recommended “Moveable Type” as the best business blogging software, and I have found it’s much more confusing so I eventually abandoned that idea. If you want to have more control over your blog, you will want to own the software and host your blog yourself.

Moveable Type is a software program that you can purchase; it resides on your own computer. Blogger is software that resides on someone else’s computer. Currently it’s free, but who knows what will happen to it later. There are several other choices, too.

Bloggers (as the folks who write blogs are called) have many reasons for starting and maintaining a blog. Here are the top 10 reasons for blogging:

1. It’s good for business.

2. It improves your search-engine ranking.

3. It makes you more valuable to your customers and prospects.

4. It will generate more traffic for your site

5. It will improve your sales.

6. If you participate in Google’s Adsense program, you can make some big bucks, even if your visitors don’t buy directly from you or they go to your competitors.

7. It can get you and your company noticed.

8. If you add RSS news feeds to your blog, you can get loads of content without working so hard AND you can easily distribute your blog’s content to other bloggers and websites. (RSS means Really Simple Syndication)

9. You can invite your readers to comment on your posts, thereby creating a better relationship with them (and increasing the possibility that they will buy from you).

10. You can have fun writing about your company, products, industry, competitors, conferences you attend, just about anything!

Lois Carter Fay, APR, is a 30-year veteran in the P.R. and marketing field. She works with women businesses and small businesses to improve their marketing and business success. She now produces three marketing ezines, Brainy Tidbits, Brainy Flash, and Success Secrets of Women Entrepreneurs. All are free. She’s also the co-author with Jim Wilson of “Sales Success! Strategies for Women,” a quick-to-read ebook containing 52 easy-to-implement sales tips. The ezines and ebook are available through her websites.

Visit http://www.MarketingIdeaShop.com or http://www.WomenMarketing.com to learn more sales ideas and subscribe. Claim your free special report when you subscribe.