Using Video to Create Your Infopreneur Business

Most entrepreneurs choose to build a new business based on products or services, but a third option is becoming increasingly common for those thinking about starting a business: infopreneurship. Infopreneurs build their entire business around information products that help customers learn something valuable to them.  Information businesses usually rely on a mix of different format types to package and promote their information products. In this series, we’ve already looked at using ebooks and tutorials to become an infopreneur, now we’ll look at one of the most popular information formats out there: videos.  

Ways to Use Videos in an Infopreneur Business

Videos combine different information formats. You’ve got visuals, text, and audio all wrapped up in one package. They allow viewers to learn and consume on multiple levels at one time and can use the combination of media types to help keep users’ attention while they watch. And video is massively popular. Over a billion people use YouTube, the primary platform for viewing videos online. One-third of the time people spend online is spent watching video, and 92% of mobile video consumers say they share videos they like with other people. That makes video a potentially important part of a good infopreneur strategy. As we’ve discussed in other posts on the series, infopreneurs generally have to figure out the right mix of content types to build their infopreneur business on and the right balance in determining which items to offer for free as a way to promote the business, and which to charge for. Working videos into an infopreneur business strategy poses the same challenges. There are four main ways infopreneurs can use video to build their business.  

Base your business entirely on videos.

Some YouTube personalities have managed to make a business out of nothing but videos. If your videos get enough views, you can start to make a share of the ad revenue. For a rare few, that can result in enough money to make a living. For most aspiring infopreneurs though, that’s not your best route. Reaching the point where you have enough followers and views on YouTube that your small portion of the ad share adds up takes a long time, if it ever happens. But there are some types of information businesses that can work by offering video alone. If you have a number of valuable videos to offer, you could set up a subscription service like the Daily Burn, which is built entirely on workout videos that people pay a monthly fee for continued to access to. That kind of business model requires both having a lot of videos and for them to be the kind of thing people will want to access repeatedly. While building a business on video alone is possible, most people reading this will be more likely to benefit from using video in one of the ways described below.  

Use video as a way to promote other information products.

This is one of the most common ways infopreneurs use video. Jessica Smith offers free workout videos to people that may later become interested in the weight loss plans she charges for. College Info Geek uses a YouTube channel to help build the brand that makes him money through affiliate links on his website. And The Suitcase Entrepreneur offers video training to visitors likely to benefit from her online courses. Of all the options included here for using video, this is the one you’ll see used most frequently by successful infopreneurs. A well-made, short video gives potential customers a low-commitment way to learn more about the business and get a sense of the infopreneur behind it. It personalizes the brand while adding value, which makes it a great format for getting new customers through the door to start considering your other products.         

Use video as an information product you charge people for.

This is less common, but still a possible route to take. If you make videos packed with enough valuable information, you can charge for them. With so many free videos out there on YouTube though, you have to make sure that your videos are unique and high quality enough to stand out from the pack. With this option, you can either offer a subscription model for access to a number of videos, like the Daily Burn does, or you can offer individual videos for sale on your website or through video platforms like Vimeo.  

Use video as part of the information products you charge people for.

This is a much more commonly used method than simply selling video as a product alone. Amongst the most common products infopreneurs sell (and the type of product they typically charge the most for) are courses. And most courses include video in some form – video of the infopreneur talking about their experiences, video that provides a screencast of how to do something, or a video presentation on the subject at hand. For a good number of infopreneurs, video isn’t treated as a lucrative product to sell on its own, but is instead included as an important part of the information product that is.  

How to Make High-Quality Videos

Since videos do involve the combination of a few different formats, they can take more work to put together than some other information products. Videos can take a number of different forms as well, which also influences what’s involved in making them. While there will be a bit of variety in the particulars of how to make a video for your infopreneur business, here are the basic steps you should plan on taking.  

Step 1: Figure out the topic(s) your target audience will be most interested in.

If you’ve been reading our other posts on starting an infopreneur business, this step will sound familiar. The first thing you should do with every information product you make is figure out what it should be about – not based on your own interests, but according to research you do on what your prospects are interested in. Clearly define who your target audience is, then research what videos are most popular in your general information space. This will both give you an idea of which sorts of topics the market is already oversaturated in so you know what to avoid doing, and can teach you the types of topics and video styles your audience responds well to. Make a list of ideas you have that are relevant to the subject area your infopreneur brand offers and that aren’t well covered in videos that are already out there.  Now decide which ones seem worth the time and effort to turn into high-quality videos for your audience.  

