Have your product sales slowed down? Do you want to give a new lease of life to one of your digital or small-ticket products?

At home, I've earned the title of 'Queen of the left-overs'. Did you know that left-over spaghetti sauce can be recycled? Add a bit of cumin and chilli, it becomes taco sauce; mixed with a bit of white sauce, you have a lasagna sauce; add a few vegies, wrap the lot in puff pastry and you get a pastie, etc.

Using the same principles, you can recycle a product and market it using a different mix: change your promotion, sell it elsewhere, use it to barter, bundle it with another product, etc.

Start recycling a product using one of the following strategies:

1. Auction your product on eBay or another auction site. How much are customers prepared to pay for your product? Use this strategy to research your market and to experiment with a new selling outlet. Who knows, people in their bidding frenzy may pay more than you ever imagined!

2. Reposition your product. Review your promotional and pricing strategies and give your product a new image. Change your sales letter (including words and graphics), add testimonials, increase or lower the price, etc. Now sell your 'new' product.

3. Offer your product as a bonus with the purchase of another product. Sell the bundle as 'this month's special', 'buy one get one free' or 'value pack'. The bonus should boost your sales especially if you point out the dollar value of the bonus e.g. 'valued at...' and add a sense of urgency 'limite/d time offer till (date)'.

4. Give to get. Ask visitors on your website to complete a survey and reward their effort with a gift, your product. Provided your product is relevant to the type of information you are seeking, this should yield a list of qualified leads and supply you with new ideas to create products and boost your business.

5. Sell your product as a promotional item. This is a strategy I have used very successfully. I've bundled signed copies of my book from my first printing batch into packs of ten. Businesses bought them at volume discount price and gave them as gifts to their loyal customers.

6. Increase your database by giving away your product for free as an incentive to join your mailing list. Your offer can be advertised for free on the online free stuff sites. When visitors are picking up their freebies, capture their email addresses and you will gain a valuable mailing list. (Note: this database building strategy will only work with digital products or else you will be out of pocket if you have to pay shipping costs.)

7. Swap your product for things you need for your own business e.g. exchange your ebook for a software or another ebook. Your savings will make up for your profit loss. At a conference, I swapped my book for books from my colleagues.

8. Organise an online contest and offer your product as the winning prize. This a cheap price to pay for free advertising for your product through online contest directories.

9. Donate your product for an attendance or raffle prize at non-profit associations' events. In return, the organisation usually promotes your business by giving you an advertising space on their website or promotional flyers.

10. Approach businesses with complementary products and find out if they would be interested in bundling their product with yours. Build on each other's equity and share promotional costs and profits.

2005 Henriette Martel-Lawson