Information products are the latest buzzwords in town.
It seems that in every corner of the digital world that you turn to, someone is selling one course or the other.
One of the terms used to describe Information marketing is that it is a passive source of income.
But…
I don’t completely agree with that.
Let me explain better.
By definition, a passive income is an income source that requires no effort whatsoever from you to set up and maintain E.g investing in the stock market.
But that is not totally the case with Information marketing.
A bit of effort goes into researching and finding the perfect course idea, creating that course, and marketing that course.
A more accurate description will be Information marketing is a “low effort/maintenance income” instead of “passive income”.
The effort involved in creating an online course is far lesser than other income streams, and the profit is higher.
It is also not a tangible product where you have logistics and shipping to worry about.
You only need to spend a bit to set up your online store and host your course (you can even host for free here on Kobocourse).
In information marketing, the gain far outweighs the effort involved and your potential audience is inexhaustible, which is why it is such a great income source.
The e-learning industry is projected to hit $325 billion by 2025 . That's triple the revenue of 2015! (forbes.com)
People want to learn from you.
The market demand is at the highest it has ever been.
But before you create a course to share your knowledge and idea, ask yourself this question:
Is my Idea and niche truly profitable?
If your niche isn’t profitable, then you’re wasting your time creating a product in that niche as it will yield little to no result.
Some niches have always been and will always be profitable.
Such niches are called Evergreen high market demand niches.
An evergreen niche is an industry with everlasting appeal.
These niches are always going to be relevant to humans, and that’s why if you create an information product in these niches, all things being equal, you’re guaranteed to make a killing.
This is not to say that other types of niches aren’t profitable, but these evergreen niches are perfect for beginners or people who don’t have specialized knowledge to share.
I’m going to list the big 5 evergreen niches for information marketers.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
The 5 Evergreen Niches
- Business & Money
- Health
- Dating & Relationships
- Self-development/improvement
- Beauty
Let’s take a closer look at each of these niches, shall we?
Health
Health is wealth. So the popular saying goes.
Without health, people literally cannot do anything. And that is the main reason why the health industry is forever relevant.
In 2019, The health and wellness industry was valued at 4428174 Million USD, and will reach 6033196 Million USD in 2025,
The health industry has always been massive, and the COVID-19 even made it bigger.
A great example is the fitness industry.
When the pandemic first started, the fitness industry was down because gyms and fitness clubs were closed.
That industry was severely hit by the coronavirus.
As research shows, more than 90 percent of fitness clubs all over the world were forced to shut down. But when one door closes, another opens. (edition.cnn.com)
Innovation and strategic thinking took over...
Health instructors started offering virtual workout coaching programs and selling diet courses. This worked exceptionally because a lot of people were gaining weight during the pandemic and wanted to curb it.
Now here’s the thing: The health industry as a whole is too broad for you to create a product for. You have to sub-niche. This means identifying a health problem affecting a specific group of people and then creating a solution for that problem.
Examples of health sub-niches you could specialize in include weight loss, diabetes treatment, hormonal imbalance, infertility, bodybuilding, fibroid treatment, etc
Business & money [Financial]
After the health niche, the business & money (financial) niche is the next biggest.
Everyone is on the lookout for how to make money to achieve their dreams.
The sub-niches under the financial niche are endless.
We have Investment, information marketing, Foreign Exchange, Retirement, Business Opportunities, Asset Relocation, Business Registration, Importation, Exportation, Stocks/Equities, cryptocurrency, Forex, copywriting, content marketing, etc.
You could create an information product on any one of these sub-niches and make really good money from it.
Self-improvement/development
There’s a reason why motivational talks are really popular.
Forget about the mocking tone people use when talking about motivational speakers. These motivational speakers are responsible for encouraging and changing the lives of thousands of people yearly.
People live for their dreams in the hopes that they will become a reality.
Along the way, they need hope, encouragement and self-confidence.
Nobody wants to be mediocre.
We are all striving to be a better version of our current selves.
That is where the Self-development/Improvement niche comes into place, and why it is an evergreen niche.
How can you take advantage of that as an information marketer?
Let’s look at the stats first. In the US, the self-improvement industry will be worth 13 billion dollars. That’s just the US alone. Similar results are available worldwide.
This means that there is a gap for coaches and course creators to take advantage of and position themselves.
