Publishing – #4 Of The 6 ‘P’s in Profit
Continuing this series to explain why there are 6 ‘P’s in Profit, so far we have dealt with the first 3:
- Plan
- Prioritise
- Produce
You may well notice that these first three are, basically, the product creation process with a great mass of activity crammed into #3 ‘Produce’ where you create what it is that you have decided (Planned) to sell and make profit from.
The remaining 3 our of our 6 ‘P’s cover the marketing phase, the first step of which is to Publish your creation.
It makes no difference whether you are building a cruise ship or writing a digital ebook, this is the point when you take the wraps off and publish your creation to the world.
In the case of a cruise ship this is when you have completed construction, launched your ship down the slipway, finished fitting out and now you can start distributing publicity brochures and booking forms and you are ready to start taking orders.
The same applies if you have created a simple digital ebook. It’s written, converted into pdf format with a nice graphic image and loaded up on your site with a Paypal button and you are ready to start taking orders.
You can apply the same process whether you are building some enormous skyscraper building or selling tickets to a local raffle. At some stage you move from the product creation phase into marketing and this occurs when you publish your product.
So you take my point that it makes no difference what sort of business you are running; selling ebooks on line, building ocean liners or running an existing business of any kind, the basic process of making profits remains the same.
Applying this to Online Marketing our main focus here is to take advantage of the potential of online marketing. So lets take a look at what happens when you publish online.
Again, let’s not forget you can split this activity into 2 types; There are existing offline businesses where you are looking to improve the potential of the existing assets and resources by publishing some of your knowledge and expertise online in order to unlock additional profits – as well as businesses that are working entirely online with digital products
In fact, it is actually offline businesses that frequently demonstrate the greatest profit potential. If you have a successful business offline then you have already confirmed that you have located a profitable niche and an accessible market that is prepared to buy. What you want now is more of the same – to access a bigger market by removing the physical restrictions and going online.
Now what happens if you can both make more money from your existing market as well as reach a far bigger market online? The potential is enormous.
Your Virtual Real Estate
To communicate effectively and spread the information (i.e. to publish) the information about your product or service you will need to have planned the tools you are going to use to achieve this during step 1, Planning.
Your online tools will include:
- your website and blog
- Facebook business Page,
- Twitter stream,
- Youtube channel,
- Linkedin account
… and many other online platforms where you can create your own identity with virtual real estate and people can find you.
From these online platforms you can educate visitors and prospects into a frame of mind in which they are more likely to buy from you as well as direct them by various means to your website or other location where they can buy.
Your Product
The internet was designed and intended for the communication of information and has three major advantages;
- speed,
- automation and;
- reach.
So the online world is entirely focused on the digital product. As a result, offline businesses frequently miss out because they do not see how pure information might figure in their business model.
Someone selling lawnmowers and gardening equipment doesn’t see how a digital ebook can help their business. However, consider that someone buying a lawnmower is buying a tool by which they will put into practice the information that they know about how to keep their lawn in good condition.
But their information is extremely limited. They know they should cut the grass – but very little more. They don’t know why they should do it, the best way to do it or even when to do it.
Don’t you think they would like to know when they should cut the grass and what length they should cut it in different conditions?
If you provide this sort of information then they are likely to be grateful to you for the help you have provided. You also lodge in their mind that you know what you are talking about and you made their lives easier.
So next time that they have a similar problem who are they likely to turn to first? Yes, that’s you. You’ve become the expert on grass as far as they are concerned. You don’t believe me?
Just do a Google search for “lawn doctor” and see how many results you get – then take a look at www.lawndoctor.com to see the site that spawned the ‘lawn doctor’ name that all the others have picked up on to see someone who built their entire business on grass!
So, what’s the lesson to be drawn from this? Even if you think your business is entirely physical there is bound to be some way that you can make some part of your information digital. Once you do this then the the internet gives you the means to communicate and distribute that information widely – and fast!
What’s more, the automation enables you to respond just as quickly and effectively to whatever response you get from your visitors. As a consequence you can start to move them through the marketing process that leads to to a sale and subsequently to repeat sales. You can also adapt your response according to what you learn from them – so you can move into related market niches.
This is the strength of online marketing and how it can add substantially to your existing offline business. By publishing your information online, whether it is:
- a product or service that you can provide online
- marketing information about your product or service
- simple participation in social media so that you become more visible to your potential market
Publishing;
-
your product – which you’ve always done;
-
your marketing material – reaches a bigger audience online
-
your own and your business’ activities – that you could never afford the time or money to do before is now possible online.
All of these amount to Publishing in our 6 ‘P’s process and position you as someone who has something to offer to your prospects.
Now comes the task of turning your prospects into customers and that is the where Participation comes in, the 5th ‘P’ in our 6 ‘P’s in Profit and inextricably connected to that last point of publishing your activities.
Look out for our next post about Participation in your marketplace.
