Tag Archives: Target Market

How To Be An Infopreneur – The Rare Art of Effective Online Marketing

Who is an infopreneur?  The new term evolved to describe a person who combines the role of an entrepreneur with that of an information creator.  An infopreneur creates (or commissions) valuable information that informs, educates or inspires its audience.  The infopreneur then turns these precious information assets into income streams in various ways.How To Be An Infopreneur - The Rare Art of Effective Online Marketingbook of success business

It’s easier to explain the concept with a concrete example.  Imagine an author who writes a book, or a professor delivering a lecture, or a craftsman recording a short movie to show off his skill.  They are all infopreneurs who can leverage the content they are creating into a source of ongoing income.  With the incredible global reach that the Internet offers today, it is possible for each of them to tap a worldwide market at affordable cost.

If you’re wondering if it might be too difficult to get started as an infopreneur, then the rest of this report will show you how easy it really can be.  Every beginner was once in the same position once, and had to learn everything about becoming an information marketer.  All it takes is to follow a sequence, one step after the other.

Dig into your reserves of knowledge and experience.  Think about what you already know well, and may even reasonably be considered an expert at.  What are the things you are good enough at to teach or explain to someone who is just starting out?  It could be a job, a hobby, a skill, or an art form.

Then consider your potential audience.  Are there people who would be interested in learning what you can teach them?  It can be a costly marketing mistake for infopreneurs to set out being obsessed about whatever they know, and disregarding what their market wants.  As an infopreneur, you will quickly learn that your target market is king or queen.  Your role is to serve them what they desire.

When you’ve hit upon the ideal information to share with your eager audience, decide the format in which you will make it available.  You can be an infopreneur who writes, or one who speaks, draws, records or meets your students in person.  The format you choose depends on your personal preferences, skills and strengths.

Chalk up your action plan next.  Your success as an infopreneur will not be automatic or instant.  You must first come up with a plan of action, backed by a powerful strategy.  Just as you wouldn’t set out on a trip without a plan and a destination, your infopreneur journey must also follow a carefully drawn up business plan.

Finally, prepare to take massive action.  Remember that infopreneurs are entrepreneurs.  They are action-oriented, purposeful and motivated people.  They think big, and believe in their dreams.  You should cultivate the same attitude and behavior. Your conviction in the quality and value of your information and the value you will add to your audience should drive you beyond any hurdles and obstacles towards success.

Along the way, be prepared to keep learning.  Information marketing changes constantly, especially when you are using a rapidly evolving technology like the Internet.  There will be many interesting twists and turns.  Staying on the cutting edge takes constant education and practice.  If this is something you’ll enjoy, there is nothing that will hold you back from massive success as an infopreneur.

The journey towards becoming an infopreneur is fun.  It may not always be an easy path to treat.  In essence, it is simple and logical.  Once you learn the rules and develop a system to get your information in front of the ideal prospects, you will find it almost effortless to keep the momentum going.  Eventually, being an infopreneur can be fulfilling and profitable.  You may not get rich in the first week or two.  But sooner or later, as the value you share becomes obvious to the people who need it, they will gather around you and happily pay to receive the value you offer.

Crowdcasting: the Game Changer

Developing new business ideas and marketing strategies pose a challenge for companies in almost every industry. The strong competition offered to internet ventures necessitates an even higher level of new innovations to create and maintain a company’s competitive edge. To fill this need, many companies are turning to a business model similar to the method used by open-source platforms, popularly known as Crowdcasting.

Through this strategy, companies build a network of users that can then be offered incentives for participating in product development, marketing ventures and other business solutions. These users/visitors are usually targeted for their knowledge and experience with the topic, but can often be any interested party.

Crowdcasting is basically the execution of pull-push strategy.

The Pull

You can build a large community of participants during the pull phase. This may take place at your website, social networking platforms and email. As the community grows, viral trends create a self-sustaining growth that can generate a large number of participants from the target market.

Listener Driven Radio, for example, has developed a platform that allows users to affect radio programming. The company then encouraged it’s listeners to sign up and take part in the music network.

The Push

Once a community has been built, you just develop a strategy to take advantage of the large pool of resources. If you are searching for a new product, you can offer incentives for the best new idea. Those in need of a large marketing campaign may have a contest to design the best new advertisement.

Companies like General Electric, Whirlpool and American Express, or example, have teamed up in the past to offer over 3,000 business students the opportunity to compete for the best new product or service. This strategy even proved itself being beneficial in the medical field. A recent Prize4Life contest award $1 Million for research on a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Crowdcasting vs. Crowdsourcing

While these two can overlap, crowdsourcing is a slightly different business strategy. In crowdsourcing, customers are broadly targeted. There are usually few requirements to participate in the organizations activities and information is typically freely disseminated.

Crowdsourcing has the benefit of attracting vast number of participants. This can greatly increase the amount of information generated during the pull-push of the crowd. However, many companies are finding that a very select group will generate higher quality products and innovations that require fewer resources to process.

Implementing the Crowd

Social networking makes the process of building a community simple. You could launch a Twitter account or Facebook page to generate a massive number of interested users. To increase the user base fast, some marketers are offering incentives to become a fan in Facebook; some are using gateway pages to unlock content in Facebook page and some are simply buying followers for twitter and fans for Facebook accounts. Depending fully on services like these may backfire. However, for experimental purposes, mix of organic growth and bot based growth could produce interesting results. I am not suggesting here to exploit or manipulate Facebook or Twitter’s services. The prospect of prizes or awards can then be used to take advantage of the network.

To simplify the process, however, you may turn to 3rd party services like Idea Crossing, Skild or similar to launch and maintain a user base or competition. This could potentially enable you to take advantage of a user base that has already been generating, saving both time and costs.