Tag Archives: content

Aaron Hoos’ weekly reading list: ‘YouTube killed the TV star’ edition

By Aaron Hoos on April 28, 2013 in Business, From the desk of Aaron Hoos

Aaron Hoos: Weekly reading list

I called my parents earlier this evening, like a good son should from time to time. During the conversation, my mother mentioned that she had been watching a couple of her favorite shows on YouTube. For my parents, who don’t watch a lot of TV, it’s a way to find programming that they enjoy — it not only fits their tastes but also their schedule.

And recently, I was thinking about a TV show I had always wanted to see but it premiered, ran a few seasons, and was cancelled before I had even heard of it. I looked it up on YouTube and — awesome! — every episode is there. It’s bookmarked and ready to watch.

I love internet TV. In my mind, it really represents one of the great things about the web: You can find the entertainment you want, when you want it, and you can watch it wherever you want it (on whichever device you choose).

What a change from yesteryear when you got the TV Guide, fought with a sibling over what you got to watch on the one TV in the house. Yeah, I’m that old. I think it makes me appreciate YouTube and other web-based TV a lot more. And I appreciate it, not just for entertainment…

There have been several times when I’ve been renovating my house and I needed to figure out how to do something and a YouTube video helped me figure it out. (Hey, I love books but it’s hard to beat actually seeing the whole thing from start to finish).

YouTube is huge (and it’s continuing to get bigger) and it’s changing how we consume television/video. Here’s some reading that I found insightful about where YouTube is now and where we can expect it to be in the near future.

  • Don’t touch that remote talks about the growth of online video (not just YouTube) and how Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, and even traditional television networks are turning to the web as a way to produce video. It’s hinted in this article and I think we’ll see even more of it in the future: Companies can produce pilots, push them to the web, measure response, and know which shows to produce. That is an exciting opportunity for the future of entertainment!
  • The future of content is niche channels. This article is kind of basic, and more than a year old, but I like how it nicely summarizes the trends in content consumption, particularly on YouTube. I’ve become fascinated by the channel concept on YouTube and particularly how businesses can maximize that for the benefit of the organization and their customers.
  • It’s getting harder to make money on YouTube. This article provided a good counterpoint to the frequent comment that YouTube (and web videos in general) are the wave of the future. I think we will see lots of video being created and consumed but this article makes me wonder whether YouTube might need to innovate new monetization models to motivate more quality programming, or businesses need to rethink why they are on YouTube and see it as an earlier part of their sales funnel rather than the place where they make money.
  • How to respect copywriting on YouTube. This is a great article and it clearly outlines what happens if people upload a copyrighted song on their video. The concept of copyright is changing on the web, and YouTube is definitely a battleground where that is happening. As someone who earns money from the content I create, I want to see lots of copyright protection. But as a realist who is totally in love with the anything-can-happen wild west of the web, I recognize that copyright concepts may need to change even more than they already have. I frequently see people writing “I don’t own this song. No copyright infringement intended” on their videos, as if that will erase their liability for using copyrighted material. I don’t think there’s a clear answer yet about how we use content that we didn’t create. It’s very complicated.

4 ways to monetize your content curation

By Aaron Hoos on October 24, 2012 in Business

There is a ton of content on the web and it’s almost overwhelming for people to find the most useful stuff. So curation is becoming increasingly important to help people make sense of it all. (Check out my recent blog post on how to curate).

But can you make money as a curator?

Here are a few ways to monetize curation (although not all of them are commonly used right now).

  • Advertising: One of the most obvious and common ways is to make money from ads people click when they’re visiting your website (i.e. AdSense or Amazon).
  • Free curation as a positioning effort: In this method, your business is to make money from something else (i.e. consulting, coaching, content creation) but you use curation as a way to help position you as an expert. This is pretty common today.
  • Gate keeping: This is where you curate content but charge a fee for people to see your curation. It might be a monthly subscription or an ebook-style one-time purchase. You really need to prove your skills as a taste-maker first to get people to trust you enough to pay for your curation. Of the methods I’m listing today, this is the least-used way that I’ve seen but we could see it increase in time as curation proves to be more valuable.
  • Help others curate: This is the business model of Scoop.it and I think it is a big growth opportunity right now. With this business model, you get paid (through subscriptions or perhaps based on some other metric) to offer up preliminary curation so that other people can further curate.

