Over the last year and a half, it has often seemed to me that instead of being in the business of marketing, I am in the business of buying information products. Audio classes. Ebooks. Courses. Seminars. You name it, I’ve probably bought it.

Add to that the fact that I actually do SELL information products for a living, I know a lot about digital shit.

One of the most frequent questions I get is, “Should I buy this?” Sometimes they’re asking about my own products, sometimes other people’s. As I know The Havinator and the handsome Mr. Navarro get this question all the time, too, I figured I’d do a little public service announcement. Then everybody can link to it from their sales pages and save their customers a shitload of time. Doesn’t that sound fun?

So… Should I Buy This?

Here are the things to consider:

Can you use the information NOW?

One of the reasons so many business and internet marketing products are available exclusively as digital downloads is because they are available NOW. In many cases, the information being sold does not have a shelf life long enough to be sold via a traditional publisher. (If I write a book on Google AdWords, it’ll take a traditional publishing company about two years to get it to market. By that time, Google AdWords will have changed so much that the information will be useless.)

Is the information targeted and relevant?

One of the other reasons e-publishers go with digital production instead of traditional means of distribution is that there is virtually no overhead. If I wanted to write a book on Facebook marketing for service providers, I could probably sell 500 copies. That would make me a fortune, but it would be worthless for a normal publisher. They need broad appeal. E-stuff is great when it can be targetted to what YOU need. So consider if this is something great for you, or if you’d be better off going to the library and perusing.

The Havinator is doing a new course on how to get killer testimonials. Can you find that on the shelf at Barnes and Noble? No? Then it’s probably worth a buy.

How do you define value?

If you find ONE piece of information in Online Business School that nets you ONE more client, and a new client makes you more than $400, you made your money back. But the beauty is, you don’t stop knowing the information. You can use it over and over. So if it gets you one new client a MONTH, I basically handed you a printer and told you to start printing twenty dollar bills.

So consider… is it likely that you can glean at least one useful piece of information from the product? Then it’s probably worth it. BUT…

Will you actually DO it?

Info products are about INFO. Info that you should probably, you know, use. I’ve never bought an info product that didn’t have SOME useful information. But you gotta do it.

Are you expecting a miracle?

A lot of newbie buyers think a product is a waste if they can’t use parts of it. This is insanely dumb. It is also, for some reason, a rule they apply only to downloadable products. If you like half the songs on an album, that doesn’t mean you don’t buy the album. It means you don’t listen to some of it. If three chapters of a book aren’t applicable, you skip them. See the value thing, above.

If you expect info products to be the solution to all the world’s ills, you will always be disappointed. If you expect them to make two or three times their price back for you, you’ll be a lot happier.

When I bought Emergency Calming Techniques, I looked at the book for about forty seconds. I didn’t use it. Ever. But the audios were a dream come true. I’m a happy customer.

Do you trust the provider?

If you buy my book and hate it, you probably know a lot of other people who read my blog. You have recourse. You can trash me to high heaven. Knowing that, I try not to create crappy info products. If you’ve never heard of the seller and you’ve never heard of anybody who’s heard of the seller, you don’t have a lot of personal recourse and that’s kind of a shitty place to be.

(As a publisher of these things, I would like to give a small caveat. If you buy something and it doesn’t work, there are a lot of possible reasons. They’re probably not out to screw you. And if the thing that doesn’t work out happens while the publisher’s wife is having a baby, you might not get a great response time. Please give them a week or so to reply before you eviscerate them on your blog. People make mistakes and things happen. Like Jamie says, never attribute to malice that which can be equally explained by stupidity.)

Can you get your money back?

All that being said, if you feel like it’s a good fit, the only real thing you need to know is if you can get your money back. If so, and you think you might like it, give it a shot. Can’t hurt. Between the publisher’s refund policy, your credit card’s charge back policy and PayPal’s refunds, you’re unlikely to be totally fucked.