On one side of The Free Line is information that you get for free. On the other side, information you pay for. Pretty simple.
Information marketers such as the uber-successful Eben Pagan like to talk about “Moving The Free Line.” Instead of giving away a nickel’s worth of information, give away hundreds of dollars worth of information. Then, the theory goes, you can sell thousands of dollars worth of information. (Or, if you’re Pagan, tens of millions of dollars of information.)
But there are a couple of rockstar types – actual rockstars in this new digital world, not just guys or gals who say they are rockstars – with, arguably, completely different approaches to The Free Line.
Chris Brogan. Most things he touches turn to gold – he wrote a best seller called Trust Agents, and he’s constantly out there speaking and meeting with people. (Gee, he even has a Small Business Newsletter.) (And he gave us one of the more popular posts from the Area 224 blog last year; an interview you can read here.)
A Brogan Approach to The Free Line – a $9.97 a month blog advisory service. Which is interesting because, as someone who has been out there in the blogosphere since before it was called that (1998, according to his site), there is a TON of information out there from Chris, about blogging, that you can get for free.
Here, The Free Line is moved way into the expensive category, and the “Pay Line” is at under $10 a month. So the value here is not just in the how-to you’ll get from the newsletter, but in the fact that Chris Brogan is aggregating his own information, sharing with you the good stuff in regular intervals, and using the service to help “coach” you along.
So, when we learned that Ferriss was coming out with a new book called “The 4-Hour Body,” we pre-ordered it. So, apparently, did about a zillion other people, as the book is now number 4 on the Amazon best-seller list.
A Ferriss Approach to The Free Line – One concept in his newest book is called “The Slow Carb Diet.” Given my own age and newfound need for middle management, I am diving in with both feet and giving this diet a whirl.
Now, Ferriss has always been a proponent of “the companion site” – where anyone with a copy of the book can login and get so much more information than is found in the book. Worksheets, tools, links, those sorts of things. NOTE: “anyone with a copy of the book” meant, in the case of The 4-Hour Workweek, a password would be something like “the fifth word in the third chapter.” If you can’t find that somewhere, you probably don’t deserve all of the “free” content.
What intrigues this cub reporter about The Free Line for The 4-Hour Body is the Slow Carb Cookbook. Cookbooks are a unique animal – and another one that has changed because of the onset of the Internet. This one, available via instant, free, PDF download, is one that could be dressed up in hardcover and sold in stores for $20.
What he’s giving you is less of a cookbook and more of The Manifesto to the Slow Carb Movement.
Your Own Free Line
Where do you draw the line? How much do you give away? How much is free?
Maybe you’ve got a $30 E-Book, but you need to explain to the world that you can deliver on $3000 worth of content first.
Maybe you’re a high-priced consultant and you charge hundreds an hour – but you need to demonstrate that you are indeed worth that much.
In any event, don’t be afraid to draw The Free Line – and figure out when to move it, what to hold back, and how much to charge for your expertise.
Thanks, hucksters. (Image: The Mysterious Marketer)
Snowtorious BIG will pass away, but Social Media Hucksters…
Half my time here at Area 224 HQ is spent planning, strategizing, executing. (Writing is part of that mix. Creating, too.) The other half – yes, that much! – is spent on the web: interacting, surfing, “engaging” – learning.
It’s the learning – since I don’t have all the answers – the LEARNING that is the most valuable.
Part of this learning takes me to the far corners of the Internet. The outer reaches of craptastic marketing, of poorly planned and even worse-executed Social Media Hucksterism.
For every good guy – like Jim Alexander, whose path I first crossed two years ago, while discussing the spambots who tried to sell us all Multi-level Marketing schemes – there seem to be literally hundreds of, well, not-so-good guys. (And not-so-good gals, either.)
And Guess What? The not-so-good guys are the ones who will sell you tactics, disguised as strategy, not fulfilling any business objectives whatsoever.
Wanna know something else about the not-so-good guys? They will gladly take your money. AND they will buy your business – they’d rather undercut everyone out there and use the pre-wrapped Social Media In A Box solution to shoehorn into your business needs. If they ever ASK about your business needs.