You could position yourself as a:
- Self-confidence builder
- Public speaking specialist
- Time management guru
- Goal setting coach
- Stress management coach
- Success Mindset trainer
- Mindpower coach
- Self-defence guru
The list is endless. Just pick a sub-niche you’re informed about or go and learn about, and position yourself as an authority there.
Dating & Relationship
Humans crave relationships, partnerships, and love. They want to have better sex and know how to flirt.
Why else do you think the global online dating market size is expected to grow from USD 2.230 Billion in 2019 to USD 3.592 Billion by 2025?
You will literally have people begging you to take their money if you can teach them how to:
- Have a successful marriage
- Improve their sex life and have better sex
- Get the man/woman of their dreams
- Keep their partner
- Get a second and subsequent dates from the hot girl/guy etc
Beauty
The beauty industry is more female-oriented, though times are now changing.
There is nobody that doesn’t desire to be attractive and look presentable.
That’s why you could create an information product on makeup, grooming, fashion etc and people will gladly buy.
With all these evergreen niches and other profitable niches, how do you settle on one niche to start with? Find your answers below:
How to decide on a niche
I have this checklist that I use to settle on a niche and I’m going to share it with you.
Any niche that you’re picking must tick these 5 boxes:
- Must be profitable and have a high market demand niche (preferable an evergreen niche)
- Should interest you, the creator.
- The target audience must be easy to reach through digital advertising.
- The target audience must have the earning power and be WILLING to spend on your product.
- The volume of your target audience must be high, at least tens of thousands in number.
Does your proposed niche tick all those boxes? Good. Now to pick a topic in your niche. The first thing to consider when picking a topic is...
Market Research
Let me paint this scenario:
You are in the shower, preparing for your day and a brilliant idea comes to you.
At that moment, you feel like God must be talking to you directly because your newly inspired idea is that incredible.
In your words, “It is the next best thing after sliced bread”.
What do you do next?
Of course, you go and start making arrangements to bring that idea to life.
Pause. This is where you’re getting it all wrong.
You’re not supposed to create that product yet because of your incredible idea.
Why?
You’ve violated the first rule of business.
Pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you.
Don’t ever create a product without first conducting a market research.
Market research is the foundation of all you do. Your ‘amazing’ idea is not enough basis to build a product on.
You have to first confirm if other people actually feel the same way and if they are willing to pay it.
But fear not, doing market research is not as complicated as it sounds.
It is just a matter of going to where your target audience is congregated both offline and online, and observing them.
Don’t listen to what they say or claim they want, but pay attention to their actions. Watch out for what they actually spend their money on.
The second thing to consider when choosing a topic is to…
Pick a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow.
Picture this: You see an advertisement for a course on “How to make money”.
What is the first thing that will come to your mind? I bet you’re going to be confused and think “making money doing what”.
That course topic is too generic and it is an example of a broad topic.
The market for this topic is enormous because literally, everybody in the world wants to make money. But not everybody will be interested in your particular money-making scheme.
So instead of wasting your money and time targeting people who are not interested, you have to separate the wheat from the chaff. This means that you should narrow down and specify your target audience.
That way, you exclude people that are not interested in what you’re offering. In this case, you could narrow your generic topic into something like “How to make money by learning copywriting”.
This topic will surely attract the right audience I.e people interested in copywriting or digital marketing.
On the other hand, an example of a too narrow topic is a course on “How women living in Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria can lose weight”.
I think my reason for classifying this under the “Too narrow” is obvious, but let me reiterate.
When you limit your audience to this specification, you won’t get enough prospective customers to purchase your product.
Instead of doing that, why not make a weight loss course and target it at Nigerian women in general, not Nigerian women living in an area in a particular state?
Do you get the gist now?
Your selected course topic and niche should be the perfect balance of broad and narrow. If you lean too much towards the right or left, it’s going to be a disaster.
The key to any successful information marketing campaign is niches and topics that are neither too broad nor too narrow.
Here is how to find great topic ideas using our headline generator
On to the third and last factor to consider in choosing a topic...
Don’t pick seasonal or short term topics, but long term topics
Let me ask you this. How many times in a year do you see a person wearing a Christmas hat? Only once a year in December right? That means that a Christmas hat is a seasonal product.
Short term products are those that reign for a while, then fade.
A good example is fashion items. Fashion is always changing.
