What's the difference between:

• A detailed blog post that anyone can read for free, whenever they want,
• a free report/ebook that is offered as an incentive for signing up to someone's list and
• a paid report/ebook for around 10 bucks?

Hint: It's not the content.

The Difference that Makes the Difference

The difference between those three options is marketing.

Each is a digital piece of information and the information could be similar or identical. I've seen blog posts with more valuable information than most ebooks contain. There's no real correlation between the value of the information and it's price.

The difference is simply that something you have to pay for is being marketed differently than something free or almost free (sign-up).

Language

Ok, so far it's been a bit captain obvious in here, so let me take this two steps further.

The language used to promote the information can drastically change, depending on whether it's free or not. A subject that might be treated rationally and casually in a free blog post, will often suddenly be elevated to an amazing, secretive, powerful thing with the capacity to change people's lives in a heartbeat.

In other words, stuff gets hyped up to generate sales.

Interestingly, some bloggers use the hypey language in almost all of their posts as well.

Perceived Value

This is the big one. The thing is that the price tag attached to an object goes a long way in influencing how valuable we perceive that object to be.

It may be a bit of a cliché, but modern art does present some interesting examples of this. Not to say that all modern art is just rubbish that "anyone could do", but at the very least, we need to acknowlegde that many of the consumers of art cannot really tell the difference between rubbish that no-one in particular created and some "real" work of art.

If the random looking jumble of objects has a flashy name and ridiculous price-tag attached, people will see art. If it has neither, they will see litter.

Another famous example comes from the wine-world, where we know that most people will believe (and feel) that a wine coming from a bottle with an expensive price is better than wine from a cheap bottle, even if the contents are identical.

What's the Point?

What does this mean for us marketers?

I don't know, but I know that for me, it means being more confident in my own work.

I specialize in video production and video marketing. Because of this, I buy practically every product on this subject that I can find. Want to stay in the know about what the competition is up to, after all.

I've noticed that many people sell video marketing reports in great numbers, even if the reports are of very low quality. I've even seen something sold as a product in one forum that was practically a carbon-copy of an extensive post in another forum.

Slap a price tag on it, hype it up and you're good to go.

I'm not suggesting anyone should do this, but it goes to some way illustrating percieved value.

Be Nice, Charge

Finally, you have to keep the commitment bias in mind. You may be doing your readers a real favour by making them jump through some hoops to get at your content (paying, signing up, ...). Because of the shift in perceived value and because of the commitment that comes with this, it's more likely that people will take action on something they had to pay for than on something that's free. Even if the free things is (objectively) superior.

P.S.: I'm very tired. I hope this makes sense.

"What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"

This is a question I first encountered years ago in some book about coaching. I've since come across it many times and while I always realized that it was somehow a powerful question, I never really got it.

But just now I remembered it once again and something new occured to me. I think this question applies to my situation very clearly because I am:

A) always caught up in a dozen different projects and always want to do everything at once and
B) a cautious type and will not make great commitments (financially or otherwise) unless I'm sure about something.

Case in point: I have several ideas for products I want to create (info-products as well as software). I am not really moving forward on any of those plans because of the investment of time and money they inevitably require (especially the software).

And that's somehow unfortunate. Clearly, if I knew I couldn't fail, I'd just invest the few thousand bucks necessary for the coding and get to work.

Also, if I knew I couldn't fail, I'd outsource a lot more work, so that I could get more sites up and running more quickly than I can on my own.

But what should one take from this?

If you knew you couldn't fail, clearly, you'd act differently, but does that mean it's a good idea to throw caution to the wind?

On the other hand, why do you doubt your success? There's no magic or secret to success, it's all in what you do and how you do it.

I still don't know what to do, to be honest, but I think I need to take a look at my priorities.