Step 2: Create a plan.

Videos take enough time and moving pieces to create that you want to have a plan in place to ensure your work is efficient and you’re prepared to get the most out of it. Figure out what you want your videos to look like.  Will they be recordings of you doing something your customers want to learn, like a particular exercise or how to do certain gardening activities? Will they take on a show format where you interview experts in your field or answer questions from customers? Will they be recordings of presentations you create on the computer, with a mix of text and stock images? Knowing the basics of how your videos will look will help you determine what you need to create them. You should start to get an idea in this step of what products you’ll need to buy and whether or not you’ll need to hire professionals for any part of making your video. If your videos will primarily be screen grabs and online presentations, then you’ll need a good screen recording software, like Camtasia, to record your videos with. If you’ll be making videos that include recordings of you or other people doing something, as with an interview show setup or cooking lessons, then you’ll either need a good camcorder or to spend some time practicing how to take high-quality videos on your smartphone. Whatever decisions you make in this stage, you want to have a basic idea of how your video will look and what you need to do by the time you move on to the next step.  

Step 3: Write your script and storyboard.

Before you do any recording, you need to work out exactly what you’re going to say in the video, and what image you plan to have on the screen at the moment you’re saying it. If you’re doing something like an interview show, then you may not need an exact script to work off of, but you’ll want to have a general plan going into recording to keep things running smoothly. For most types of video, you’ll want a script prepared that you can work from as you record that includes both the words you’ll be saying and what visuals you want showing up on the screen to match those words. Before you get to the point of recording, read over your script out loud to see how it sounds and how long it takes you to read it. Then go through the steps of your video a couple of times while reading the script out to get practice matching your words to what’s happening in the video. Taking some time to practice your video run-through in advance will make the recording step go much smoother.  

Step 4: Record your video.

Now, you record! If you’ve done the proper preparation, you may find this step to be much easier than those that have come before. Keep in mind while recording that you’ll be able to cut parts of the recording out, so it’s ok to record the same part of the video a few times to get it right.  

Step 5: Edit your video.

Be prepared for this step to take some time. If you’re not familiar with the process of editing a video, check the tutorials and instructions provided with your video recording software. (Note: if you use a camcorder, you’ll need to purchase video recording software separately. If you use a screen recording software, editing is usually an included feature). Cut out any parts that don’t work or include unnecessary noise or talking. Add in any music, images, or intro and outro slides you plan to use (be careful here to stick with media you have the rights to). And turn that video into a complete, polished, professional product.  

Step 6: Launch your video.

You have a few options in this step for how to launch your video. If your video will primarily be a way to build your infopreneur business and help promote your other products, then you should put it up on your website. You may also want to put it up on a website like YouTube to give it a further reach as well. If your video will be something you charge customers for, then look into a service that will make that possible, such as:

• Wishlist Member which allows you to keep your content restricted from anyone other than the people that have paid for it.
• Cleeng which allows you to make your videos available for pay on a video-on-demand model.
• Vimeo which allows you to load your videos to their platform and sell them through it.
• Patreon which works on more of a donation model, but allows you to encourage fans to donate a set amount to you each month in exchange for special content.

Take some time to review your options, considering the pricing and features of each, and figure out which route is best for what you’re hoping to get out of your videos. (Quick note here: if your video was created to become part of a course, then this and the next step will apply more to the full course than the individual video).  

Step 7: Promote.

Whether you’re planning to use your video as a promotional tool or a product you make money from, this step is important. Figure out a promotion plan to get your video in front of more people. Make sure you use the proper tagging in YouTube to make it more discoverable by people searching and browsing on the website.  Share it on your social media platforms and create an awesome landing page for it. Consider if it’s worth investing in paid advertising on search engines or social media to help expand the reach of your video. If you’re just starting out, spending a little bit now to reach the right audience for your information products can help you grow your following quickly. Videos take a lot of time to create, but a video that’s high quality and provides information your audience needs can do a lot to help build their trust and interest in your information brand. It’s an important tool in any infopreneur’s toolkit.

For some people considering entrepreneurship, the best path forward is to become an infopreneur. An infopreneur business is based on selling knowledge rather than physical products; there are a number of forms an infoprenuer’s information products can take. We’ve already covered how infopreneurs can use ebooks to build their business. Now we’re going to look at how to create and use another common information format: tutorials. Tutorials usually take one of two forms:

• An informative blog post that goes step-by-step through the process of how to do things, usually with helpful photos or screenshots.
• A video tutorial that shows you (or someone else) going through the steps of how to do something.

