When it comes right down to brass tacks, I would say every Internet business owner should consider herself or himself an information publisher.
It seems to me that all business web site owners need to be publishers of:
a) website information;
b) sales letter copy;
c) site content in the chosen niche;
d) products in digital or hard copy form;
e) blog content;
f) email communications;
g) customer service responses;
h) advertising / marketing copy;
i) articles and press releases;
j) probably other things I'm forgetting about ...
My point is, whether you consider yourself to be an info marketer or not, you really need to pay close attention to your publishing (i.e. putting it out on the net or in emails) and how it can affect your overall business.
Fred Gleeck is an info marketer extraordinaire. He has authored over 15 books, literally spoken hundreds of times a year about info marketing for many years now, been a recognized authority at numerous high dollar seminars, and a consultant with many companies regarding their own marketing, customer relations, info presentations, etc.
Fred also publishes his own information products in written, audio, and video formats.
I was very interested in what he has to say because he is known as "the King of Content."
If there was ever an Internet marketing information expert that you ought to pay attention to, it would be Fred Gleeck. You can read all about him at Fred's home site.
I have been most impressed with Fred's contention that all information marketers need to employ publishing "systems" in order to be effective and successful at selling information.
What are systems? They are processes or procedures that the owner puts into place in order to handle or execute certain functions of the information business. Your business systems, once in place, leverage your time and effort so that a certain amount of automation and integration can transpire without your unending and continuous personal attention to every single activity and task.
Here are the systems Fred says Internet publishers will benefit from employing:
1. Back Office Online System. Your information business needs to have a system in place for taking customer orders, processing credit cards or other forms of payment, maintaining your database of customers, tracking your ads, and much more.
2. Domain Name Registration System. Most serious information marketers have a need for numerous domain names. Best practices suggest that every product or unique offering is promoted most effectively from its own top level domain. It's easy to track, renew, and even sell domains from a single system that is set up in advance by the business owner.
3. Creating and Publishing Web Sites. Fred suggests setting up more than one web site for an information business. In fact, you will most likely end up with numerous sites and having an integrated system for handling this area of your business makes a lot of sense. But rather than paying for custom web design, Fred is a proponent of using WordPress and professional templates that are readily available.
He also suggests hosting all your web sites yourself - which just happens to be the next system you must have.
4. Web Site Hosting. Making web sites and pushing them online is different than having a system to host your sites. Again, it will pay dividends for you to host your sites from a central system that you have set up and can manage without outside assistance. There are an infinite number (it seems) of companies that you can choose from for your hosting system but it certainly pays to do your homework and pick one that is reliable, inexpensive, has the right options for your purposes, and is totally secure.
5. Video Email. I was a little surprised by Fred's inclusion of this system as a "must have" component of information marketing businesses. But he insists it increases your email conversion (closing) rate and adds features that improve your communications beyond just the written email systems. Video email accounts can be set up for as little as $10/month. To be honest, I had never given video email a second thought!
6. Continuity (Membership) Site Software. If you desire to keep some or all of your content (information) secure so that it is only accessed by paying members, it is smart to have a dedicated system set up on the site for that purpose rather than using unpublished URLs, etc, for the purpose. Such software varies greatly in its cost according to the features present, but setting up a system that is integrated with other systems on your site makes for the greatest efficiencies and least amount of work for you, as the business owner.
7. Tracking the Competition. Fred believes you need a system in place for following your competition's activities, products, marketing, publishing, etc. Not only will you get ideas about things you could be doing in your own business, you will also know what you need to do to beat the competition at their own game.
You can find out for yourself what systems Fred recommends for each of these areas - I will not divulge his personal favorites here.
The point is, you need to leverage yourself and your time if you are an info marketer, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to set into place a series of integrated processes (systems) that will work together to execute the various tasks needed for this kind of business.
One of your main considerations should be to make sure that all the systems on your web site combined accomplish their tasks in a seamless, smooth, and efficient way. I couldn't agree more!