How to curate content: The best ideas, resources, and tools

By Aaron Hoos on October 23, 2012 in Business

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and been unsure what to order because there are so many options? People can become overwhelmed by choice to the point where they cannot easily make decisions or act.

A similar thing is happening on the web today. There is so much content out there on the web, and even more is pouring in daily. (I should know… I’m writing a bunch of it). People aren’t searching anymore, because it’s so easy to find information on something. Instead, they are trying to make sense of it all. That’s a big difference.

Enter content curation. This is where people take the content that is already out there and pull it together to help people make sense of the information. It’s a science as well as an art, and you shouldn’t think of it as simply just putting up a list of links. Curation requires more.

Different sites are approaching content curation in different ways: Google is constantly tweaking its algorithm and in a way, they are very much in the content curation business. Squidoo is Seth Godin’s early take on content curation. Twitter offers a type of real-time content curation. Pinterest is a type of visually-oriented content curation. Facebook (at least among my friends) seems to be turning into an exclusive meta-curation club. Scoop.it has built a hub to help people curate and share.

Just to clear the air for those of us who see ourselves as content creators: I think there is still room for that. Curating is like only being allowed to marry your cousin. Eventually you’ll need new blood or everyone will be walking around your family compound with three arms. Even the guy from curation website Storify thinks that creators are still going to be valuable in the future.

So how do you curate content? Well, I’ve curated a list on exactly that topic:

First of all, you should download and read Seth Godin’s ebook Everyone Is An Expert. This ebook is written in 2005 so it predates a lot of the curation tools out there but, in classic Seth Godin form, he was talking about curation long before anyone else was. Check out the book and read the first 18 pages. (After that, he launches into a bit of a pitch for Squidoo, which you might want to read but can safely skip).

Once you’ve done that, watch this video. Although the video’s presentation is a little dry, they go through a very valuable step-by-step overview of content curation. In other words, reading the first 18 pages of Godin’s ebook and then watching this video gives you probably the best “crash course” in content curation.

Next, read this “content curation 101″ blog post by Beth Kanter, which is one of the best examples of content curation I’ve seen. Beth explains what content curation is and why we need it (which you’ve already read) and then she describes how to do it well. Great stuff from Beth! Beth mentions in her blog post an excellent article from ClickZ that I think is worth highlighting again — How to become a content curation king. This article’s real value is down at the very bottom, where the author provides 9 very helpful tips on how to curate content effectively.

And check out this excellent article from WebbyThoughts about the 5 different types of content curation and how to excel with each of them. (Plus the article has some great tips and tools for content curators!)

Curation gives you some valuable benefits as a business owner:

  • There SEO benefits of content curation
  • Curation relieves the pressure of having to develop something new
  • Curation establishes you in the higher-order role of taste-making evaluator rather than someone who constantly pushed out content
  • You can monetize your curated content (I’m going to write a separate blog post about this tomorrow

Be sure to also read this article from Forbes — 4 reasons why content curation has gone mainstream.

Even if you don’t want to switch over entirely from being a content creator to a content curator, you can dial in a bit of curation into the work you are doing now, to change things up and to experiment with this new-to-you approach.

There are a bunch of tools to help you curate content. Check out these articles that list some curation tools:

The unofficial guide to using Launch.it

By Aaron Hoos on July 25, 2012 in Business

When something new comes out and you want to tell your friends about it, how do you present it to them? Do you use the press release format to announce the newsworthy event? Do you use an informational article format to explain what it is? Probably not.

You likely use stories. You tell your friends an enthusiastic, honest, hype-free, factual story about the product or service.

Launch.it is a place for you to tell those stories. It’s a place for new things to launch.