Another option to consider is using both formats for the same tutorial subject, that way your audience can choose the one that best fits their learning style. Janet at Paper + Spark does this for her tutorial on getting sales tax info from Etsy, ensuring she doesn’t alienate or lose any interested viewers based on their preferred format. While each option requires a different process to create, the end result should provide the viewer with the same thing: actionable information they can use to go and do the thing you’re teaching them.    

How to Use Tutorials

In most cases, infopreneurs use tutorials more as a way to market their business rather than as an information product in and of themselves. You can use them to provide value to your audience on topics related to the subjects covered in your paid information products, like Paper + Ink does above – one of her products is an accounting spreadsheet for Etsy sellers. You can use them as a way to show customers the best way to use your information products, like By Regina does for her One-Year Editorial Planner. Or you can use them as part of a course you create to sell, which By Regina talks about doing in a post on the multimedia formats to build a course with. The point is that there’s not just one way to use tutorials to help build your infopreneur business. They probably won’t be the only information format you use, but when you’re working out a content plan for your infopreneur business, they’re one of the valuable tools you can use to build on and promote your other information products. However you choose to use your tutorials, you have to create them first. Here are the main steps you should take to get it done.  

Step 1: Determine the tutorial topic(s) your target audience needs help with.

The first step to creating a tutorial is the same as it is for any information product: you have to figure out the overlap between knowledge you have and information your target audience needs. If you haven’t already, this requires doing some research into who the people in your target audience are and what their needs are. Some needs can be met with informational blog posts or podcasts, but for tutorial ideas you want to pinpoint the needs that are more about doing than knowing. That could mean learning how to do something specific in a popular software program, figuring out how to build something, or learning a way to better organize a process. It shouldn’t be something that’s super easy for them to figure out on their own, and it needs to be something you can break down into specific steps. Make a list of potential ideas and then winnow it down based on relevance to your overall brand and whether or not there are already easy-to-find tutorials on the subject.  

Step 2: Determine the best format to create your tutorial in.

As previously mentioned, your main format options are a detailed blog post, a video, or both. For a blog post, you’ll likely want to include either screen shots or photos, based on the topic you’re covering. Screen shots are fairly simple to take, but the process varies based on the type of computer or device you’re using. Here’s a rundown of instructions for each.  As for photos, most smartphones can take decent photos that will suffice for your tutorial, but if you want to step up the quality of the images, you can research affordable cameras to use. For most video tutorials, you’ll need a good recording software that will allow you to capture your screen view, and you may want one that also makes it easy to capture video of yourself as you talk. If your tutorial is on a subject that’s not computer-based, like how to build something or sew something, then you’ll need either a camera to shoot your video with, or should do some research into how to use your smartphone to shoot videos that look high quality. No matter how you shoot your video, you’ll need to edit it as well, so look into and invest in video editing software. Note that some types of screen recording software will also include an editing component, so if you’re doing screen view-style tutorials, you can probably find one product for both recording and editing. Having the right tools to create a high-quality product is important, but if all this is sounding expensive, don’t worry too much.  For the most part, you should be able to get by with affordable products or figure out how to use those you already have when it comes to creating tutorials.  

Step 3: Go through the process of what you’re teaching and make notes on each step.

You know how to do the thing you’ll be teaching, but to communicate it to someone else you need to break it down into each individual step required. Sitting down to work out this step will result in the outline you can use to create your tutorial. Go through the whole process yourself and write out a note recording each thing you do. Get as specific as possible here. Even if it seems obvious to you that you have to login to the software first, don’t skip that step. If one of your viewers is doing this for the very first time, they may need to hear all those steps that seem obvious to you.  

Step 4: Create your tutorial.

Now that you have your outline, it’s time to turn it into your tutorial. For a blog post, this step is mostly a matter of expanding the outline in writing. You need to add a good intro and conclusion and turn your notes into clearly written, well-formatted instructions. Make sure to include your screenshots or photos at the appropriate moments in the post to illustrate what you’re saying. For video, this part includes a couple extra steps. First, you need to write your script. The script should include both the words you’ll be speaking on the recording and what you’ll be doing as you talk. Then, it’s time to record. You may find you need to record the same thing a few times to get it right, especially if this is your first time making a tutorial like this. Give yourself a few tries and remember that you’ll be able to edit out any parts that didn’t work.  

