Summary: There are two primary forms of product you can offer your readers: “Information” products and physical products like books. Both have benefits and drawbacks. Choose wisely.

By now you’ve chosen a product. So now it’s time to start writing articles that promote this affiliate product.

Today you’ll discover how to promote an information product (like an ebook) on your blog, while tomorrow you’ll learn about promoting other types of physical products.

Read on.

How to Promote Information Products

Here’s the key to promoting a book or other info product on your blog: You want to write an article that’s useful, but incomplete.

In other words, don’t solve your reader’s problems completely, otherwise they’ll have no reason to click on your affiliate links and buy the products that you’re recommending.

I know this sounds like kind of a dickish ploy, but think about it. If I give you the answer, you won't need to buy anything (I'm foreshadowing future offers I'm going to make to you, LOL). And the whole idea here is to sell stuff. 

After all, it's what marketers do.

Let me give you a few examples of useful but incomplete information:

• Describe part of a process. Let’s say you’re selling a book about how to write a novel. You may write a series of articles about how to create a theme for the book, how to round out the characters, or how to choose a point of view. But these are just parts of the process, so the reader needs to buy the book to get the whole process.

• Offer tips but not concrete steps. Let’s say you’re selling a book about bodybuilding. Your article may offer plenty of tips for the bodybuilder regarding what exercises to do and how to eat, but no concrete “step-by-step” instructions. The reader needs to buy the book to get those instructions.

• Explain what to do but not how to do it. Let’s say you’re selling a book about how to grow healthy tomatoes. Your article may include steps like “be sure to get rid of pests using organic methods,” but you don’t go into detail about how to use these organic methods. The reader needs to buy the book to get those instructions

Now, later on in this course you’ll discover exactly what types of articles to create to promote your products.

For now, you can just create useful “how to” or “tips” articles, where you provide useful information about the topic. Obviously, the topic should be tightly related to the book. At the end of the article, you can include a pitch such as:

“You’ve just discovered seven tips for growing big biceps. To discover what professional bodybuilders know about putting on mass, download your copy of [insert product name here] right now – you won’t be disappointed!”

Today’s task: If you’re promoting an info product, then your task today is to write one article that’s useful but incomplete.

Example: “Seven Ways to [Get Benefit]” or “Three Secrets of [Niche Topic]” (e.g., “Three Secrets of Losing Weight Fast”).

Meanwhile, tomorrow you’ll learn how to write an article that promotes a physical product, so stay tuned!