It’s no secret…I think big. I have more ideas than I have time to implement. And often, it’s easy to get caught up in them.

There are many things in my business that I have thought up and run with only to find out that I didn’t put enough thought into them and that they weren’t planned properly. They didn’t go over well because I was too excited to focus on their proper implementation.

I’ve also been subjected to the hype of new product launches and have fallen for the hype. It’s okay. I know its good marketing when I get suckered into the marketing ploy; when I get to the end of the sales letter and I’ve already got my credit card out and ready to pay.

However, in the past two months, there have been three product launches that I have really looked forward to and when it came time to pay, they weren’t planned very well. I’m a pretty easy going person but here are a few things that happened and how I felt and reacted.

The first was a new membership site by someone whose advice I highly admire. I think he’s a brilliant man and I have learned a great deal from him. In fact, I pay for his newsletter every month. So when he announced his new site, I was there within minutes, credit card in hand ready to get in.

I gave him my information (basically my credit card information and my name) and then I was taken to a login page. They never asked me to create a user name and password and I had no way to get in. I wanted it. They sold me. I wanted the information and I wanted it right then and there. It took me two days to finally get the information. I was so frustrated by then that I canceled my membership and asked for my money back.

A few weeks later I learned of a new product that was coming to the market. I was hooked by the sales letter, the hype, the follow up emails, the sneak peeks; oh I was all over it. I was on the site, counting down to 10am with my credit card in hand. At 10am, nothing happened. There was no where for me to pay. I finally got in at 10:30am and what was promised to me (the bonuses, primarily) weren’t there. A slew of emails came from the owner with incorrect links to get bonuses and to log in and I was frustrated. I cancelled my account shortly there after.

And then this last time just a few weeks ago. I was offered a “pre-launch membership fee” and that the site would go live in just 3 days, March 15th. It’s been pushed back 4 times now, there have been many other emails pushing other people’s products and there is nothing in the membership area. Today, I get an email stating that she is pushing it back to the 31st. She wasn’t ready, and to be quite honest, I’m not impressed with it at all. I’ve cancelled that membership as well.

My point is this. Hype is wonderful. Get people excited about what you have to offer, but make sure that you deliver. If you’re going to launch a product or service, make sure that the site is ready to go and all the major kinks worked out. Check your payment processor, your gateway and that all your links on the inside are correct. It’s okay to have a glitch or two; it wouldn’t be a true launch if there wasn’t something, but make sure all the major issues are resolved.

About the Author:

Heather Jacobson doesn’t pay for marketing if she doesn’t have to. Discover how she does it and claim 10 free marketing tips at http://www.10freetips.com

You’ve created an informational product. Now, what do you do with it? Whether you’ve created it to give away or for profit, you must market it; otherwise, you’ve just wasted a lot of your time. What good is your information if no one knows that it’s there?

There are several ways that you can market your product inexpensively. These are tried and true methods to get the word out there about what you have to offer.

• Put up a website.

The best way to advertise your product online is for it to have its own website. I’m not saying don’t promote it on your main page, but give it a home of its own too so that there’s more room for search engine optimization.

When deciding on a domain name, choose keywords that depict what your product is about and not necessarily what the name of the product is. For example, the name of my recent book is Making Dollars Out of Cents: 101 Tips for the Frugal Marketer however you’ll find the site at www.inexpensivemarketingideas.com .

Taking that one step further, the actual site is hosted at www.inexpensive-marketing-ideas.com however I promote www.inexpensivemarketingideas.com . The reason I host the site with the hyphenated domain is because the spiders crawl the domain name first and then the content on your site. It could take months for the spiders to crawl your web site, but it doesn’t take that long for them to crawl the domain.

• Announce your product to all of your networking groups

If you belong to a listserv that allows you to post advertisements, go ahead and send an announcement. (Check the guidelines, as not all listservs will allow ads or self promotion.) Then take it to any forums to which you belong. If it’s a business related forum, most all have an “advertise your business” section. The key is telling them that it’s done and ready for their viewing or purchase.

• Add the link to your signature line

One of the best places to advertise what you’ve done is in your signature line. Don’t just put the link and expect people to go there. Put something catchy. In my signature line it simply says 101 Free and Inexpensive Marketing Tips and its hyperlinked. That catches their attention much quicker than “Making Dollars Out of Cents: 101 Tips for the Frugal Marketer”.

Make sure you include this in your email signature line as well as the signature lines of any forums to which you belong. Just because the forum isn’t your target market doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put it there. It’s a free way to advertise and you don’t know if someone in your stay at home mom group can or cannot use what ever it is that you’re offering.

• Send out a press release

Sending out a press release is another way to gain exposure for your product as well as help with indexing in the search engines. Don’t go into this blindly. If you don’t know how to write a press release, either learn or hire someone to do it for you. Once it’s completed submit it to PRWeb.com. I suggest giving a minimum $30 donation instead of the free submission because you will be able to see the statistics as well as have more exposure with the search engines.

In addition to PRWeb.com, find the local media outlets and submit it to them as well. When I sent out a press release for the book, I contacted every business journal in the six states closest to me. It didn’t cost me any more money since I already had it created and to email and fax it didn’t take long at all.

• If you are selling your product consider having an affiliate program

Why should you have an affiliate program? The answer is simple. You’re basically paying someone else to market your product and the commission can be anything that you chose. For example, with my book, I pay affiliates a 25% commission. No, it’s not much, but it’s something and all they have to do is stick it on their website.

There are several affiliate programs out there. I personally use ClickBank because they have over 100,000 affiliates selling products in their market place. My book is also listed in the market place and ClickBank handles the majority of my customer service issues as well as the credit card processing. The fees they charge are nothing in comparison to the time they save me.

• Send out an email to your subscriber list

If you have a subscriber list, use it. Send out an email that the product is now ready. You can even chose to offer them a discount because they are a valued member of your list. Typically, you can expect a sale from 25% of your list. If you have a list of 100 people, you’re more likely than not going to get 25 orders.

These six tips offer a great start to inexpensively marketing your product. If you’re holding back on creating an informational product because you think the marketing of it will cost you an arm and a leg, think again! You can find 95 additional free and inexpensive tips at www.inexpensivemarketingideas.com .

Happy Marketing!

About the Author:

Heather Jacobson doesn’t pay for marketing if she doesn’t have to. Discover how she does it and claim 10 free marketing tips at http://www.10freetips.com