Having sold over $100 million worth of information products, not many people will argue that Eben Pagan is a thought leader in the "knowledge economy" or "information marketing" business.
Eben started online initially as "David DeAngelo", his pen name giving dating advice to men. Double Your Dating now does $20 million in sales per year. Eben's business is still based out of his apartment (actually he lives in one apartment and uses the one next door as his home office). He has 80 people that work for him all based from home (their own homes, not his!).
After Double Your Dating's success he started using his real name "Eben Pagan" and coaching entrepreneurs how to be more successful online. You can see his latest coaching program for which registration ends tonight: Guru Masterclass.
Having gone through many of his $1,997 courses and generally following his marketing over the past few years, here are a few of my learnings from one of the greatest online marketers:
1. Pick The Right Niche
Eben teaches that there are essentially three large niches that people will pay for in the information marketing world:
1: Dating & Relationships
2: Money & Business
3: Health & Fitness
Eben was very successful with the relationship advice niche. Even within the "relationship" niche, he focused on men. And within the "men" niche he focused on helping men get dates (rather then on dealing with divorce or helping raise kids for instance).
He then went on to the "make money" niche and teaching businesses how to be more successful through the web. You can see his latest launch, Guru Masterclass, to get an idea of what and how he sells. Pre-warning if you are interested in his course that registration ends Friday 26th August 2011 (today!).
Health is the niche where people such as "Weight Watchers" or "The Atkins Diet" were able to monetize.
All three of these information niches are are worth billions of dollars each per year.
I have also chosen the "make money" niche for my information marketing business, helping create "webpreneurs" as that is the niche that I have the most passion for and have knowledge that people are willing to pay for. You can keep sub-segmenting a niche until you find your fit (for instance entrepreneurship is a big niche so I focus on internet entrepreneurs or webpreneurs - and even wepreneurs in emerging countries which narrows it furt).
Which niche could you go for and teach, where people will pay for your information?
2. Help the Rich, Get Richer
So how can Eben launch 10 information products most of whom did over a million dollars is sales each?
His latest course, Guru Masterclass, is selling for $1,997 (standard price for many online courses).
In order to make a million dollars in revenue he has to sell $1,000,000 / $1,997 = 501 courses.
He also has had $10,000 per seat seminars. That is $1,000,000 / $10,000 = 100 seats.
So getting 501 customers for a $1,997 online product or selling 100 seats to a $10,000 seminar is very plausible out of the two billion people that regularly access the internet. Most people will never pay for online information or their own personal development outside of their school/university. Usually, these are the poor people anyway (or employed in middle management jobs).
Successful entrepreneurs continue to invest in their own training and development, so Eben has a niche in serving those clients.
As a business owner earning $200,000 per year, if you could take a course that could increase your income by 10 % (i.e. $20,000), you would pay $1,997 for the information.
A man looking to find his true love is likely to spend a few hundred dollars for dating advice, if he knows it will work.
3. Move the Free Line
Eben, is a great believer in moving the free line. To give people your best content for free and people will still buy your courses. In the online world, you have to build trust and if there is good content for free than people will say if this is what the free stuff is like, the paid for stuff must be really good.
Check the video and you will see an example of good free content: http://affiliates.getaltitude.com/z/123/CD2322/
As I market Webpreneur Academy, I am also giving away good free knowledge over the past few years in order to convert a few of my readers into paying customers. Click to watch Eben's video:
4. Work With Affiliates
Especially in the online information marketing world, affiliate marketing is important. Lets look at how Eben's marketing is working behind the scenes:
Eben's course sells for $1,997. As I have signed up as an affiliate I make 40 % commissions on selling his course. If you click on this link: http://affiliates.getaltitude.com/z/123/CD2322/ and end up buying I make 40 % commissions or $799 for every sale that I help generate.
As I have taken his courses (Guru Blueprint, Wake Up Productive etc), I know his content is good. The $799 gives me an incentive to take some time out to write a post or promote it on facebook/twitter/blog etc . Especially as his pre-launch videos are not simply "buy my stuff" but give some interesting content for people I send over to him (so my readers don't get annoyed by spam).
Within the affiliates there is also a competition so if I am the biggest selling affiliate, I can make $50,000 cash prize on top of the $799 I make per sale.
My upcoming course Webpreneur 101 is retailing at $397. If you buy Eben's course using my affiliate link http://affiliates.getaltitude.com/z/123/CD2322/(and send me the receipt amir [at] amiranzur.com) I will give you my own online course worth $397 for FREE. If you are in Dubai or Islamabad I will also give you a ticket to my upcoming live workshop worth $497 and $247 as well. That gives a value of $497 + $397 = $894 you get for free from me for using my link to purchase.
This is how the world of information product selling works. As most of us teachers spend many months/years researching and creating our products, the cost to sell each additional copy is negligible. So the affiiate incentive that teachers like Eben give is large so that others will promote his products.
Internet marketers promote his poducts and give bonuses away (like I am) so that they can get paid from him instead.
If Eben was charging $20 per product or $50 for his seminars, he would have a much harder time recruiting affiliates like myself who do his marketing for him.
5. Money is In the List
Why do so many websites you go to ask you to subscribe? They want to grow their lists so that they can give you advantage of these courses or products. You can see from the above example how much is possible to make through online selling. For instance, if you have a list of 1,000 subscribers that trust you, you email them about the launch and 10 end up buying his product (i.e. 1 %) than you make $7,999.
Imagine if you have a list of 10,000 subscribers and 1 % buy the product being offered. You make $79,999.
Eban's own mailing lists are a few hundred thousand people. If you are sending your lists relevant information and products, than your conversion rates might be even higher.
This is also why, I have "subscribe" pages everywhere as I grow my lists. People that might even like my website, will forget to come back, but if you are subscribed, I know you won't forget me!
6. Knowledge is Big Business
In the industrial economy, teaching got commoditized and did not pay much money. Someone somewhere made the curriculum and the teachers were simply a delivery method - able to be replaced relatively easily. In the internet economy though someone with content(the teacher) can directly access a consumer of the content (student) - i.e. he does not have to sell through a University such as Harvard or Oxford. And the class is now not limited to people that live in the neighborhood but students can be around the world.
So a teacher like Eben, can charge $1,997 for an online course and easily find a few thousand people to take it. In the old economy, the universities were more the brand than the teachers. In the knowledge economy, the barriers of education have come down so that you can learn from a great teacher like Eben, without needing a high GMAT score, taking a few years off work or go through the hassles of college applications.
Now, it does not matter if you are the "right" age - whether you are 15 or 55 you can learn and benefit. In the old economy, you had to be a certain age, with certain grades in high school in order to learn. Now you can learn just what you want, from who you want, when you want.
As people move up the "Maslow's Hierarchy" of needs they move the the "self-actualization" phase and instead of worrying about the basics (food, shelter etc) they want to study and learn. As the world becomes richer, people will spend more money on informational products.
An example Eben talks about is the billionaire John Sperling, who founded University of Phoenix. With 500,000 online registered students, you can see how information is big business in the new economy.
If you are interested in learning from the best, do check out Eben's course: http://affiliates.getaltitude.com/z/123/CD2322/. If you do end up buying through my link, please email me the receipt and as long as I get credited for the sale, you will receive a Webpreneur 101 course ($397 value) as well as seminar tickets for Webpreneur Camp ($497 in Dubai or $247 in Islamabad) which you can gift or attend yourself.