It can be an exhausting process when launching and marketing a virtual product.  This post is suppose to act as a step-by-step guide that will show you the process of creating a product, all the way to your launch.

1. Product Research

This will help you to figure out a competitive advantage for your product.

1. Competitor Research – Look at your top competitors to see what they offer.  If possible, purchase a few of their products to help you generate ideas, identify opportunities that your competitors may have missed, and to help create your selling points.

2. Product Creation

Once you have figured out the exact product you are going to be creating and have done your homework on your competitors, it is now time to create your product.

1. Format – How do you want to deliver your content to your audience?  Is it through an e-book, podcast, video, bundle of products, etc…?  Finding out the right way to deliver the content can be harder to figure out, than just seeing what your competitors have done. 

2. Completeness – If you are going to be selling a product, it better have additional value that you can’t find on the web for free. 

3. Landing Page Design

Finding the ideal real estate on the homepage to feature the product, as well as finding a spot in the current navigation that will allow people to get to your product from anywhere on the site.

1. Product Graphics – Having a high-quality photos or screen-shots of the product will help to give a graphical representation of what the product does or problem it solves. 

4. Shopping Cart Integration

This will allow the user to purchase your product via credit card, etc…

1. Payment Options – The more purchase options you give the user, the better the chance you will have of converting that user. If you plan on only having a few products on your website, a simple PayPal button should be just fine. 

2. Checkout Steps – Minimizing the number of steps it takes to purchase your product will increase conversion rates and usability.

5. Marketing Outreach

However if you don’t necessarily have the influence and the traffic it will take some to exposure your product.

1. E-mail Marketing – If you have an in-house marketing list, you should create a e-mail marketing campaign that notifies them about the new product.  If you list is of high quality, this can be a great way to generate sales.

6.  Tracking/Analytics

There is no reason not to be tracking everything on your website.  You should create a unique goal for when someone completes a purchase on your website.  If your product has a set amount, you should enter that goal value. 

7.  Further Enhancements/Feedback

Regardless of what type of product you are selling, there is always going to be things you can do to improve it.  Listing to your customers feedback, suggestions, and issues will help you to improve your product for an upcoming version or model.

8.  Support

For virtual products, there could be issues with customers receiving the product.  That is why you should always have support information on your website and landing page so people can contact you with any concerns.

John Johnson is experienced internet marketing consultant and writes articles on Data Entry Outsourcing, Product Scraping Services, Data Scraping Services, Web Screen Scraping, Web Data Mining, Web Data Extraction etc.