In this guide, you will learn about…

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Launch.it in any way nor am I compensated by them to write this. I’m just an enthusiastic user. Also, please note that Launch.it is in beta so this information is subject to change.)
 

LAUNCH.IT: WHERE NEW IS LAUNCHED

Launch.it is a community platform that aims to be a searchable database of everything new. It is not just another place to create the same old content… they are pioneering a new way of communicating brands to the world.

  • On the publishing/promotional side, Launch.it is a place to tell stories about new products and services and ideas: It’s not another press release distribution site; it’s not another article site. Launch.it wants to be a “spin-free zone” where brands tell honest, fact-based, no-hype stories about whatever is new.
  • On the audience/readership side, Launch.it is a place where readers can interact with the brand in multiple ways. It can include sharing on social sites, clicking to the site to make a purchase or learn more, participating in crowdfunding, contacting the brand, and more.

Unlike press releases and articles, Launch.it stories (they call them “launches”) are more social, more focused on action, and they can be updated as facts change. I might not be 100% correct here but it feels like their site is aiming to be more like an engaging magazine that tells interesting, factual stories about new ideas rather than a newspaper that reports only the cold, hard facts.

As a writer, I’m interested in finding stories to cover. As an entrepreneur, I’m interested in telling the stories of new brands I develop. So here is an unofficial, unauthorized guide to launching your brand’s new idea from Launch.it.


LAUNCH.IT

The Launch.it homepage is made up of a few different sections…

  • Across the the top is a menu of high-level categories that launches are filed under — Technology, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, Media, Medical and Pharma, Services, Food and Beverage, Health and Beauty. (There are other categories you can file your launch under but they don’t appear on this list).
  • Below that is a section of the top ten launches. I’m not sure how this is sorted (although I’m guessing it’s by number of visits or number of shares). To the right of these top-10 featured launches is a sidebar that includes a ticker/”odometer” of the number of launches, a featured launch, and a link to Launch.it’s Facebook page.
  • Below that second is a section that lists 60 other launches in a 5 x 12 grid.


INTRODUCTION TO LAUNCH.IT

From the Launch.it homepage (http://launch.it)…

Click the “Sign Up” link to sign up (you can create an account or sign in with LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook). I created my own account.

From then on, click the “Login” link to get to the login page…

Once signed in, you’ll be directed back to the homepage but you’ll have two new links at the top of your page. These are the two main areas you’ll use on Launch.it: The Discoverer Dashboard and the Launcher Dashboard.

Here’s the Discoverer Dasboard:

Although mine doesn’t look very interesting right now (hey, I’m still new to Launch.it), this page is your dashboard to follow industries, writers, and brands, and to save launches for later viewing. Right now I’m following just one industry (Finance) and the launches in that category appear in my news feed.

Keep reading below because I’ll share some ideas about what you can use this dashboard for!

The other dashboard is the Launcher Dashboard…

On this page, you can see at a glance a number of stats about your launches — how many launches, how many views, how many comments and followers, how many stars your launches have earned, plus there are links on the lower half of the page to your launches, to analytics, and more.

Next, I’m going to show you how to launch content on Launch.it. If you are already familiar with that, skip this section and check out some ideas to use Launch.it to find stories or ideas to use Launch.it to launch your own news.


HOW TO LAUNCH ON LAUNCH.IT

From the Launcher Dashboard, click the great big button in the middle that says “new”…

And the next page you’ll get to is the page to create your launch story…

On this page…

Choose your byline from the drop-down menu. (It might be you or it might be other writers you’ve created, for example if you have several on staff who are sharing the same account).

Choose your brand from the drop-down menu. You can select your own brand (if you’re writing stories for your brand) or you can add new brands (if you own several brands or are a marketing firm).

Write your headline. Although the title can be pretty long, I would suggest that you try to keep it short because only the first 34-37 words will be displayed if your launch becomes featured. Check out the example below to see what I mean. Notice how the title is cut off a little? It’s not the end of the world, of course, but I think it would be more powerful if someone could read your entire title. So 34-37 words is the rule of thumb.

