Private Label Rights Success

“Content makes the web go round”. We’ve all heard it; it must be right.

… and if you’re an internet marketer, an Information Marketer, that means you have to create the content, or pay someone else to create it for you. This can be either time consuming or expensive (and maybe both). And that’s where PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS (PLR) material comes in.

PLR products are digital products such as articles, e-books and reports that are sold to you in a form that you can easily change – even completely re-design, if you want to. And, you SHOULD – because in the process you’ll make YOURSELF the legitimate author of the product! That’s the “magic” of PLR.

These days, the good ones usually come with custom-designed graphics, and with Web sales pages provided (although not always). Depending on the rights that are issued with the PLR product, you can use the material in various ways: Sell it to other people (as ‘end users’ of the content), OR sell it to other people to sell on again (i.e. resell or master resell rights), OR you can break it up as you see fit and use the content in a host of different ways. “Limited only by your imagination!” Only? Well, not quite … but almost.

Essentially, PLR is really a lot like having usable information content ghostwritten for you … but, it’s a lot less expensive because you don’t have exclusive access – you’re sharing it with other people, with its ultimate value to you depending on how many licenses are sold by the originator.

… And THAT turns out to be the main problem with how most people end up using PLR.

Remember my quote at the beginning – “Content makes the Web go round”? Well, it doesn’t – UNIQUE content makes the Web go round. And there’s only one way to get UNIQUE content – you have to work at it. This article lays out the basic approach you’ll need to follow to be successful.

Seven Guiding Principles

Of course, we need a lot more skills than just seven — but the basic few I’ve selected are the keys; it is neglect of one or more of these that seems to prevent most marketers from making anything from their PLR efforts.

A lot of supposed “gurus” have talked about how PLR ‘just doesn’t work’. Well, they’re wrong – and lack of awareness of the pitfalls addressed by these foundational skills is the main reason why. Consistently apply these fundamentals to avoid the dangers described below and you’ve begun your journey to becoming a PLR master.

No. 1 – Skip the Junk

Selling PLR is a good way to make money. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of less-than-honorable “marketers” will throw packages together just to make a quick buck.

If you’ve bought much PLR in the recent past you’ll immediately recognize what I mean: poor content, bad grammar, lots of typos, nearly impossible to read sentence structure, and on and on – on the whole, working with something like this can be a pretty worthless exercise.

If you happen to be a superb writer / editor type that can keep your nose to the grindstone through a long haul and if you really enjoy a challenge, you might be able to salvage something like this – IF it happens to be covering a subject that you actually know something about. For most of us, though, the only realistic solution is to scrap the whole package. If you try to rewrite it you’ll just get bogged down in the mire.

I don’t know about you, but I happen to believe that my time is worth something!

So, in a case like this, throw it out and chalk it up to experience. Why? Because if you don’t, you might be tempted to recoup your losses by reselling it as-is.

If you purchase junk PLR, repackage it and sell it on to your customers, then expect to ruin your reputation in the marketplace VERY quickly. Even if you don’t yet have an established reputation, you won’t get any repeat business from customers who purchased your product made from junk PLR.

Power Tip: Reputation is everything in this business of Information Marketing; don’t risk losing it. And if you don’t yet have any sort of reputation to speak of, then build one up for yourself by always providing real VALUE.

You can avoid buying junk by either using only people who you can Google and see that they’re firmly established PLR sellers, or by contacting unknown or new writers and asking for a sample of what they can do.

Yes, you WILL buy some garbage PLR at some point. It’s a rite of passage. But don’t be afraid to ask for samples or, alternately, asking for testimonials from previous customers. It’s your time, your money AND your reputation that you’re staking in the game.

Don’t be tempted by low priced PLR unless you KNOW it’s from a trusted source. Just as with most other products you’ll buy during your lifetime, in the majority of cases you DO get what you pay for where PLR is concerned.

No. 2 – Buy Right and Take Immediate ACTION

If you buy it, USE IT WITHIN 14 DAYS or it’ll just get left, gathering a growing layer of fabled ‘cyber dust’ and you’ll never profit from it.

Too many marketers purchase PLR material on impulse and then decide to not use it. Or they get busy with other things and just completely forget they got it. Before you purchase any PLR material, take a few minutes to decide if you actually NEED it.

Power Tip: Once you do go ahead with your purchase, save your PLR material right on your PC desktop, so you’re constantly reminded to edit your PLR product on a regular basis until you actually get the thing done.

Have an idea before you buy it exactly what you’re going to do with it. For example, DECIDE BEFORE YOU BUY what you think will be the best way to repackage it to sell.

If for some reason, your business plan changes or you decide to go in a different direction, then at least get some use from your PLR material by adding it to a free blog or something – only if you’re allowed, of course. (In Lesson 5 of my PLR-jutsu e-course, I talk about Rights – exactly what you should be able to do with good quality PLR).

