One Useful Idea. One Practical Action. One of the easiest mistakes to make when starting an online business is creating something you think people will want without finding out whether they actually do. I've seen this happen many times over my 30 years online. Someone has a great idea for an ebook, a course or perhaps a new service. They spend weeks developing it, create an attractive sales page and launch it. Then comes the disappointment. Very few sales. Sometimes the problem isn't the product itself. It's that there was never enough interest in the first place. This is where AI can help us avoid wasting a lot of time and effort. Start by questioning your idea Last Monday, we used ChatGPT to help identify problems that people might want solved. Today, we're going one step further. We're going to use AI to help us investigate whether a particular idea is worth pursuing. Let's suppose you're thinking about creating a short guide called: "Getting Started With Affiliate Marketing After 50" It sounds like a useful idea. But before spending time writing it, wouldn't it be sensible to find out whether there's a genuine audience for it? Start by asking ChatGPT: "I'm considering creating a digital product called "The Small Business Social Media Content Planner". It would help small business owners plan and create social media content more quickly, using AI where appropriate. Help me investigate whether there is a genuine market for this product. Identify the problems potential customers are trying to solve, the types of competing products I should investigate, and what customers might expect from a useful solution. Suggest where I could find evidence of demand, including existing products, customer reviews, online discussions and relevant search queries. Identify possible weaknesses in my idea and suggest ways I could make the product more useful or distinctive. Don't assume the product will sell. Help me distinguish between what is known, what is a reasonable possibility and what still needs to be verified."

One Useful Idea. One Practical Action. Here's a question for you. How much useful information have you created over the years that's now sitting in old blog posts, email newsletters, documents or social media posts? If you're anything like me, probably quite a lot! One thing I've learned from creating and selling information products over the years is that you don't always have to start something new. Sometimes the foundations of your next product are already sitting on your computer. And AI can help you discover and develop them. Look at what you've already created Let's say you wrote an article called: Five Ways to Improve Your Marketing Emails It's a useful article, but once you've published it, it may gradually disappear into your blog archives. What if you turned that article into something people could download and use? For example: - A checklist for reviewing an email before sending it. - A worksheet for improving email subject lines. - A collection of AI prompts for rewriting marketing emails. - A short guide explaining how to improve an email campaign. You already have the original information. Now you're turning it into something more practical. That's an important distinction. A digital product needs to help someone accomplish something, not simply repeat information they can already read for free. Let AI find the opportunities Here's a prompt you can try: "I'm going to give you an article I've already written. Analyse the information and identify five ways I could repurpose it into a useful downloadable digital product. Focus on practical resources such as checklists, worksheets, templates, prompt packs, planners and short guides. For each suggestion, explain who would find it useful, what problem it would solve and what additional information or resources I would need to create. Prioritise ideas that make maximum use of the existing material. Here is my article: [Click the + and attach your article]" This is a particularly useful way to look at content because it encourages AI to identify opportunities you might otherwise overlook.

One Useful Idea. One Practical Action. Yesterday, we looked at creating a simple lead magnet to encourage people to join your email list. But what happens after somebody subscribes? This is something that gets overlooked surprisingly often. Someone requests your free resource, receives a download link, and then hears nothing from you until you send them a sales promotion. That's hardly the best way to begin a relationship! I've been using email marketing for many years, and one thing I've learned is that people are much more likely to pay attention to your messages when they feel there's a real person behind them. Your welcome email is your first opportunity to start building that relationship. What should a welcome email contain? It doesn't need to be complicated. A good first welcome email should do four things. 1. Thank the person for joining your list. 2. Make sure they can access whatever you promised them. 3. Explain what sort of useful information you'll be sharing. 4. Encourage them to interact with you. Notice there's nothing there about immediately trying to sell them something! There'll be opportunities for that later. For now, you want people to feel they've made a good decision by subscribing. Let ChatGPT help write it Try giving ChatGPT this prompt: "Act as an experienced email marketer who specialises in building relationships with subscribers. Write a friendly welcome email for someone who has just signed up to receive my free guide about [TOPIC]. My target audience is [DESCRIBE YOUR AUDIENCE]. The email should thank them for subscribing, tell them where to download their guide, explain what useful information they'll receive from me in future emails and encourage them to reply with any questions. Keep it under 200 words and use a natural, conversational tone. Avoid hype and hard-selling." Replace the information in the square brackets with your own details. You can then ask ChatGPT to suggest five possible subject lines. And here's another useful trick.