Write your subheading. Your subheading isn’t a reiteration of your headline but should instead provide additional information or context. Also note: Your subheading only shows up when someone views the blurb on its own page (it doesn’t show up in the condensed view on the home page) so make sure that the information is helpful but not essential to understanding your launch.

Write the body of your launch. This is the main content. I’m not sure how much space you have but presumably you have enough to get the story across. I would suggest aiming for a minimum of 400 words and a maximum of 1500 words. Too little and you’ll end up not getting your point across; too much and you’ll lose your readers. For more information, Launch.it provides a brief but helpful guide.

Note: Another important thing to consider is the length of your first paragraph. If your launch becomes one of the top ten featured stories, they will post the first part of your first paragraph (about the first 40 words or so) so make sure you create good content in that first paragraph. Check out the first paragraph of the launch below as an example:

Select your industry. There are several to choose from. Pick one that makes the most sense.

Write your key message bullet points. These will appear in the sidebar of your story. I’m not sure how many you get to write. I wrote 3. I’ve seen 5. I think 3-5 is a good, digestible number for your readers.

Upload your lead image. Make your image 680×490. The image will appear in different sizes but always in that ratio. In some places, the image will be only about 27% of of the larger size (approximately 186 x 132) so make sure that your image is recognizable at that size too.

Add advanced features. Definitely add advanced features if you have them! These include video, links for buying/fundraising/contacting you, more images, etc. The more you add, the more visually attractive and engaging your content becomes. When it comes to interaction, select as many as you can — Give them a place to click to visit your website and a way to contact you.

Once you have filled everything out, you can save, preview, and publish your launch story and it goes immediately to the home page of Launch.it. Later, you can always go back to review and edit your launch story from the Launch Dashboard.


HOW TO EDIT YOUR LAUNCH

Once you have a launch launched, you can edit it. I love this feature of Launch.it because (unlike press releases and some article publishing sites) information changes and you should be able to go back and update it. To edit your launch story, go to your Launcher Dashboard and at the top of the page, click the button labelled “Launches”…

(Note: There are other places on the page where you can click to view your launches but as of this writing, this is the only button that gets you to a place to edit your launches).

On this page, you’ll see the launches you have published, as well as links to edit, view, unpublish, and get analytics.


IDEAS TO USE THE DISCOVERER DASHBOARD

The Discoverer Dashboard is useful to filter the growing number of launches to keep track of what is important to you.

I love the idea of being able to follow industries, writers, and brands. I’m planning to use the Discoverer Dashboard in the following ways:

  • As a business, finance, and real estate writer, I’m going to follow related industries to pay attention to what’s going on in each space. The dashboard gives me the ability to filter by industry so I can quickly scan on a regular basis to find new ideas and trends.
  • As a writer, I’m always interested in connecting with other writers and learning how they are covering stories. This will give me a chance to meet experts in specific fields.
  • As a writer, I want to follow specific brands to see how they grow. They might be part of a story or trend I’m following or a competitor for one of the businesses I own, or the next big thing that I want to learn more about if I’m looking for a great idea for an article.


IDEAS TO LAUNCH ON LAUNCH.IT


The Launcher Dashboard is where you create content to engage with your audiences about your new idea, brand, product, service, or whatever. So here are some ideas you can launch with:

  • Launch your new brand
  • Launch each product or service
  • Launch new versions of products and services
  • Launch the latest version of your website
  • Launch your mobile app
  • Launch your new store
  • Launch your new Facebook page, Twitter profile, etc.
  • Launch a news story about you (Remember: This isn’t a press release but you can still create a story about what’s new at your business)
  • Launch your email newsletter
  • Launch sub-brands
  • Launch partnerships and joint ventures
  • Launch your blog
  • Launch individual blog posts (within reason, of course! I’m not suggesting that you spam Launch.it but there are times when an individual blog post is worth launching)
  • Launch a free report
  • Launch your ebook
  • Launch your print book
  • Launch your new location
  • Launch a story about that big project you landed
  • Launch when a new executive joins your team
  • Launch when you develop a new innovation
  • Launch a story that you hope to get some exposure about (we writers are watching!)
  • Launch your latest project for which you want investors/crowdfunders

So go Launch.it!


