How Do Infopreneurs Reach Their Customers?

How Do Infopreneurs Reach Their Customers?
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Job Number One

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The most important job coinciding with providing info the audience wants is finding that audience. Many infopreneurs make the mistake of thinking that by writing the perfect masterpiece, readers will magically float to their site. With 50 million blogs in 2006 and that number doubling every six months, seldom is that true.

When Arianna Huffington started The Huffington Post, she went on as many political media outlets as would have her, to talk about politics. She advertised in political magazines and newspapers and continues to make media appearances and market her magazine. Bringing people to your info-ladened table is the most important task for developing a successful business enterprise. It’s one thing to write a blog, it’s quite another to rake in over $2 million a month in advertising dollars like The Huffington Post does.

Video Marketing

Web video is the fastest growing media in history. Video sites such as You Tube, Brightcove and Daily Motion offer infopreneurs a place to sell their wares. These sites allow bloggers, business owners and whoever else wants to dispense information to post videos on their websites for their millions of viewers to find. However, many businesses don’t take the time to post on video sites because they think they need to hire a professional media company and pay big bucks to put together a slick, Hollywood looking commercial.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Readers want to connect with bloggers. One of the simplest ways to do this is post video stating your opinion on a topic you’ve written about and providing the information about where they can find more of your content. According to video expert, Dave Kiminski, founder of Web Video University, you can post videos with a $150 flip camera. However, that won’t provide vibrant video. Here’s what he recommends:

  • Use cameras from Canon’s VIXIA line that have an external microphone jack
  • Buy a lavelier mic (it easily clips to the inside of your shirt, making it easy to hide)
  • SD video (unless you have the resources to work with HD which requires at least 4 GB of memory for editing)
  • Movie Maker or iMovie (Free editing programs to start with)
  • Then move to Sony’s Vegas for PCs, or Final Cut for Macs

If the thought of presenting video is off-putting, start with Screen Shots with voice-over or by putting Podcasts on your site and talking to your readers about your opinions and insights on the information or articles you’ve provided. Keep in mind that putting Podcasts on your site does little good unless you have built up an audience or readership. Posting videos to other sites with millions of viewers provides you with more exposure.

Social Marketing

Smart info-providers rely more and more on social marketing to get their messages to interactive readers or viewers. Marketing used to be a one-way street. With the power of social media becoming more apparent to businesses, it’s become an important way of connecting with fans. You’ll find people who agree and disagree, and you’ll hear from both. Each will make the information you provide more accurate and more relevant.

A social marketing campaign should consist of the following basic social media:

  • Facebook: Even if your audience isn’t on Facebook, they know someone who is.
  • LinkedIn: This is a network that allows you to have an extended business card or flyer you can update as often as you want
  • Twitter: Short and to the point, interacting with others on Twitter helps you market your information and find readers, listeners or viewers

These platforms provide you with visibility and allow you to promote yourself as the authority on your topic. As you grow you can add more social sites, but these are the ones that will provide you with the biggest numbers of social media users.

Traditional Media

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Newspapers, magazines, television and radio shows promote products every day. By positioning yourself as the authority in your field, you can dispense media releases regularly and send them to thousands of media outlets.

For a fee starting at about $100, public relation firms such as PRWeb, MarketWire and PRNewsWire will write media releases and send them to thousands of media outlets on your behalf. You can also pen the release yourself and have them send it out.

Many savvy business owners cleverly tie themselves to a national news event by sending timely PR releases. That strategy alone can land you dozens of media interviews.

However, don’t give up if you send out press releases and busy media types don’t eagerly respond. They’re bombarded by emails and media releases, but often keep a list of experts on-hand they like to use. It may take you awhile and several attempts to get on that list, but once you do, they’ll rely on you again and again when your topic comes up.

Providing info to customers means infopreneurs must find ways to reach them. By making marketing a priority and finding low or no-cost ways of continually letting your audience know you’re out there, you’ll build a steady stream of loyal consumers.

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