The Information Product Business Is Dying & How You Can Cash In On This Phenomenon
By: Dr. Enigma Valdez, C.H. | Posted: 20th February 2006
In recent years, the information business has grown exponentially. Information products are newsletters, ebooks, cd's, video clips, workbooks, seminars, and teleconferences, mp3s, and so forth. They are what you can compile and sell to other individuals who want to model your business, hobbies, accomplishments, or lifestyle.
What kind of business can be considered as information marketing? A business that qualifies as information marketing is any profession, trade, hobby, interest, or passion. The information age has allowed lawyers, doctors, judges, celebrities, plumbers, service people, and other individuals to quit their full time jobs.
You have heard of "The Lazy Man's Way To Riches", but the ones who have been the movers and shakers are not lazy at all. A well-know marketing expert and copywriter by the name of Dan Kennedy has taken Information Marketing to the masses.
The sharing of information for money has produced a ton of videos, cd programs, speeches, seminars, infomercials, and the list is growing.
There are predictions about the information age, that info-product businesses are dying. This is sending a cold chill to those of us who have spent thousands of hours, money, and heart in developing marketing strategies to sell these products.
Of course this can be seen with the downloading of illegal software, documents, and ebooks. Others are illegally copying products and distributing them. If your product can be copied it is worthless. It will end up on any of the dozens peer-to-peer sharing consoles, eBay, amazon.com and other websites. If your consumers have contact with each other then you will not be able to prevent them from stealing your product and sharing it.
For every 50 units that you are supposed to sell you may only sell 5, and the rest will be copied 10 times over again.
Aiport bookstores are "renting" books, that let you read them and return them. They are making money over and over again off just one book. Movies can be downloaded off the Internet before they are released in theatres.
Everybody who is dealing in information products of any sort is headed toward extinction.
Is there a solution to this?
Yes, in order to stay ahead of the game, you will have to change your approach to this
Yes there is a solution. Like everything else, this business is evolving. You will have to
change your entire approach, and very quickly.
Information products will still be sold, although a large portion of it will be distributed illegally. It will play a role in most information businesses, but the role will change. The product will only survive for a short term.
First it will still be used as an entry level purchase by a new client, who is then moved to another role.
This role is tied to purchasing a membership. The information product is only part of a more complex concept. Most of the parts of this kind of "product" are not product at all. An example could be that of a franchise. You get books, manuals, tapes, and advertising material by being part of a franchise. These are all information products, but without the franchise, these materials will have no value.
The product is incidental to a deliverable format that is impossible to illegally copy and share with others. This change will occur in almost every single information business in the future.
By intentionally designing your information to be copied and distributed as free content, you will be eliminating piracy because there will be no profit in what is given away for free. If you combine this strategy with the second strategy you may totally eliminate piracy of your intellecutal property.
If the only thing that can be copied is free, and the other things you sell cannot be copied, thieves will ignore you and move on to other prey.
Another approach is to do like Disney does. They just take a product like "Cinderella" and put it on a DVD with a little extra footage, advertise it for several weeks. Then they say they will only make it available for a couple of weeks, put it out for 20 something weeks and then snatch it back off the market for a year or so.
By the time thieves are selling it, Disney's made their money and has moved on. By the time Disney starts the process out again, the illegal stuff has been washed up from the market. The same thing happened with Harry Potter's book. In a week or two it was all lover. This may also work for some information marketers when they are selling their products.
The real value comes if you combine your strategies. Keep in mind that every product has a head (the information product) and a tail (the context of non-product deliverable information, such as membership)
About the Author
You are free to reprint this article, granted that you have live links to the author's websites on your sites and material.
Enigma Valdez is an Internet Marketer dedicated to helping businesses succeed. You can reach him at enigma007@charter.net or visit his websites at Http://www.Enigma-Valdez.com and http://resultsbasedmarketing.blogspot.com
http://sevenfigurecopywriter.blogspot.com/
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Tags: information age, amazon, marketing strategies, ebay, information products, lazy man, copywriter, infomercials, bookstores, movers and shakers, time jobs, information business, information marketing