Ever bought an information product on internet marketing?

[kundalini]

What with all the affiliate marketing that plagues the internet, it is almost impossible to discover whether an information product is likely to be of any value to you. Reviews are always positive, encouraging you to buy so they can get their percentage.

So here are some brief thoughts on info products I've bought over the last few years, with none of those helpful affiliate links, so if you are tempted you'll have to stick the title in Google instead.

Over the years I've bought:

1) Internet Marketing for speakers (£50 approx) - you can now buy it in the bookshops for the price of a normal book (£10-£20) 500 pages and completely overwhelming. Do not recommend, not even as a book.

2) Andrew Goodman's original e-book on Google Adwords (£50 approx) - serious stuff, decent quality but he's now written a real book titled Winning Results With Google Adwords that I think is a more sensible purchase.

3) Charlie Cook's Creating Websites That Sell - expensive (about £100), perhaps more appropriate for a beginner. Good ideas but I knew most of it anyway. Must have been getting emails from him for 2 years before I bought; more a case of being curious to see what his products actually looked like.

4) System Seminar Smart Beginners Course (comprised of several CDs + 1 DVD) very expensive - basic information. Bought it to find out what one of these courses looked like. Real absolute beginners topics. Nicely produced product but otherwise......

5) Bob Serling's Information Products Course (physical product comprised of workbooks, 14 x CDs etc) (very expensive £500 approx) - been on his list for a couple of years and it was clear his formula worked well for him. Some high quality information but given the cost it really has to translate into serious additional revenue, it hasn't to date though I've got some ideas in the pipeline that I'm hoping to launch Sept/Oct so maybe .........

6) Marketing Sherpa's Landing Page Guide (£150) - high quality stuff, very useful, no regrets on this one.

7) Ralph Wilson's Landing Page e-books (£25 approx) - blown out of the water by Marketing Sherpa's effort otherwise probably worth the small fee

8) Robert Middleton's websites for consultants (or similar) - didn't cost much but of little value to me. Middleton is actually quite wise on all things marketing for solo professionals but this product didn't suit me at all.

9) Perry Marshall's E-book on White Papers (£50 approx) - some decent info but a rather long winded product and although I've been on his list for ages I've not bought anything else, not even his much hyped Definitive Guide To Google Adwords.

I may have bought other stuff but I can't recall them at the moment. In total I think that's about £1,500 with the Bob Serling's course and the System Seminar course making up almost 2/3 of the total.

What have I learned from this investment? Well most of it is aimed at beginners so if you've got one product on a given topic, a second purchase is likely to contain 80% stuff you already know. Then there is the problem of authors focusing on formulas that have worked well for them; unfortunately, their formula doesn't always translate to your situation; at least a couple of my purchases seem to fall into this category.

There are other products that I've thought about but never got round to buying. And then there's all those that I've dismissed as being hype driven.

I guess since a good idea can be worth a lot of money there is some sense in taking a few risks but I would say I've probably been guilty of buying products because I've been receiving newsletters and other emails from the author over a long period of time.

One further thing, I also buy huge numbers of business related books from Amazon and Waterstones so spending £500-£1000 a year on information is nothing new to me. But I've never been to any seminars or similar events offline.

[aquariancore]

The Marketing Sherpa also has a great newletter.

[Brian Turner]

Thanks for the reviews, kundalini - much appreciated.