Some guru's getting out of info products ?

[gareth]

Hey I noticed some weeks back that I no longer get a barrage of tweets & emails from Willie Crawford. I also recall him saying he was focusing more on selling marketing services to offline business.

Now yesterday Mike Filsaime tweeted a similar remark on his business that he is turning it to a software & services focus.

This makes sense with the recession, increased refunds & piracy etc but I know people are still making plenty with info products - others simply changed to CPA which it was obvious would be big this year.

I'm not saying that Willie & Mike are literally getting out of info products but if experienced guys like them are changing tactics - something has changed.

So will this be the trend for 2010 ?

Personally I intend to begin learning mandarin next year - there will soon be 500 million chinese online.

[Orator]

I think the problem is simply the abundance of information, almost everything is at your finger tips these days via google. I think info products have a place in the future, but their focus is going to more specialized and higher quality.

It seems the day's of useless ebooks is coming to a close.

[Ross Vegas]

I know personally I get bored doing the same things for years at a time.

I also know that as an entrepreneur I am highly receptive to new possibilities and challenges. It makes me grow as a person and business owner.

And having talked to some other "gooorus" I know they share the same sentiment.

For those that have been around for years, they might just need a change.

Finally, I know that other non info marketing stuff requires a lot less work and "barraging".

You hate to send emails all the time, but in the ADD riddled world of IM if you aren't constantly in front of your audience someone else is grabbing their attention.

I've found myself waning in and out of the market for that very reason. Plus with a lot of negative people out there, it's just exhausting some days.

[Marian Berghes]

I don't think that they are going out of info-biz, but if they do...

Its simple...its more lucrative with software or services.

Ex: A membership site always needs to have top notch info, every month or members will leave in waves...content is not that easy to create if your members expect only the highest of quality every month.

BUT

If you have a good quality service Ex: WordpressDirect,Stats Junky etc.. you could go 6 or more months without adding anything, you don't have to worry about content...

Witch one of these do you think that will have a better stick rate?

EDIT: "Finally, I know that other non info marketing stuff requires a lot less work and "barraging"." I think this is true also, to some degree

[Zeus66]

I do think the offline-online synthesis will be big in 2010. It's coming full circle. IM is grounded a lot in "real world" marketing foundations. Only makes sense that those who have been very successful online would take their powers back to the bigger playground.

I also think you can ink bigger deals when you meet face-to-face with people. Dudes like Filsaime talk a slick game and probably have no trouble exuding confidence and know-how in a meeting with any power player. He's probably banking on pulling down huge paydays for minimal work. It's a different dynamic offline. I'm not saying Filsaime and his ilk are bulls*it artists, but well... They can play basic Jedi mind tricks on unsuspecting offline power brokers and get away with it. I have no doubt.

John

[Tim Franklin]

Good points, interesting comments, I think there will always be a market for info, just look at the WSO section, there appears to be no end of willing consumers.

Does that make it right?

Just because you can sell a worthless Ebook or PDF file does that mean you should?

I think not, but hey, you might get me on one worthless ebook but you wont get me on two...

[winebuddy]

info marketing will be here 4 ever. Too many people in too many niches want to know "how to" and they will want it now.

Example: Want to know how to cure your foot fungus naturally NOW?

Answer: Soak your feet in vinegar for an hour a day for a week (this works by the way).

Write an ebook on that and sell it and you will get RAVING reviews. Serach for it online and you will have a very difficult time finding that little cure.

[Allworth]

I hope the self-anointed "gurus" get into another line of business. Maybe they will enter the realm of late night infomercials and join the illustrious ranks of hucksters like Tony Robbins, Don Dupre, Kevin Trudeau and Vince of "ShamWoW" fame.

I for one am getting sick of the daily email spam I get from these gurus and their pompous and inflated egos. Enough already.

[Ron Douglas]

I think it has a lot to do with pricing. It's becoming less acceptable to sell an info product for $1,000 or more. These days you have to include some type of coaching program and trade time for dollars.

Plus, there are only so many ways you can spin Internet Marketing info without saying the same thing over and over.

On the flip side, software and offline services can command a higher price point and the actual work can be outsourced or done by your staff.

Just my 2cents.

[Scot Standke]

Originally Posted by winebuddy

info marketing will be here 4 ever. Too many people in too many niches want to know "how to" and they will want it now.

Example: Want to know how to cure your foot fungus naturally NOW?

Answer: Soak your feet in vinegar for an hour a day for a week (this works by the way).

Write an ebook on that and sell it and you will get RAVING reviews. Serach for it online and you will have a very difficult time finding that little cure.

Or you can go out and buy a can of Tough Acting Tinactin

I don't know what would be worse...

Rank itchy feet or feet that smell like pickles

Scot

[rgrimes]

Originally Posted by Allworth

I hope the self-anointed "gurus" get into another line of business. Maybe they will enter the realm of late night infomercials and join the illustrious ranks of hucksters like Tony Robbins, Don Dupre, Kevin Trudeau and Vince of "ShamWoW" fame.

