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A Seminar, a Product and a Marketing System
By Robert Skrob | January 20, 2008
Ed O’Keefe with Dentist Profits went from being a college student majoring in nursing to a motivational speaker to a book writer, and has used the skills he picked up along the way to create an extremely profitable information marketing business that provides automatic implementation marketing for dentists.
Two years out of college, Ed was “dead broke” and tired of traveling from place to place trying to make a living from speaking to people at schools, businesses and athletic groups. “Quite honestly, it was no fun fighting for gig after gig,” Ed remembers.
Attending a Dan Kennedy Customer Appreciation Event helped put Ed on a new road to success. He bought Dan’s “Magnetic Marketing” toolkit and put it to work. His first info product was the “Ultimate Mental Toughness Training for Volleyball Players and Coaches,” and he was able to tailor that product for several niches. Several years later, Ed was making “some money, but not much,” so he started looking for another opportunity. This time he put some of his college skills to work and hit the library.
Ed believes it is important for anyone in the info business to “choose the market before you choose the product.” How do you do that? In a word: RESEARCH.
Ed began his research with the yellow pages. He went through the entire book, noting the number of ads for each profession and niche industry. From this, he was able to gauge which industries were investing the most into marketing.
“Some friends of mine thought I was absolutely nuts. They were like—‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I’m getting rich, honey,’” Ed says, smiling and shaking his head. “I knew I needed a change. I remember seeing one guy selling software for 99 bucks a month, and it hit me right in the face. I did the math. There I was schlepping my $47.00 book and audiotapes to coaches who didn’t have any money. That software guy wasn’t any more intelligent than you or me or anyone else. He was just doing something right!”
Ed was determined to find his own “right thing,” so he researched 47 different industries and professions. He called trade publications and requested media kits. He found out how many people were involved in each niche. He looked at the media already reaching each niche. As Ed says, “Everyone says to go find a target market and research it, but not too many people go into as much detail as I did. But it’s so beneficial.”
As part of his research, Ed also consulted the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service). This is a book you can find in most local libraries that includes lists of all mailing lists available for purchase. It can help an info-marketer discover the groups that might want to buy a particular product. The SRDS breaks down lists by state, demographics, the number of people who have bought a product and so on.
With his research done, Ed was ready to choose his market. Now Ed does direct-mail lead-generation campaigns for dentists. Dentists can sign up for Ed’s system, select the types of patients they want and then Ed takes care of all of the marketing. The dentists are notified when the postcards go in the mail, and the next thing they know, they have new patients calling the office. Ed’s customers don’t have to learn anything. All they have to do is ask Ed to take care of the service, and he handles everything.
Check out Ed’s business at www.DentistProfits.com
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