What is Information Marketing?
What is information marketing? Information marketing is the buying and selling of information. Information marketing has many alternative terminologies. Some call it info marketing, while others call it information product trading.
Information marketing is not something new. It has been a thriving market since ancient times. However, due to the internet, which is a massive gateway of information, and other telecommunication methods and devices, it has flourished further.
The Internet and Information marketing
As of now, the biggest information market can be found on the internet. Or one can safely say that it is the internet. Fundamentally, the net is the most convenient place to find, provide, and exchange information. Not only that it allows two entities to do information marketing from anywhere in the globe, but it also allows fast communication.
How Information Marketers Starts Their Business
The simplest form of information marketing that is prominent on the online world is blogging. Apparently, blog sites are good information resources. Most information marketers start their information marketing adventure by blogging.
Choosing the Niche for Information marketing
However, before they begin posting something on their blogs or perform information marketing, they plan first. The most important part of their plan is the niche market that they will choose or target. For them to know which niche will be best for them, they consider the following:
- Extensiveness of the Niche – The extensiveness of the niche will determine how much information they can retrieve, provide, and sell. If the niche is broad, they will have more information and opportunities to sell. For example, choosing the niche interior designing instead of home plumbing is more profitable since the scope of the former is bigger than the latter. Technically, the marketer will have more info to sell.
- Information Demand of the Niche’s Target Audience – In this market, supply and demand must be always monitored. Even if the marketer chooses an extensive niche, but it is not in demand, he will not be able to sell. For example, one can generate a lot of informational content about interior designing, but somebody who is selling info about weight loss can gain more profit than he can since more people demand information about how they can lose weight.
- Niche Market Saturation – The saturation of the niche market he will choose is another consideration that the internet marketer must research and analyse. Again, it is all about supply and demand. If the supply is greater than the demand, the opportunities to profit become less than expected.
- Dynamics of the Niche Market – As an info marketer, one must think about his supply of information while information marketing. Unfortunately, information seekers do not buy the same information twice. Because of that, it is essential that the information marketer can provide fresh and authentic information. Even if the market is saturated, but if an information marketer has a supply of new information that nobody has, he will still profit. Technically, he will have the upper hand when it comes to the supply and demand of new information.
- Research Skills and Expertise of the Marketer – And lastly, the marketer must check if he is capable of providing the information he can sell and information marketing. Creating sellable information does not rely on research skills alone. High familiarity with the niche is also needed. However, this can be bypassed. Explanation about that statement will be discussed later.
Medium to Use for the Product
The next thing that the marketer must decide upon is the medium of the information he will provide. On the internet, information can be sold or marketed in multiple formats. A few of those are articles, whitepapers, eBooks, presentations, podcasts, and videos.
Information Generation
To get past the planning stage, he must finalize it by determining who will create the content that he will sell. It is not necessary that he will generate his product by himself. He has the option to hire somebody else to do that job. His clients or target audience would not mind anyway as long as they get what they want.
Marketing the Right Type of Information
Once all of those previous steps are done, the info marketer can start researching and generating his content. However, it is essential that he knows the kind of information people need or might need. To cut to the chase, it is important that he provide content that can solve problems. Informational content is not enough. Although some people search for that kind of content, most people who buy or search information can help them fix some of their issues.
For example, people who want to lose weight do not want to know what losing weight means only. They want to know how they can do it. The marketer must provide the solution to their problem, which is obesity. The solution can be in form of how to’s, guides, or tips and tricks.
Setting Up the Place to Sell the Information
When the content is ready, it is time for the marketer to setup his stall on the marketplace. On the World Wide Web, his store will be in a form of website. On that site, he will put all the information he wants to sell. By the way, he can let somebody else to do this task.
Marketing the Information
Of course, if nobody knows that the site or marketer exists, nobody will buy from him. Because of that, it is time to do the real job at hand, which is marketing. On the internet, it is both easy and difficult to market products. That is especially true when it comes to information. On one hand, it is easy since a marketer can easily find where he can market and attract people. On the other hand, it is difficult because of the competition. The internet is a global market, and it is common sense to assume that there are already more than a hundred marketers selling on every niche known to man.
Information Marketing in a Nut Shell
Information marketing seems to be very profitable due to its richness and vastness. At the same time, information marketing can be very daunting, especially for those who have little experience on how the internet works.