Step 5: Edit.

This stage is important for both written and video tutorials. With written tutorials, it’s generally faster and easier. Proofread your work at least twice and consider if it’s worth hiring a professional editor to give it an additional look. If you don’t hire an editor, ask a friend to review it to check that your instructions are clear even for someone unfamiliar with the topic at hand. Video editing is more time consuming, but the software you bought should let you cut sections and move pieces of the video around as you need to get it right. The particulars of video editing will vary based on the software you use for it, so check the tutorials and other instructional information available from the provider.  

Step 6: Promote.

This is the final step of any information product you create. When you take the time to put a high-quality information product together, you need to put at least a comparable amount of time into getting it in front of people or what’s the point? Work your tutorial into the larger promotion plan for your business. Share it on social media. Consider if it’s worth using paid advertising on search engines or social media sites to expand its reach. And make sure you do all the proper tagging on YouTube or on-page optimization on your website to make it easy for your potential customers to find. If your tutorial solves a problem your audience has and no one else has a helpful tutorial out there on the subject, then yours is likely to gain some real traction and help bring people to your business. By helping them, you’ll be helping to build your infopreneur brand, which is what infopreneurship is all about.

We’ve already covered what an infopreneur is and why it’s a form of entrepreneurship that can pay off for a lot of people. Successful infopreneurship depends on putting together information products that pack a lot of valuable information into the formats people like to consume their information in. And no matter how much content forms like videos and podcasts start to take off, people still like to read. One of the most important formats entrepreneurs have to work with in building an information-based business is the ebook. There are two ways for infopreneurs to use ebooks to build their business:

• As a free product you offer website visitors in order to build your email list and help grow their trust in your brand.
• As an information product you sell to make money for your business.

Some infopreneurs use ebooks for both purposes. Chris Guillebeau offers a few free ebooks he calls manifestos that help curious people learn more about what his brand stands for. Many of the people that start with his manifestos then go on to read one (or more) of the books he has for sale that expand on the topics he covers in his free ebooks. Another option is to use your ebooks to sell other information products. That’s one way Mirasee uses theirs. On their website, the first things you see on the homepage are a sign-up prompt for a training session they’re offering, with a trio of free ebooks available for download below. For visitors not quite ready to commit to the paid training session, they have a free option to start with that provides value in and of itself and can help them decide if Mirasee’s paid resources are for them. And, of course, you can use other information products to help sell your ebooks. Crazy Little Projects provides sewing tutorials and project ideas as a way to help promote the brand’s ebook on learning how to sew. Finding the right mix between the free informational products you use for promotion and the ones you sell to make money is something every infopreneur will have to figure out on their own, but for a good number of infopreneurs, ebooks will play some role in the process. Here’s what you need to know to create one.  

Step 1: Identify the best topic(s).

Before you sit down to start writing, you have to determine a topic that will be worthy of the time and energy you’ll be devoting to it. It has to be something that:

• You know a lot about (although you should be prepared to do research to learn more).
• Fits with the infopreneur brand you’re building
• Is a topic of interest to your target audience

That last part will be the toughest to figure out, unless you’ve had the chance to talk to people in your target audience and get a feel for the issues and questions on their mind. For most new infopreneurs though, figuring out the right topic will involve doing some research, which brings us to step two.  

Step 2: Do your research.

This is a big step and it could be easy to get stuck in if you’re not careful. You may need to do a few different phases of research here. First, if you haven’t yet taken the time to do customer research and create personas, start there. You won’t know what to write for your audience until you know who your audience is. Next, you want to spend some time looking into the information that’s been put out there by other businesses and websites working in a similar information space to the one you’re in. You don’t want to put in all the work of researching, writing, and publishing an ebook, only to realize that there’s another ebook out there on the same subject by a brand with bigger reach than yours. Researching the other brands and people in the space will both provide insights into what your audience is interested in and help you identify the gaps in information that you can help fill. Finally, you need to start doing the research into the topic your ebook is on. Whatever knowledge you already have on the subject, it’s a good idea to double check and supplement it with additional sources. Browse online, buy books on the subject, or head to the library to expand your own knowledge. Then start organizing all that information into an outline that clarifies the shape your ebook will take.  