QUICK LINKS

Website: Launch.it
Twitter: @Launch_It
Facebook: LaunchItNews

How to grow your business with passive income

By Aaron Hoos on August 11, 2011 in Business

In my recent blog post, I wrote that there are only 3 ways to grow your business.

The first way an entrepreneur can grow their business is through replicating their sales funnel. In today’s blog post, I want to talk about the second way that an entrepreneur can grow their business: By creating passive income.

“Passive income” is a phrase entrepreneurs use to describe something created once and then sold over and over (unlike a service or a manufactured-each-time product). An ebook is an example of a really popular form of passive income: You write it once and then resell it over and over again.

WHAT PASSIVE INCOME OPPORTUNITIES ARE AVAILABLE?

There are plenty of passive income opportunities available but they can generally be divided into two models:

  • Access-to-information: This is where you create a piece of content and then sell access to it. For example, you might sell downloadable ebooks, reports, or templates; access to listen to audio files or view video files; access to knowledge centers; whatever. Your customer pays you in order to get access to information in whatever form that is convenient for you to create and for them to access it. You’ve seen these sites: There’s usually a “Buy Now” button for someone to purchase an ebook.


  • Advertisements with content: This is where you create content and post ads on the content. As people click to your site and view the content, they also click on the ads and the ad revenue earns you money. In this model, you write and post the content and people view it for free and revenue is generated through ads. You’ve seen these sites, too. They’re the ones with Google ads or banners scattered throughout the content.

Of course, I’ve only described a really simplified example of each. You can mix and match and add layers to make it more effective. For example, one common way of selling digital content is with a two-step approach: Ask for your leads to become prospects by signing up for a free ezine. Then, build a relationship with these prospects and offer them your ebook.

You might want to also check out a related blog post entitled 5 levels of content monetization for a different way to look at passive (and active) content sales.

WHICH PASSIVE INCOME OPPORTUNITY IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

That depends on you and your subject matter. Here’s what I often recommend to my clients:

Posting free content with advertising is just fine but you only get paid when you send people OFF of your website to an advertiser’s site. And chances are, those advertisements are for a product or service that could be considered “competition” if you are also selling similar products or services to the same target market.

So, if you have a sales funnel that includes other products or services, don’t erode your sales in exchange for advertising dollars. Selling access to digital content is just probably better. However, if you don’t have any products or services but want to earn some income, creating content and posting ads can be a way to earn income from an industry.

Having said that, there are lots of sites out there with ads on their sites and they do just fine building traffic and earning advertising revenue. But most of my clients are real estate and financial clients and they want to build a long-term relationship with a customer, so the goal is (usually) to keep website visitors rather than send them to advertisers’ sites. The advertising model sends customers away while the access-to-information model keeps customers on your site and builds your brand’s value.

HOW DO I GET STARTED WITH PASSIVE CONTENT?

Start by figuring out if there are any services or products that you can turn passive. Pay particular attention to existing products or services that you tend to repeat. That’s a good start. This blogpost entitled Are your products and sales funnel taking up too much of your time? will help you to identify opportunities that can become passive.

PASSIVE CONTENT TIPS

Be sure to create compelling, unique content that addresses a problem or issue in the industry you’re working in (I call this The Pickaxe Factor). By doing that, you’ll be more likely to attract potential readers. If they’re reading your content on your pay-for-access-to-information site, they’ll be more likely to pay to read. Or, if they’re reading your content on your freely-available advertisement-model site, they’ll be more likely to click the advertising.

If you’re creating passive content that you’ll sell through the access-to-information model, pricing your content effectively will prove to be a challenge (because it’s a challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs). Check out How much should I charge? A magic formula to easily find the best price for your product for some pricing ideas.