I for one am getting sick of the daily email spam I get from these gurus and their pompous and inflated egos. Enough already.

I find it very useful to see what they are promoting and how they are promoting it as it helps me to see if I am up to par with the latest things going on in the market. I have been marketing online for quite a while now and I get multiple offers in the email, call it spam, but at the very least remember that you always have the right to unsubscribe at any time to any of the guru lists.

We as marketers should be learning from every single piece of email they send, to see how we could improve our approach in our business, whether if we are learning from the headline, or if it is that they are using video, or a new traffic technique, or a new promotion they had put together. Look outside of the email they send and learn to apply what they use in your favor, as is my opinion.

We don't have to like what they are putting out there all the time, but at least we can learn from what they are putting out there. Like for example, I had an interest to learn more about how people, marketers are driving traffic to plr products. Well through an email, a well known marketer, had sent an email to their list, which I am a member of, and he had simply presold them on the idea of the product.

Never said what the product was, but the concept, so when I went to check it out, I realized that it was a product that I had the rights to as well. The marketer sent it out twice. So immediately i got to thinking that if he had sent this offer out 2 days in a row, it must have converted well enough to merit a second email. If it works, keep doing it!

[cma01]

Originally Posted by winebuddy

info marketing will be here 4 ever. Too many people in too many niches want to know "how to" and they will want it now.

Yes, because when it comes down to it, the majority of people are lazy.

There is a local forum I visit and it always amazes me how many people will post a question about something when it would have taken them two seconds to find it on Google.

[gareth]

Methinks the off line consulting approach could be just as lucrative as the mega launches once you are doing corporate stuff.

I predict that others will follow this track next year. Its only natural. But we are all missing out on millions because we don't speak Chinese.

[alamest]

I also don't think something will be changed for 2010 cause all the internet product are necessary for peoples.

And Mike will not close his previous products which he is still running it and what I think that he is just introducing a new change in market and creating new opportunity for people.

[madison_avenue]

Ebooks will continue because they are perfectly attuned to immediate on line delivery no other product is as instant. As well as immediate payment to paypal all automated.

The guru's expertise in IM they have huge existing knowledge and skill in this area, there are thousands of new potential marketers coming online every year, as well as the existing ones, so there will always be a market for the guru's skills.

[TelegramSam]

Maybe they have realised that they can't keep hyping up products at the $1,997 level.

Sure once they became well known the G u r u 's were each able to pull off a few $1,997 launches and sit pretty.

Now that the market has become somewhat more saturated with these types of launches and together with more scepticism and lack of cash, less people are buying this high ticket stuff.

Heck, even John-Boy Reese just cancelled his $497 launch yesterday as there was so little interest.

The usual reason these guys justify the price is by saying that if you use the info you can make 10 times or more of the price. So it's worth every penny.

You can say the same about a $20 dollar book from Amazon.

Hopefully some common sense will return and the guys doing the million dollar days will start to realise they have to work a bit harder for their money and offer better products and better service. And at a lower price!

#so you will see more and more of these guys starting to diversify, especially the one's whose reputations are less than perfect.

Sam

[Ross Vegas]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

I do think the offline-online synthesis will be big in 2010. It's coming full circle. IM is grounded a lot in "real world" marketing foundations. Only makes sense that those who have been very successful online would take their powers back to the bigger playground.

I also think you can ink bigger deals when you meet face-to-face with people. Dudes like Filsaime talk a slick game and probably have no trouble exuding confidence and know-how in a meeting with any power player. He's probably banking on pulling down huge paydays for minimal work. It's a different dynamic offline. I'm not saying Filsaime and his ilk are bulls*it artists, but well... They can play basic Jedi mind tricks on unsuspecting offline power brokers and get away with it. I have no doubt.

John

You don't even need slick talk. I don't know if you've ever dealt with offline business regarding marketing online, but even small companies hand out thousands per month for the most basic work.

I thought this was an up and coming topic, and a few people popped out with products but the thing is...the sales page has to sound too much like work. What with the going out and actually talking to people...sh*t. Who wants that?

In any case, I'm building a virtual staff so I can start scooping these up. I have talked to a few business owners already. I showed one person via my iPhone, my #1 rankings for big keywords and they melted like butter.

Heck, they are paying $5,000+ just for consult work.

[blur]

I think it's probably just the natural progression of things.

[Marian Berghes]

There will always be people who will buy high ticket stuff, no matter the financial times...if your product is solid and you have proof that other made a whole lot of money with it, there will always be people who like to buy "premium" stuff.

I've seen this argument that "people are getting tired of these big launches" or "people can't pay that price anymore because of x" plenty of times in the past year and yet, there are plenty of launches with $97-$197-$297/month continuity and a big ticket front end that do very well, not even counting what they sell on the back-end.