If you now create a product that people are only interested in at a particular period, can you see how you’ll be at a disadvantage? Instead of making money all year round, you’ll only be able to make money once a year or so.
To get the most out of information marketing, don’t make seasonal or short term products. You’ll spend the time and effort anyways so why create long term products? Think long term profitability.
Competition is good
One of the most parroted pieces of advice business owners and entrepreneurs get is not to enter a saturated market.
There is this false impression that newcomers can rarely thrive in a competitive or saturated market.
But I’m here to tell you the opposite.
Competition is good for business.
Think about this.
When a certain market is competitive, it means that that market is profitable. If it wasn’t profitable, there wouldn’t be a flock of entrepreneurs in that market.
Instead of running away from that market, why not find a way to set yourself apart in that market?
Most of the evergreen niches I listed earlier are competitive, especially the financial and health niche.
And that is more the reason why you need to go into those niches.
Don’t be afraid of the competition whatsoever. Don’t change your course topic and idea because of competition. That is a scarcity mindset.
In actual fact, The more popular/competitive your niche, the better your chance of success.
Create and market your product from a unique angle, and you’ll dominate the market.
How to Validate Your Online Course idea
If you followed the steps I gave above before creating your product, congratulations you are miles ahead of other creators.
But it doesn’t end there.
We do all we can to predict the market, but the market is volatile and unpredictable.
That is why a product idea that has passed all the above steps fails upon arrival.
This is where validating your course idea to test whether people will be responsive to it is important.
There are 5 ways to validate your product:
Competitor research:
This is when you research people that are already selling a course similar to your idea.
Observe their success rate to get a feel of the market. Check the reviews and comments and adjust your own product accordingly.
Pre-selling/Waitlist:
If you’re an authority figure or popular information marketer, you can use your clout to your advantage.
You can get your previous customers or your followers to buy your course even before it’s released.
Just tell them to sign up for your course waitlist pending its release. You could even promise them a discount for being on the waitlist.
Now, observe the rate of sign-ups.
Do you have a substantial number of people on your waitlist? If you do, you’re onto something, and it is more likely that your course is going to be a hit.
Social media:
The content you post on your social media account can gauge the market's temperature.
Here’s how: As an authority in a niche, you could be posting useful content about the topic you want to release your course on.
Watch out for the engagements on these posts. If you gather a bit of engagement, you’re on the right track.
Another way to use social media is to do what I call a Lead Magnet Test.
In this case, you’re offering a free useful resource relating to your course idea to your audience.
The more people interested in the free resource, the higher their chances of purchasing the paid version.
PRO TIP: Collect the email address and contact details of people that are interested in your free resource and when your paid course is out, let them know about it.
Conduct informational surveys:
Surveys. The fact is that people lie in surveys. There are a lot of statistics that say the same thing.
People.lie.in.surveys.
So if this is true, why am I still saying you should conduct a survey?
Simple. There is a way around it.
People lie in surveys because you’re not asking them the right questions.
Since conducting surveys is a great way to validate your idea, I’m going to show you the right questions to ask.
The trick to getting a fairly accurate survey answer is to ask questions that your audience feels comfortable answering.
Examples of such questions are:
- What is your biggest challenge in (niche)?.
- What have you done before now to help solve this challenge?
- What’s your preferred method of learning? (Videos, ebooks etc)
- If you had the best information about (niche), what would it allow you to do? How would you feel?
- How old are you? (18-24, 25- 30, 31 - 35, 36-40, 41-50, 51 and above)
Remember to keep your surveys short. 7-10 questions are enough.
Once you have your survey questions, compile them into a google form, post it where your target audience are congregated (Facebook groups, Quora, etc)
Pilot program
In terms of course creation, it is simply creating a beta version of your course.
The purpose is to prevent you from spending time and money creating a full course that people are not interested in.
In a pilot program, you could create one or two modules of your main program and invite people to sign up for it.
Take the feedback, complaints, and questions from the people in your pilot program and use them to improve the main course.
If the consensus from the participants of your pilot program is positive, go ahead and create your course.
A pilot program is also a great way of getting testimonials to use as social proof when the main course launches.
Conclusion: What Next?
At this point, you have got all you need to create a highly profitable course.
The next thing is for you to create the actual course, and launch.
Don’t let procrastination or uncertainty stop you.
So go out there, and put all you’ve learnt today into practice.
Take action. You’ve got this. I’m rooting for you!