Step 3: Get started writing (or hire a writer).

Once your outline is complete, it’s time to dive in and start writing. If writing isn’t really your forte, it’s ok to look for a professional ghostwriter during this step. You can provide them with your outline, notes, and knowledge to turn into writing gold. Whether you write it yourself or not, you’ll likely find that it’s worth doing additional research as you go. Just don’t let the research become an excuse not to get the writing done. This step will likely take the longest of any of them, but it’s the most important part in having an ebook to release for your business.  

Step 4: Hire an editor.

It’s tempting to skip this step, but don’t. When your business is built on information products, every one you produce needs to be top notch. If your writing is sloppy or you let typos through, it makes you look unprofessional and makes the people reading less likely to trust you or return to your business for any additional information. Even if you hired a writer, it’s worth also hiring an editor in order to have a second set of professional eyes that know what to look for on those pages before you take the plunge of publishing.  

Step 5: Hire a designer to turn it into a proper ebook.

It’s crucial that the information in your ebook is high quality and well communicated, but it’s also important that it’s presented in a way that’s easy to read and looks good. Good design makes a big difference in the experience your customers will have when reading your book and you want them to come away from it finding every part of the book impressive. For that reason, it’s worth spending a little more to invest in a good designer who can help you with the formatting, overall design, and images you bring into the book.  An ebook that’s intuitively designed and visually appealing will help your readers absorb and retain the information better, and the fact of taking that extra step to make the ebook look good tells them something about your brand and professionalism. A designer can also do the important job of designing you a great book cover that will generate interest in the ebook. Book covers may not be quite as important for your average ebook as they are for the print books people browse in book stores, but they still matter and may help pique the interest of some readers who wouldn’t otherwise check the book out.  

Step 6: Determine your pricing and promotion plan.

This isn’t as much work as writing the ebook, but for some infopreneurs it might feel as hard. Pricing is a subject all entrepreneurs have a hard time with, and if anything, it can be trickier for information products than for goods and services. But before you can move forward, you have to make a decision. Will you be using this ebook as a marketing tool, or selling it as a product? And if the latter, how much are you going to charge? At least as importantly, how are you going to let people know your ebook exists and it’s worth their time? No matter how good you make it, writing and publishing an ebook will be worth zilch to you if you can’t get people to read it. Before you go a step further, work out a plan to promote your ebook so you can be sure to get the most out of it.  

Step 7: Publish.

The hardest parts are now (arguably) past. You just need to get your ebook out into the world where people can see it. You have a few ways you can do this:  

Make it available as a PDF for download on your website.   

If you’re using your ebook as a way to build an email list rather than selling it as a product, then this is probably your best bet.  You can also self-publish to your own website if you’ll be charging for the ebook, as long as you set up a shopping cart on your website that allows visitors to securely purchase products there from you – which is something you should go ahead and do anyway if most of your infopreneur products will be sold through your website.  

Self-publish to distribution platforms.

If you’re planning to sell your ebook, you want to get it on as many distribution platforms as possible to help get it in front of potential readers. The biggest player you should use is Amazon. Their Kindle Direct Publishing is fast, easy to use, and free. But they’re not the only distribution platform worth looking into, take some time to research and decide which of the following might be right for you:

• Smashwords
• Nook Press
• Pronoun
• iBooks Author
• BookBaby
• Lulu

Keep in mind that using these distribution platforms means your readers find you somewhere other than your own website, which is the hub of your infopreneur business. If you’ll be distributing your ebook on a third-party platform (or several), then make sure you include information in the ebook that encourages readers to check out your website and brand. You don’t want them to have one interaction with you and stop. For your business to thrive, you need people to keep coming back once they find you.  

Step 8:  Promote

Finally, you have to get out there and do some marketing. Make use of social media to promote the book. Read up on SEO best practices to make it easier for people to find your website, and keep writing blog posts and other valuable content to help people find and learn about you. Consider if paid advertising on search engines and social media might be worth the cost to expand your reach as well. For the vast majority of infopreneurs, writing a great ebook won’t amount to much unless you put a lot of work in to getting it in front of the right people. But if you succeed, a great ebook could be the information product that puts them on the path toward a long relationship with your brand.

If you’re considering entrepreneurship, you know one of the challenges you’ll have to face is figuring out how to set your business apart. Around 3 million businesses are started each year in the United States, all vying for the attention and pocketbooks of the country’s consumers. In order to succeed, every one of those businesses has to figure out the answer to the question: why would someone choose my business? What makes it special? One path some new businesses are taking to set themselves apart and gain the trust of potential customers is becoming infopreneurs.