One of the far corners of the Internet gave me this quote – pulled from the comments on a legitimate site’s post about monitoring your social media presence:
“There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding social media in the past decade. Social media marketing can be a powerful tool if used correctly. It can contribute to Search Engine Optimization and it can be used to keep a relationship with existing clients.”
What. The. Facebook?
Time to go viral on their @$$es.
Is there any wonder that Ad people think Social Media Gurus are a bunch of slick know-nothings? And that PR people think Social Media Ninjas are full of crap? And Social Media Rockstars – don’t get us started on them…
The point? Be Careful Out There.
Don’t fall into the trap. We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again:
Going Social Without Business Objectives is a Recipe for Disaster.
I’ll leave the advice on “finding a publisher” to the others. I’d rather share a one-two-three punch – some things you can do like, right now.
1. Lulu. Big-Time Advantage – Getting an actual copy of your stuff. For some people, tangible is great – hold it in your hands, dog-ear the pages. Some people like to read on a bus or a train.
For me, getting an actual copy of my stuff was done for THIS REASON:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfd_8Gp-kgo
Tangible Proof of Expertise. Positioning.
Not done for the sales numbers – checks are nice to cash, but that’s not the real reason for writing this particular book. This one was all about a means to position me in front of more real estate industry clients as someone who knows what I’m talking about.
2. Kindle.Big-Time Advantage – Selling Your Content Lickety-Split. I hang out from time to time in Internet Marketing circles – but not with the Social Media Tools but with people who share information that can actually help me do my job better. One such guy is a James J. Jones, and his techniques for putting together content that can be sold on the Kindle Platform are rather cool.
I’m not gonna talk about his techniques, though. Instead, I’ll share this bit of advice:
If you have written a book, or have even written a few chapters of a book, get it on the Kindle Platform NOW.
How easy is it? I sat in on a one-hour webinar from Mr. Jones and multi-tasked. While he was sharing his grand strategy, I was signing up to publish my book.
3. Nichification.Big-Time Advantage – There’s a niche you’re already in. Still a big fan of the term “Nichification.” Still eventually going to write a book on that very topic – Jim Alexander and I are still talking to people about it, doing interviews, blah blah blah.
But, while we went down the path of “write a mass market advice book on niche business marketing,” I would encourage you to take a look at “writing a niche-focused book on a niche topic that you know something about.”
It’s a big world out there – 400,000 Kindle titles published last year alone. And, if you’ve read the classic “The Long Tail,” you’ll know full well that there’s an audience for just about anything.
F’rinstance…real estate social media marketing.
Publishers – the types who want the next The 4-Hour Workweek – will need to see Social Proof these days. If you’re a Scott Stratten or an Amber Naslund and Jay Baer, your social proof is already evident in the last few years of, well, being you.
Your Social Proof can be – and, in this world, should be – seen in the fact that you can put your thoughts to digital paper, and put that digital paper into people’s hands. You don’t have to sell a million. Or even a thousand.
Do you have a publisher? No? Doesn’t matter – best way to prove your mettle as a writer is to actually get out there and write something. And use the three tactics above to, well, change your title from “writer” to “Author.”
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Here's where our money is...Only one of the two businesses, to borrow from Jim Collins’ book title, is Built to Last. Our money’s on Gilt Groupe.
Much has been said about the Daily Deal phenomenon. When a two-year old site such as Groupon grows so quickly that it is able to spurn an acquisition offer from Google – to the tune of a much-ballyhooed $6 Billion offer – well, we’ve got a new phenomenon called “Social Commerce.”
But, did Groupon “invent” Social Commerce? You could argue about that til the cows come home but here’s a fact: Gilt Groupe has been around longer. It operates in the fashion and luxury brand niche.
And Gilt will “beat” Groupon. We’ll tell you why, but first a caveat.