And remember: This might be called “passive income” but it doesn’t mean you should stop marketing. Passive income requires very active marketing, especially in the beginning. Have a plan to market like crazy so you can build traffic to your content (no matter which model you choose).

9 ways to add value to your next ebook (so you don’t have to fill it with royalty-free images)

By Aaron Hoos on April 27, 2011 in Business

You’ve finished writing your ebook. You sit back in your office chair and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s a long document, brimming with a mix of wit, personality, and (of course) your expertise on the topic. You’re certain that it will offer your readers the insight they’re looking for. But something’s not quite right.

After you look at it again, you start to wonder: Is it just a giant “wall” of text? Does the ebook really pop the way you’d like it to pop?

A common, initial temptation is to google “royalty free images” to shoehorn throughout the content to break the up the text (and add to your page count!!!). But is that really the right thing to do? It’s tempting. It’s easy. But it doesn’t add value.

Instead, here are 9 ways that you can add value to your next ebook. These ebook elements will help to break up that wall of text, they’ll add some visual interest, and they’ll help your ebook to really pop in the mind of your reader.

Ebook value-add #1: Callout boxes

These are boxes that you see in magazines all the time. They’re filled with additional information, facts, tips, and hints. They’re often pretty “listy” (bullet lists or numbered lists) although I’ve written plenty that were formatted as paragraphs. Use these to add extra context or background, or to add some additional tips that your readers might want to learn or be reminded of. Don’t add more than one per page and try not to add one on every single page. Check out some of your favorite magazines for ideas. In some of your callout boxes, you can reiterate ideas that were spread across several pages, or you can show how the current point fits into a larger list. This is also a good place for an anecdote, quick tip, or to highlight a special link that is related to the topic.

Ebook value-add #2: Examples

Although you’ve probably used examples in specific situations throughout the body of your text, (for example, in this sentence) it doesn’t hurt to pull together several concepts into a longer example that is formatted in a different way. I tend to use examples to illustrate several concepts with a fictional story. But on a related note, I also use…

Ebook value-add #3: Case studies

Case studies are (usually) true life examples (perhaps “anonymized” to protect the subject of the case study). These can be used in a similar way as an example. However, since case studies are usually true life, I tend to use them less as illustrations of a point and more as inspiration or proof of the content. So I tend to use both in my ebooks. Strike a balance so you don’t overwhelm your readers, but remember that everyone learns differently, and some people respond better to examples while others prefer case studies. (Personally, I’m a case study person).

Ebook value-add #4: Appendix

One appendix (or several appendices) at the end can be a great place to put all that background information that you want to write but that you doubt your readers will always want to read in the body of the text. It’s the stuff that is important to know but, once you write this, you think that most of your readers will probably already know quite a bit of it. Chances are, you’ll write it into the body of your text and pull it out. (In many cases, I’ll write the first 5 chapters of an ebook, then pull out the first 2-4 chapters and put them in an appendix because my good sense and experience tells me that those first chapters were just warm-up and the real reason people bought the ebook started in chapter 3, 4, or 5.) There are other things you can add into an appendix: Industry information, lists of tips and ideas, a long reference list, step-by-step instructions, interviews with people, etc.

Ebook value-add #5: Templates

I love adding templates to an ebook. I like templates because, if you are a business trying to build a brand, templates are a great way to get people printing and using stuff that has your brand imprinted right on it. On the other hand, templates that have been shoehorned into ebooks can look funny if the header, footer, and page number of the ebook appear in the template. Often, I’ll create a file that has the ebook plus individual PDF documents that are each a separate template. The sky’s the limit with templates.

Ebook value-add #6: Resource lists

I like to add these usually at the end of a chapter. These can link to other content in the ebook, other content online (including specific blog posts you’ve written, which is something I advise my clients to do), Squidoo lenses, Amazon books, and other digital products (via affiliate links). The goal here isn’t to replace your wall of text with a wall of links. I wouldn’t have more than half a page of links at the most, preferably less. Think of it like this: Many of your readers might skip over this resource list, but some of your readers will want more information, now or in the future. They’ll look to your chapter and they’ll dig into some of your links for more information or another perspective.