No. 3 – Make This Product YOUR Product

You should always think of your newly purchased PLR content as nothing more nor less than a ‘rough blueprint’ of YOUR ORIGINAL product.

You MUST turn this into a product that uniquely represents YOU – DO THIS OR FAIL!

The ABSOLUTE MINIMUM you can do is to retitle it – chances are, if you Google the PLR you’ve bought you’ll see a boatload of entries already out there with that very title! This minimal step is exactly what many purchasers will do. But, that is nothing more than taking the quick and lazy way – not the way of mastery!

IF you first retitle it, and IF you will then go the extra mile and make significant personal changes to the text content and graphics…

You NOW have a truly original, one-of-a-kind product.

You can effectively compete simply by refusing to be as lazy as your competitors who will just leave the package as it is, upload it and try to sell it.

Whatever else you do, make sure you at least retitle it – but it is VASTLY preferable to change the graphics and do a rewrite or partial rewrite too!

Power Tip: If you don’t have enough confidence in yourself as a writer to re-write every paragraph at least a little, you’re probably not cut out to be successful at this. This doesn’t mean you can’t be successful at Information Marketing; it just means you’re trying to use a method that you aren’t really suited for. To be successful, you always need to work from your strengths (and of course, this can include new strengths that you acquire by proper training).

No. 4 – Beef Up Your GRAPHICS

Let’s face facts here… no thinking reader wants to be subjected to poorly created graphics. Nothing gives the impression of unprofessional work more effectively than substandard graphics. Now, when I say poorly created graphics, I don’t mean plain and simple graphics – sometimes the simplest design will actually work the best!

One example is graphics that are low quality simply due to trying to use the wrong file formats. Graphics that look like they’ve been created by a 5-year-old are not acceptable either. So, what I’m saying is, DON’T do them yourself unless you’re a GOOD designer and you are really skilled with Photoshop (or whatever graphics package you use).

Now, even if the PLR provider did provide you with the best looking graphics on the planet, you’d still need to get your own graphics for your own UNIQUE product – or at least edit the PSD files using your graphic tool of choice.

If you do go ahead and use poorly created graphics just because they were provided with your PLR material, then you’re going to fail, simply because the customer is going to assume that your whole product is of the same shabby quality.

The unfortunate fact is, most good writers don’t also happen to be skilled graphic designers. If creating fine graphics isn’t your strong suit then hire a professional. Whether we like it or not, today the graphics often make the package in the eyes of most readers. The best PLR in the world will never get read if nobody gets past cruddy graphics. If you’re on a tight budget, spend it on the graphics!

No. 5 – Avoid the BONUS Trap

I seldom offer bonuses with my products. There … I’ve said it. This helps to convey an impression of my product offering as a top-quality package that will stand on its own. Based on your own marketing experience, you may of course disagree – that’s cool. But if you DO want to provide bonus products, understand that they MUST reflect the high quality of the main package. This is as true of a downloadable book as it is with any other type of product offering.

Customers can spot a ‘lumped in without thinking’ bonus a mile away and it’ll reflect adversely on the perceived value of your main package.

No. 6 – Put An End To the Price War

Only amateurs compete on price alone. Period.

If you follow these principles, you simply don’t need to compete on price – because you will have developed your own fully unique PLR product.

If you buy a PLR package then discover that it’s all over the internet (sold as an end-user ebook) ranging from $47 down to $7, you’d be crazy to try to sell it at $6! Instead, retitle it, EXTENSIVELY rewrite it, get some new graphics made and come at the market with a brand new unique product.

Not only will you be able to sell this at a much higher price, but nobody will be able to simply undercut you. Alternatively, you might decide to sell the PLR License to your new, unique product (which of course you can easily do, for a nice profit, IF you will strictly limit the number of packages sold, and assure your buyers that you WILL hold your sales to the limit you’ve set).

No. 7 – Develop a STRATEGY

There’s not much worse when it comes to PLR than buying a nice new shiny PLR package about dog training or hair loss then discovering that you have no knowledge of the subject, even less interest, AND the niche is saturated beyond belief.

Before you buy, make sure you have some inkling of where you can sell your PLR. If you have a list in the self-help niche then a nice PLR package on time management or relaxation techniques might fit very very well alongside your existing products.

If however you have a list of people interested in weight loss products you might not get very far with your PLR package titled ‘The 101 BEST Cake Donut Recipes’.

(Then again . . .

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Copyright 2009 Larry Cottrill – all rights reserved

Larry Cottrill is founder and Director of Product Development of Cottrill Cyclodyne Corporation, Iowa, USA – producing and marketing hobby jet propulsion designs and products under the jetZILLA(TM) brand.
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