What Is The Next Marketing Frontier?

A free article on Marketing

Online marketers have relied on eBooks to generate massive amounts of money. People are willing to pay for information. But, writing an eBook and selling it do not always go together. Many marketers have a great idea, write an eBook, then realize no one is willing to pay for a few pages of information.

The mark-up is great, the profits are great, but only if there are buyers. Now a new marketing trend has emerged, information plus software.
We all know software is a big business, just look at Microsoft, but have you noticed how it is being offered along with eBooks and other information products lately?

Many information marketers are discovering that software has a higher perceived value than an eBook. By offering software or combining software with an eBook, marketers do not have to fight for sales.

The information business has just completed a circle. In the 80's and 90's there were no real eBooks but there was software. Software of that time included a big manual explaining how to use the software and explaining more general ideas about why you need the software. It was an information book combined with software. In time software makers stopped including expensive printed manuals and they became digital. When software developers began designing intuitive software, manuals were no longer needed and simple help files were included. Today, marketers have discovered that by adding information back to software, you can greatly increase the value of both.

In the mind of the buyer, anyone can write an eBook. Everyone is familiar with using a word processor and making PDF files these days. However, writing software is still a mystical and mysterious process to most.

Some savvy marketers have discovered a shortcut to creating software. It is a secret that requires no programming skill and is easy on the pocketbook. This gives the marketer a custom program they can put their name on, that promotes their website, which they have exclusive legal rights to and can sell as a download millions of times.

Site visitors who might have been uninterested in another eBook on using AdWords, or another eBook on making a million dollars in twenty seconds, or ANOTHER eBook on eBay marketing secrets, suddenly becomes very interested when they are shown a software tool that will do the work for them.

I am sure you are wondering what the shortcut to creating software is. It turns out that there are thousands of programmers, ghostwriters, web designers, and others online who are seeking short term, one time job employment. These people can work remotely, from their own homes writing computer programs, designing webpages or even writing eBooks. You hire them for a fixed price, they do the job, then you sell their product and keep 100% of the profits. Any marketer can see the appeal of this system. It means you can hire someone else to do the work and you can put your time and effort into marketing instead of development.

Using these types of remote workers also gives a smart marketer the power to do things outside their skill set. Most Entrepreneurs want to do everything themselves. They write their own eBook, design their own webpage, develop their own product, do their own marketing. Smart marketers have learned they can have others do the heavy work for them, pull together the result and sell it with much less effort.

It is not all roses when hiring people remotely. What guarantee do you have that they will do a good job or do the job at all? How do you handle tax issues or know the person can be trusted? Hiring someone directly is filled with problems and risks.

Fortunately, there are many respected and established websites that act as intermediaries and take care of all the legal and management tasks. They have polished the system so well, that anyone can sign up at one of these websites and hire a computer programmer in minutes.

The management website keeps the money in escrow and it is not released to the worker until the buyer is satisfied with the completed work. The buyer also has all rights to the final product so no writer can ever demand a percentage of royalties later and no coder can claim they own a percentage of your company. Creating software, websites, or eBooks is called a work-for-hire and the buyer owns all rights to the final product. Let's recap, you hire someone, they do the work, you own the exclusive rights and you can sell the product forever.

All you need is an idea. Then you can find a programmer, let them create the product, and sell it for much more than you would receive for an eBook alone.
One marketer recently improved their eBook offer by creating a free bonus software program that identifies which organic Google search listings display Adwords ads. This is important information for anyone wanting to target high traffic sites with placement ads and here is a simple program that does the work for you. Another example is the keyword analyzer. This is a piece of software that analyzes the top search results for a given keyphrase and then tells you what keywords are in the HTML documents of the top results. You no longer have to look through HTML code to see what your top ranked competitors are using for their keywords. Another company had a programmer create a backup program, to backup the data on your harddrive to a USB drive. This was a simple program to create and required no technical know-how on the part of the marketer. He told the programmer what he wanted and they wrote it. Then the marketer started giving the software away. Every person who downloaded it, saw a big link to the marketers website. They came for the free software then were enticed by the eBook offer.

Simple programs like these can be very popular because they are easy to understand, easy to use, and for the developer, easy and cheap to make.
How cheap? Hiring programmers is not as expensive as hiring someone to work by the hour. Many simple programs can be created between $50 and $500. Then you can sell the software for $20 to $100 per download forever. Usually there is a disclaimer right here saying these numbers are not typical, but these numbers are actually very typical. In many countries $200 is a monthly wage.

Programmers in these countries are happy to work on a $200 project for a week. They make more than they would at any other job in their own country.

When you are putting together your next eBook, ask yourself if you can add value to it by creating a simple software program to go with it. You may even create a free program that you can give away to promote your eBook or information product.

Information about the Author: You can find a list of websites with programmers and other workers at rent-a-coder.y3s.net and you can find more information on creating information products at www.dontbidonit.com/minibusinessclass/lesson2/lesson2-offer.htm By Micha Marketing Articles: http://www.article-buzz.com

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