Ebook value-add #7: “You will learn” overview

We all learn in different ways. I learn best when someone gives me an overview of what I’m about to learn and then gets into the lesson. If I don’t get an overview first, I struggle with trying to fit each individual piece of information into the big picture. So devote the first part of each chapter to an overview (a bulleted list or a couple of “big picture” paragraphs) outlining what the chapter is about.

Ebook value-add #8: Glossary

You’re an expert but not all of your readers are. They need a little extra hand-holding, and that probably includes definitions and explanations of key concepts. A glossary can be arduous to write (trust me! I’ve written a ton of them) but your readers will find it helpful.

Ebook value-add #9: Now it’s your turn

I find that my ebooks tend to become a little academic after a while. They might start off with lots of practical advice but I’m just wired to talk about concepts over practice… and most people who are sharing their expertise will probably trend that way, too. So, by adding a “Now it’s your turn” element periodically throughout the ebook, you’ll force yourself to step back from the concepts and consider what your readers will want to do in this situation. Then give practical, step-by-step instructions.

A WARNING TO LAZY PEOPLE

Most ebook writers will read this post and hopefully find some ideas to inspire them to add value to their ebooks. But some writers — the lazy ones! — will see this as a way to add bulk to ebooks for a padded page count. That is not my goal here. You could use these ideas to add bulk to your ebooks, but that won’t generate customer loyalty or long-term profit. It won’t wow your buyers with extra value. It only wastes your time (time you could spend adding value) and pisses readers off.

But to the rest of us — those who actually want to build a loyal and happy readership — these are useful ways to make your ebooks more valuable to readers. So, on your next ebook, why not add a couple of these elements!

How to know what your customers want (when your customers don’t know what they want)

By Aaron Hoos on April 5, 2011 in Business

In one of my very first jobs, I worked at a gas station. Once I made a mistake at something, and although I can’t remember the mistake itself, I remember my boss asking me: “If you didn’t know how to do it, why didn’t you ask?”

It was the most ridiculous question I’d ever heard because I didn’t know that I didn’t know or else I would have asked! I was doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing, I just did it incorrectly. There was no way for me to know that I was doing it incorrectly and, therefore, there was no reason to ask. As soon as the error occurred, I asked. But my boss couldn’t wrap his brain around that.

Our customers face a similar conundrum: They know they have a problem or need and, in order to search out a solution, they look for what they think is the best solution. But it’s not always the best solution. And that’s why Henry Ford famously said, “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said ‘a faster horse’.”

I see this in my own business: When I write for a client, I frequently hear something like, “we need to have more content in more social media.” But that’s not true. Businesses don’t need to access ALL social media to be successful. They need to say the right things to the right people in the right social media.

All businesses see some type of customer response like this. The customer does their best to figure out what solution is needed based on their perceptions of the problem. But maybe their perceptions of the problem are completely wrong! Or maybe the solution they believe they need is completely inadequate.

Dutch consultant Robbert-Jan Van Oeveren wrote a great blog post about uncovering what our customers are really after (even if they don’t know it themselves). He talks about how today’s businesses have the opportunity to put the customer at the heart of their organizations, and he offers some ideas (and a very useful graphic) to describe what businesses must do to understand what customers want.

Use Van Oeveren’s blog post as a starting point to rethink what your customers want. In fact, move beyond just thinking about customers and consider everyone in your sales funnel: Are you communicating to people at each stage of your sales funnel in a way that connects with what they are REALLY looking for?

Read Van Oeveren’s blog post here: Designthinking: How to convert need into demand. [EDIT 14 MONTHS LATER: Van Oeveren's website is returning a 404 Not Found status. I'm keeping my blog post up because I think there is still value in the content but Van Oeveren's content is no longer accessible.]

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