We’re not defining “beat” as force Groupon out of business. But, in this case, we’re talking about long-term success. Groupon shows no signs of slowing – but we think that Gilt has a better long-term business model. Simply put, Gilt Groupe is Built to Last.
Reason 1: Product. Not only does Gilt have better product, in this case they actually HAVE product. Groupon is nice and all, what with the deep discounts on restaurants and other local experiences. The product they offer, though, is rather virtual. You buy a coupon, you go to the retailer, you take advantage of the deal, you get your stuff – food, services, whatever. Done.
Since Gilt focuses on fashion, they have the advantage of tangibility. Even though you’re not buying a Gilt-branded pair of jeans, you are getting the item from Gilt.
You don’t shop at Groupon – but you do shop at Gilt.
Reason 2: Exclusivity. “Membership has its privileges.” When Gilt started in 2007, it was downright impossible to get an invite. Only members could get access to the deals, and that kept the riff-raff away and also kept “scarcity” as a selling point.
Only 100 of these jeans will be sold. Only 10,000 of you have a membership. Fight for ’em. In…3…2…1.
Restaurants that use Groupon aren’t exclusive ones – they are ones that want to get people through the door and are willing to deeply discount their product to do so. This dovetails nicely to reason 3:
Reason 3: Valuing the Product. Let’s say you’ve got a restaurant and it costs you $50 to produce a meal for two people that you end up charging them $60 for. (20% markup is rich in the restaurant industry, but go with us here.) To work with Groupon, you’ve got to discount that $60 meal to $30. You’ve then got to give Groupon $15 of the $30 that you sell the Groupon for.
(Oh, and if you work with Groupon in the first place, you probably don’t have a handle on what your marketing budget is, so you’re willing to throw money at the next big thing.)
I won’t get into the math behind what it takes to get the people in the seats; but I will say that your restaurant experience better be really worthwhile – otherwise, you have conditioned your visitors to expect your food at half price, and you have soaked yourself in the process.
Meanwhile, back with the fashionistas…It’s widely known that markups in retail are huge. Like, well, sometimes it costs $1 to make a pair of jeans that gets sold for $250.
Since Gilt is dealing with an industry that is used to this – and since Gilt knows that the manufacturers have “stuff” leftover (maybe they ordered too many blue shirts in XL, or whatever) – they can turn the numbers into a win/win/win.
Quick, over-simplified example: Jeans that get sold at a boutique for $250 are probably bought wholesale by the boutique from the brand for $100. The brand itself makes a markup of at least $50 – covering its costs to get the product from the manufacturing floor to their own warehouse.
The brand is also sitting on inventory that must be sold – so if it sits there unused, the value of it keeps going down.
So Gilt approaches the brand and says they’ll buy the items for something north of cost, but south of markup. Let’s say $75 – but with the stipulation that they must move a certain number of pairs of jeans or else there’s no deal. Then, not needing an insane markup to make its “nut,” Gilt goes with a figure of $125 – a deep discount, but still, frankly, an expensive pair of jeans that not everyone can afford.
Win/win/win – jeans brand, Gilt, customer. The first two are big winners – and the customer also gets access to a product that still has cachet – it’s a luxury brand, but at a value price.
Reason 4: Long-term relationship building. I love this one the most as a brand marketer: the way Gilt treats the brands it works with.
Without getting into the vagaries – which you can certainly find if you do a little sleuthing – suffice it to say that every facet of the brand-Gilt relationship is structured as a win/win. From how they pay brands – wiring the money – to how they search for deals that are treated as exclusives (you’ve gotta love that if you’re an emerging footwear maker or make suits) – this is a brand marketer’s dream: a killer relationship with a partner that wants everyone to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Groupon doesn’t want its partners and customers to succeed.
But the proposition to the brand starts off almost immediately on the wrong foot.
Groupon to Brand: “Discount your product at least half, then we’ll talk.”
Gilt to Brand: “What luxury items can we help sell for you in a way that makes everyone a winner?”
It’s not a question of which business model we like better – both are viable, both are built to scale. But, if you had to ask which one is Built To Last – our money’s on Gilt Groupe.
