There’s an old saying that you can’t please all the people all the time. And that holds especially true in internet marketing.

I recently promoted a product that had researched lots and lots of different free graphic resources.

It’s a PDF report that’s a list of all sorts of free graphic related items – stock images, image editing software, icons and more.

Nothing you couldn’t find yourself – but it would take hours of research to do that – so buying it is a trade-off between your time and the very low dollar price. Basically if you value your time at much more than a teenager would get for a paper round (assuming those still exist in this digital age) then it’s a bargain.

Interestingly, I got two equal and opposite emails in quick succession about the product.

One said it was a waste of money (but also admitted they’d use some of the links), the other said it was the best product they’d seen for ages.

Remember, we’re talking about the same product.

So you definitely can’t please all the people all the time.

And you probably shouldn’t try to do that either – polarity responses work better. Some people tune into shock jocks on the radio purely to growl about them. But the advertisers flock to the shows because that’s where the audience is.

Essentially, it’s a case of don’t be afraid to have a personality.

And don’t be afraid to create stuff that won’t please everyone.

Let’s go back to that graphics list for a minute.

It’s a long list but the sales letter admits that it’s only four pages long.

Some buyers will measure the quality of the product by the size.

So maybe the creator of the product could have padded the report out – put in a title page, a copyright page, used a bigger font or bigger line spacing.

Same product, different look and feel.

I was told to do something like that with one of my early products and that took the page count up quite a bit with no changes other than formatting. The person who suggested that said it was simply to reduce complaints and possible refunds.

Let’s go back to the idea of selling a list of stuff

It works as a product.

Some people value their time at a lot more than the $5 or $10 you charge for your research – I do that regularly with Fiverr if I’m looking for a new domain name because that saves me time and frustration.

Lists as a product work really well.

I’ve done quite a few.

A few years ago, I sold a list of Amazon top sellers. Products that had been in the best sellers list for what seemed like forever, all in a spreadsheet so people could pick products to feature that weren’t likely to go out of fashion.

Although I stopped selling it, chances are the majority of the products are still up there (I know the Rainforest Jumparoo still is).

Another product I created was a list of Fiverr gigs that you could sell on to other people for a nice profit. Some of the gigs I used may no longer be available but there will be equivalents and it’s just as valid now as when I created it.

Yahoo! started as a compiled list.

Early on in his career, Frank Kern sold a list of bookmarks – that was back when the internet was quite young but essentially that’s what my Fiverr product does (it’s just a lot wordier, so 5 bookmarks got turned into a multi-page report), what the graphics product does and lots of other products.

Because so long as you don’t mind not pleasing all the people all the time, that kind of research project is one of the quickest ways to create a product.

Especially if you’ve already done the research for something else recently.

It’s basically re-using things you’ve already done – much like turning web pages into slide show videos as a way to easily increase the content you produce.

One final thought: the graphics package had a PLR upsell so you could get the rights to re-sell it. And another upsell so you could rebrand it as your own before reselling it.

I’m sure you could resell it in places like Fiverr as well as to any internet marketing based list.

And when you get round to creating a product of your own you can apply the same re-sell and re-brand logic to your upsells so that they add value and don’t take much time to create.

Lots of lessons to be learned there just from examining one product that didn’t please everyone (because no product can do that!)