What is an Infopreneur?

An infopreneur is an entrepreneur who builds a business based on information products. Instead of selling items or services, they sell knowledge. That’s a simple definition, but infopreneurship – as with any type of entrepreneurship –involves a good amount of research, time, and work to do right. But if you have knowledge you know other people can benefit from and are willing to put the work in, becoming an infopreneur can be both profitable and fulfilling.  

How Becoming an Infopreneur Can Pay Off

Infopreneurship offers some key benefits in comparison to other types of entrepreneurship.  

The overhead to get started is low.

When you’re selling a product, you have to purchase inventory. If your business requires an office or storefront, you have to pay rent every month, along with all the supplies and furniture needed to turn those spaces into a business. An infopreneur doesn’t need to deal with any of those costs. To start an information business, you need a website, time to create information products, and marketing knowledge. You may want to hire some people to help make your information products look or sound good, like a graphic designer or editor, but that’s likely to be the most expensive part. When the financial investment required to get started is low, it keeps your risk low and makes the path to profit faster.  

Information products usually only need to be created once and can be sold over and over again.

Creating information products does take a lot of time and work, but once you’ve finished one, you can make money on it again and again – as many times as there are people who want to buy it. Service providers have to continually provide their services, and businesses that sell physical products have to repeatedly buy more inventory to sell.  But if you create something that’s high quality and market it well (that’s the ongoing part), you can profit off the same information product for years to come.  

You can work from anywhere.

When your work isn’t tied to any particular office or city, you can work anywhere that has internet. Information products can be created just as easily from a house in Idaho as from a coffee shop in Berlin. Some infopreneurs take advantage of the location independence by traveling all over the world to work, while others like the freedom of staying home and working in pajamas with a dog as their officemate. Any place where you can stay productive is a place you can run an infopreneur business from.  

The Main Tools of the Infopreneur’s Trade

There’s not one right path to infopreneurship, but these are some of the most common tools, resources, and product types to consider.  

An Infopreneur’s Products

You could share your knowledge on a street corner, but no one is likely to pay you for it. To sell your knowledge, you need to package it in a form that people will want to buy. For most infopreneurs, that means a mix of:

• Ebooks – An ebook is a lengthy text that provides thorough information on a subject that interests your audience. Before publishing, it’s often worth hiring a graphic designer and editor to make sure your grammar is correct and the ebook looks just right.
• Tutorials – Tutorials provide step-by-step instructions on how to do something. They’re often videos, but can also be thorough blog posts that include specific instructions and helpful screen shots.
• Videos – Sometimes videos are tutorials, but not always. Informational videos can take on a wide array of formats including: interviews, presentations and . Just make sure they’re entertaining and packed with valuable information for your audience.
• Webinars – Webinars are similar to videos in a lot of ways, except that they’re live and interactive. You provide a presentation of valuable information over video conferencing software and take questions as you go.
• Podcasts – For many information consumers, podcasts are a preferred type of content due to the ability to multitask. Your busy audience can listen to the information you have to offer through headphones while going for a run, or in the car while driving.
• Courses and Workshops – Probably the largest and most valuable information product of all, courses and workshops combine multiple information products. These are usually best for a more in-depth topic, as courses can often run a span of several weeks.  Courses are difficult to put together and do require some ongoing work helping students as you go, but they’re one of the information products you can usually charge the most for.

Most successful infopreneurs offer some of their information products for free as a way to promote the business and build trust, then charge for the products that go more into depth or provide extra value in some way.  

An Infopreneur’s Toolkit

There are a few things every infopreneur will need to succeed, and a handful of other resources and products worth considering to make your infopreneur business work.

The necessities:

• Website – First and foremost, you need a space online where your business will live. Your website will be the cornerstone of your infopreneur business so make sure it’s well designed, you invest in reliable web hosting, and that the style and domain name reflect your brand.
• Blog – A blog is an important tool to demonstrate knowledge to potential customers and build trust in your infopreneur brand. It’s also an invaluable tool for building your email list.
• Email marketing software – That email list only matters if you have a means to contact your followers and keep the relationship going. For that, you need an email software like Constant Contact to keep your lists organized, create emails that look good, and track the success of each email you send.

