Paying for Creativity in a Digital World

"Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.”"

This is a concept that is central to promoting your business over the Internet, and one that businesses new to the web frequently have to struggle to understand. As we emphasize constantly in our free Internet Marketing classes, content is the key to success on the web, and the content must be meaningful and valuable to the targets of the outreach effort that the web site is.

Businesses that are accustomed to selling their knowledge have to realize that their model of promotion over the web involves giving knowledge away in order to attract prospects. This often requires an adjustment in understanding the business model. Different businesses have different problems with adjusting to this proposition. In the article cited, sales of ancillary products are used to make up the difference in income production. Krugman describes how the Grateful Dead gave away their music, but made up for that through sale of "hats, T-shirts and performance tickets." That model will not work for many professional businesses that are now marketing over the Internet.

Attorneys, CPA's, counselors of all kinds who have specialized knowledge have to learn how to present their services with a different value proposition. One idea is that what they are really selling is not their knowledge of a particular environment, but the expert application of that knowledge to a specific situation that the prospect is facing! Anyone should be able to understand the difference between getting general advice over a website and the value of having a knowledgeable professional examine your particular case and help you determine how to deal with whatever problem you are attempting to solve. It is this sort of distinction that professionals have to get comfortable with in order to be successful in marketing over the Internet.

Using SEO as an example, we give away a great deal of knowledge about optimizing a site for substantial performance, but there is no substitute for having a professional SEO marketer work with the particular requirements of your business, your marketplace, and your site to achieve a dominance on the web that rewards your business with a high level of targeted traffic. Every business faces slightly different challenges, and knowing the tools that are available and identifying the best way to utilize them in each particular situation is where the value of the professional practitioner comes into play!