The most important question an information publisher could ever ask is, “Why do people pay for information in the first place?” This is something that confuses a lot of people. Understanding the answer to that question is the one of the biggest keys to making money online.

People buy information products all the time. Just the other day I brought an ebook called “How To Make Small Talk” because, quite frankly, I needed to brush up on my small talk!

So here are the main reasons people buy information products, and after that I’ll explain how you can utilize this knowledge to make money…

Reason #1: They have a problem they need solving, or a desire to do or be something.

Let’s prove this, shall we?

Clickbank is one of the biggest places where digital products are sold. (We’ll talk a lot more about Clickbank another time.) So head over to the Clickbank Marketplace, and in the “List Of Categories”, let’s look at the top-selling “Health & Fitness” products.

Here were the top 10 selling products in that category, at the time I did this search - see if you can notice what most of them have in common:

Fat Loss 4 Idiots
The Truth About Six Pack Abs
Top Secret Fat Loss Secret
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
Vince DelMonte’s No Nonsense Muscle Building
The Power Of Conversational Hypnosis
Turbulence Training Fat Loss System
Natural Cure For Yeast Infection
Chopper Tattoo Gallery
Panic Away - Treat Panic Attacks and Anxiety

Did you notice - most of them claim to solve certain problems and appeal to certain desires. For instance, four of them are about weight loss - lots of people want to lose weight (the problem), and want to have a great body (the desire).

Three of them are about building muscle. Again, these address the problem guys in particular might ask - “How can I build muscle?” And they appeal to the desire to look as good as me.

Two of them claim to help with other physical problems like yeast infection, and panic attacks. The problems here are quite clear: “How can I cure my yeast infection / panic attack?” The desire is to be free from these problems.

However, the question still remains - why would people pay for this kind of information? Isn’t there free stuff on weight loss or building muscle all over the Internet? Yes, but…

Reason #2: They don’t have the time to research.

The most valuable resource we have is time, and rich or poor, we all have exactly the same amount of it - 1,440 minutes each day.

We can’t buy any more time, but we can leverage that time to get the most out of it.

That’s a big reason people buy information products. They don’t have the time to research everything out there, so they use their money as leverage to benefit from other people’s research, by buying information products where what they’re looking for is all compiled and put together for them in one easy-to-consume product.

Reason #3: Some information may be hard to find.

Not everything is as easy to find on the Internet as you might think. For instance, I’ve worked in the direct sales industry, and some of the sales techniques I learned are hardly even mentioned on the Internet.

“Knowledge is power”, as they say. Many people want the “inside track”, and that’s not always available from free articles on the Internet.

Reason #4: Spending money equates to value and commitment.

Why did I spend $27 on a product about making small talk, when I could have done a Google search on the subject and almost certainly found lots of free information?

First, I wanted to get an expert opinion. Any blogger can write a blog article on “small talk”, but I wanted to see what this particular expert had to say. I wanted the best possible expert advice - not some 13 year old blogger’s opinion. (No offense to 13 year old bloggers!)

Second, I knew that by spending $27 I was making a small commitment to myself - a commitment to actually apply the material. I knew that by purchasing it, I’d value the material and be more likely to use it.

Have you ever downloaded a free report, or been given a free gift, and never really used it? If so, you know why… you never really valued it very highly, because it was free.

7 Power Tips For Making Money From Information Products

So then… with these four reasons in mind, here are some golden tips for making money from information products…

Tip #1: Solve a problem. The bigger and more widespread the problem, the bigger the market.

There’s probably a good reason why 3 of the top 10 best-selling products in the Clickbank Marketplace are to do with weight loss - lots of people nowadays are overweight!

Tip #2: Appeal to a desire. What do people really want to do or be?

I’d suggest that “The Power Of Conversational Hypnosis” product (which ranked 6th in Clickbank’s Marketplace under Health & Fitness) appeals to a person’s desire for personal power.

The weight loss and muscle building products appeal to our desire to look and feel great, and to be healthy.

The product I recently wrote about that sold for $25,000 appealed to people’s desire to become a great musician.

Tip #3: Solve an urgent problem. The more urgent the problem, the quicker and more impulsively they will buy.

You may not think “weight loss” is a particularly urgent problem, but someone may have been trying all kinds of weight loss products in the past, and not having any success before coming across yours. To them, the problem is urgent. They want to lose weight and look good now.

Unfortunately, this is why so many people get taken in by “get rich” schemes - they appeal most to those who are desperate for money, and need it now.

If you’re going to sell to a desperate audience, my advice is to please make sure you deliver on your promises to the best of your ability. There’s nothing better for your business then ecstatic customers who improved their life because of your product.

Tip #4: Appeal to “gaps” in their knowledge.

Very few people actually “know it all”, despite what they might think. There’s always something they don’t know.

Tip #5: Reveal “hard to find” information and “insider” secrets.

Looking at the sales letters for most of the products on the Top 10 list I mentioned earlier, there was a pattern - most of them appealed to the fact that the common knowledge “out there” on the subject was full of misconceptions, and that their product contained “secrets”, hidden knowledge that only “insiders” knew, while the masses (i.e. non-customers) remained ignorant.

The bottom line is: It helps if you do actually have some “insider” secrets that you can reveal! This provides people with a reason to buy your information product.

What if you don’t have any insider secrets? Most of the time you can find them if you do enough research into a topic - but that’s the point, remember. People buy products because they don’t want to have to dig to find the information themselves. They would rather pay you, the trusted information publisher, to have done it all for them.

Tip #6: Be an expert

I spent money on the “Small Talk” ebook because the guy was (or claimed to be) an expert on the subject, so I valued his opinion.

Admittedly, it’s hard to become an expert on something overnight. However, that’s where leverage comes in. You can leverage other people’s expertise. For instance, you could interview experts in a particular topic, or quote from them. (Just bear in mind copyright laws. It’s usually fine to quote someone, with attribution, but it’s not OK to copy large chunks of what they say. And it’s definitely not OK to claim it as your own!)

You could also ask an expert to lend their name to your product, perhaps as a co-author or a contributor, in exchange for a certain percentage of the profits. You then become an expert by association.

Tip #7: Sell to people with money.

I’ve used this illustration before, but if your information product is aimed at broke college kids, and it doesn’t sell very well… maybe it’s because you picked a market that doesn’t have much money. Maybe you should target it at the parents instead, or pick a market that does have money.

What do you think? How has this article helped you to see information products in a new light? Let’s use the comments section below to discuss it. And please make sure you’re subscribed to this blog, because over the next few weeks we’re going to talk about how to create your own information products that can make you money online. If you’re not subscribed, you’ll miss out and hate yourself for the rest of your life.

And I wouldn’t want you to do that.