Those are three resources you should plan on investing in no matter what type of information products you create or what type of information you build your business on. But most infopreneurs will find they need to build up a toolkit with a few additional resources and investments, such as:

• Distribution platforms like Amazon for ebooks, Udemy for courses, YouTube for videos, and iTunes for podcasts.
• Products to help you produce higher quality information products, such as good microphones for recording podcasts or editing software for videos.
• Resources needed to learn and do marketing for your business like SEO, PPC, and social media.
• The services and products most businesses need, like a computer and accounting software.

This post really just covers the barebones basics of creating an infopreneur business. If your interest is piqued and you think infopreneurship might be for you, check back soon for more posts that will get into the particulars of how to create and promote different types of information products.

White label hosting is commonly referred to as reseller hosting. This is the ability to re-sell another hosting company’s servers, bandwidth, and hosting services as if they were your own company. White label hosting can be a great addition to your existing business, or even offer you a way to build a hosting company from scratch. Below you’ll learn what white label hosting actually is, its benefits, and what this kind of hosting usually includes.  

Who is White Label Hosting For?

White label hosting is quite versatile. Literally anyone can use white label hosting to sell hosting services. Selling hosting services and taking care of all the technical requirements, like server management and maintenance, can be quite time consuming. White label hosting takes the hard parts out of selling hosting. White label hosting can be a great additional service to offer if you’re a web developer, agency, or even want to start your own hosting service. White label hosting can also be a great choice for web developers or designers who want to host their client’s sites with a separate cPanel, but don’t require extensive hosting packages.

• Start your own web hosting service with HostGator's white label hosting!

 

Benefits of White Label Hosting

If you’re a solo web developer or run a large-scale agency, it’s always a good idea to expand your offerings and find new ways to serve your customers. White label hosting can do just that. Below you’ll learn the different ways this can benefit your business.  

1. Expands Your Services

Adding hosting to your list of services makes it much easier for your customers to get everything they need. Instead of having to turn to a third-party provider, you can do it all in house. As an all-inclusive service you’ll also be able to charge higher prices, as you can handle every aspect of getting a customer’s site online. Instead of leaving it to the customer to figure out some of the technical elements themselves.  

2. Improves Customer Retention

By selling hosting you’ll be able to ensure that you develop a long-term relationship with your customer. Instead of selling them a single service and never speaking again you can serve them continually. You can bet when they need more web-related work done they’re going to turn to you. Also, a lot of people end up leaving their hosting providers because of an unsavory experience. With you acting as the intermediary you can ensure that never happens. You’ll be able to resolve any hosting issues that come up before the stress gets passed on to your customer. This will further help to strengthen your relationship and value to your customers.  

3. Grows Your Bottom Line

Selling hosting is great in that it’s a recurring payment. If you’re stuck doing one-off services for your clients, then you’re probably looking for ways you can increase your monthly revenue, and offering hosting can be a great way to do that. With a few hosting customers you’ll generally be able to cover the costs of white label hosting and be able to turn a profit from that point. If you were to offer hosting on your own servers, this would get costly, and take up a ton of space. With white label hosting you can offer hosting without any expensive costs on your end.  

What’s Commonly Included in White Label Hosting?

The hosting company you decide to partner with will determine the list of additional services you can offer to your customers. Most reseller hosting packages will offer you similar services to the ones listed below.  

1. Billing Integration

Most reseller plans will include WHM billing software that lets you easily bill your customers and manage their payment plans. This takes out the hassle of making sure your customers pay you on time.  

2. Private Name Servers

Private name servers will help to create separation from your brand and the hosting company whose servers you’re utilizing. Private name servers are a must have.  

3. Easily Scalable

With reseller hosting you should be able to scale up server resources if your client base is expanding, or you’re managing a site that requires more server resources.  

4. Easy-to-Use Control Panel

Control panel is a must-have for website management. With control panel access you’ll be able to make backend changes, and even give the client access, if necessary.  

5. Domain and Email Integration

Most reseller accounts allow you to sell email account add-ons, as well as domain names. Being able to add these to your hosting offerings takes your services to the next level. Website hosting will always be a service in demand, as long as the internet exists. With white label hosting you don’t have to deal with any of the costly or difficult parts of running your server, but can still offer the option to your customers. When considering the best reseller plan for your business, make sure you do you research. You’ll want to find a quality host that offer the right kind of server environment for you and your customers.

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