Cottage Industries have long been an important segment of American Business. In fact, most small home-based businesses fall into this category. Merriam Webster actually defines cottage industry as “An industry whose labor force consists of…individuals working at home with their own equipment.”With the advent of the World Wide Web, new cottage industry home-based business start-ups are at an all-time high. There are currently more than 234 million websites, and in 2009 alone, an additional 47 million were created. Now, more than ever, businesses are heavily marketing online. Social Media sites are dominating the internet and smart businesses are using these sites as a very effective part of their online marketing strategies.Article writing as a means to advertise businesses online is proving to be a very viable work-from-home cottage industry. Network-marketing, social media marketing, Mult-level marketing (MLM) businesses- it seems as if every business has incorporated article writing into their marketing campaigns, so the demand for these writers is great.Article writing helps with “branding” a particular business or product. Articles are written and then published online as a way to get name and product recognition. It is a very simple, proven, effective step in accomplishing the “branding” that every business must have in order to stay ahead of their competition and remain successful financially.Home-based business typically do not require a large capital investment, which is why so many people are drawn to these cottage industry endeavors. A reliable computer and an internet connection allow you to work from home, set your own hours, allow a viable income while you work from home, and provide the life-style flexibility that so many people are looking for these days. There are many programs available online to assist you with your article writing as a cottage industry home-based business.There are internet marketing and coaching programs available online and the amount of marketing information that they can provide you with is astounding. A good, legitimate, reputable internet coaching and mentoring center will not come cheaply. Remember, you are getting what you pay for. If a program promises to teach you “everything you need to know” about internet marketing for just a couple hundred dollars, you aren’t going to get anywhere near everything you will need to know. A comprehensive internet marketing coaching and mentoring program will probably cost somewhere just under $3,000. 00. Many offer payment plans to make the cost more manageable for the average new home-based business owner. I tell people to think of this an investment in your education and future financial success. If you can pay someone $3,000.00 to teach you how to earn anywhere from a couple thousand to a few thousand dollars monthly, then your initial investment is actually pretty small, and can be recovered in a relatively short period of time. Pretty good investment, right?The beauty of internet marketing and article writing as a viable cottage industry home-based business is that, if done correctly, an individual can earn residual income long after he or she has stopped working. If you can expect a few hundred dollars to trickle in every month, you’ve got a residual income that will provide you with some extra spending money! Not to mention the fact that you will, forever, have the ability to be your own boss and work from home!

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.