I believe that its just easier to get more people to stay in a membership site based on tools instead of content...because if the tools are good they will stay a long time subscribed.

[marciayudkin]

But we are all missing out on millions because we don't speak Chinese.

Most people in China do not have credit cards. Learn Chinese and move to China if you want to make money, OK. But learn Chinese and make money on line... please show me who is doing that.

Marcia Yudkin

[EndGame]

Selling information products is still a viable business model, and very profitable for the big guys and us if we do it right!

What a lot of the gurus (as we're calling them) are perhaps noticing, is that product launches are not stable streams of income and the business model is actually very labour intensive and throws up a lot of problems. It forces marketers to always be creating products and angles for the "next greatest thing," and the truth is there are only so many ways to skin a cat, and a lot of what is being sold has already been discussed in forums such as this one.

I think these online entrepreneurs are looking to diversify their business model, spread their risks and develop a stable income stream, which makes excellent sense.

[designfuschion]

Originally Posted by marciayudkin

Most people in China do not have credit cards. Learn Chinese and move to China if you want to make money, OK. But learn Chinese and make money on line... please show me who is doing that.

Marcia Yudkin

not to mention overcoming cultural barriers and legal hurdles.

China blocks certain content to its peoples..who know's what other 'niches' or areas they'll block.

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Scot Standke

Or you can go out and buy a can of Tough Acting Tinactin

I don't know what would be worse...

Rank itchy feet or feet that smell like pickles

Scot

lol ... this was my thought exactly

[ayonline]

why. guess they looking for other ways

[Fernando Veloso]

I know this: people do buy these to read ebooks.

Kindle anyone ?

[Alican Yenidogan]

Softwares are actually a GREAT money maker. I've seen it with my eyes, both for info products and softwares.. And there is a HUGE difference...

[Steve Peters Benn]

Wow - not to be rude, but there seem to be quite a lot of assumptions in this thread:

people won't pay $1000 for a product anymore
Those products were rubbish
Reese cancelled due to lack of interest

Whilst I'm sure some will claim they have evidence, I doubt they do, or they own any of the 'big' products etc...

[HeySal]

Originally Posted by Scot Standke

Or you can go out and buy a can of Tough Acting Tinactin

I don't know what would be worse...

Rank itchy feet or feet that smell like pickles

Scot

A half an hour soak in mouthwash will do the same thing (anti-fungal) and will leave your feet smelling minty fresh. Great for toenail fungus, too.
There ya go - FREE of charge.

Now there are some "marketers" who will be idiotic enough to take those two sentences, write ten pages of filler- and many times write with no skill in sentence structure or theme flow - and expect to get rich selling badly written copycat material with little solid information in it.

All that is going on is that the Goobers are usually knowledgeable enough to know when they have covered the subject at hand so they just stop producing on that subject. When a new subject that has room for quality coverage comes up, they will take that one on. There's only so much you can say on any given subject before it's all rehash.

The copycat producers don't usually have the knowledge or experience to know when to stop. Of course, when you have crap products flying around, refund levels will go up. Those with marketing sharps know when a market has been flooded by copy cat crap products by watching refunding trends - even when they are not the ones who are getting the high refund levels.

The Net has been around long enough now that consumers are getting starting to get some savvy. Now that funds are becoming tighter and people are watching their spending, you are going to see refunds on crap products. People aren't willing to blow off twenty or thirty bucks any more when they get jipped on a product. They want original and they want to see it well presented.

The Goobers also are slowing down on their emails because people are beginning to loudly express their rejection of the daily spam. People used to follow goobers around as if they were Messiahs (thus the term "GURU"). Over-exposure is producing a consumer that doesn't cotton to the good old fashioned email promotion guised as a "NEWS" letter. Subscription cancellations don't go unnoticed by REAL marketing masters. They respond to trends in consumerism and that's how they got where they are.

How many times have you come into the forum lately and seen posts about some idiotic thing someone did with a "newsletter" or just a complaint about how often they are getting the emails? And you expect that the publishers of these things aren't listening? For cripes sakes as many ebooks as people have purchased you'd think that they would have at least caught on enough by this stage of the game to realize that the top marketers LISTEN to their consumers. ........how many times can IMers spit out quotes from the masters and not ever actually practice them?

CONSUMER TRENDS are telling you to stop creating warmed over trashy crap and start actually producing some quality. Consumer trends are telling you that you will either produce new and different with some actual quality in the material and structure or they are going to ask for money back. Consumer trends are saying there's enough info out on specific areas of IM and all the Goobers are doing is going on to something else until there is something New and Different to tell their consumers about.

Now - after all that the GOOBERS have taught people in this forum - it's time to actually listen to it and absorb it instead of wondering why the big guns are finding different battlefields.

[c4rves]

Personal I think that the “Gurus” have made a lot of money by doing info products, now they can focus on software or services, That actually do something for you rather that telling you what to do.