POWER OF FREE! #1: Intelligent Content Marketing in the Connection Economy: Laying Down Your Platform
When I wanted to put together my next business in 2011, I decided what I need to produce something completely remarkable in the Connection Economy.
When I started to rewrite a book that I had initially written in 1996, called the Hong Kong Visa Handbook, I knew that because of my experience at that time, putting high-quality content on the internet that reflected my expertise in my niche would be successful. We were successful between 1996 and 2000. But come 2011, when we looked at how the modern internet worked. We were allowed to start thinking about how the audience for the material that I have particular expertise in would respond to that material in terms of the use it was to them. Its accessibility, ultimately the value they derived from it.
Business Configuration in Connection Economy
When I understood this, I realized that I needed to configure my business on the internet in a specific way. This way didn’t cost a great deal of money. Even though I have a business partner who’s very adept at technology, I didn’t need particularly exotic technical skill sets. Certainly, the skill sets available freelance on these other sourcing websites and at a great expense. I come up effectively with a proposition that answers people’s questions and helps them solve their problems. As a result of that, we’ve turned into a publishing company.
We’ve got three significant websites. The Hong Kong visa Geeza website is where I publish four to five times each week on my niche, where I invite members to ask me questions. I will then give them a podcast answer for free within 48 hours. I understood the particular dynamics of my service niche, all the opportunities that exist for me to share my know-how and expertise for free in a manifested helpful way to people looking for assistance in that area.
So we’ve got a fully enabled mobile version of our website. We’ve got a very busy social media outreach schedule in terms of the content that we produce and how we go on to populate the various areas of the internet with our content, looking for people who might be interested in our niche. I also wanted this entire experience to be not only good from a content expert perspective but also I wanted it to be a remarkable experience.
Ideavirus in Connection Economy
I looked for opportunities to introduce remarkable mass into the proposition in interesting ways. The mere fact that a Hong Kong’s immigration expert gives all his expertise away for free is, in a sense, remarkable. But there are other ways to be remarkable, too, such as I’ve adopted a little puppet character called Hadley. Hadley is my alter ego. Hadley appears on video and says some things that perhaps I might not be saying or I might not want to say. But it gives an opportunity for something novel and unique to be part of the content mix when people connect with our brand. Because the idea is that you want to be remembered as a result of your interactions with your content.
The reason why I asked you how many people have heard about Hong Kong visa Geeza is because the Hong Kong visa Geeza is what’s known as an Ideavirus. An Ideavirus is something like the Ice Bucket Challenge, where you can associate meaningful, helpful, practical concepts with a set of words that are easy to parlay on in a virus-like fashion. That’s an Ideavirus. We strategically injected an Ideavirus into our business model, understanding that the constructs of the modern connection economy are not only online, but they’re also offline as well.
Sense of Our business
You need to give people the opportunity to pass on knowledge about your proposition in a novel and interesting yet, ultimately viral way. So this is our business. So if you didn’t know about our business, you have a sense of it now. We started it in 2011. When we put the Hong Kong visa Handbook, mark two onto the internet. We put our Hong Kong Visa Center website onto the internet at the same time. The Hong Kong Visa Center website is where we sell our stuff. The Hong Kong visa handbook is where you get everything you need for free without no pressure to buy or sell. And it took us six weeks to get our first set of paid instructions.
Then we have grown continuously to the point where we’ve doubled our revenues every year since then. We’ll do a million US dollars in sales this year. All from probably a capital base of less than 5000 US dollars.
THE REST OF THE SERIES
Getting Started
Laying Down Your Platform
Getting Smart
The Evolution
Connections & Tribes
Generosity As Strategy
Being Better Than Others
Publishing is the Key to Success
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