As internet marketers, we provide information. Commonly known in this industry as “content,” information is knowledge that you share with your tribe. This post will discuss the structure of how you deliver content, and at what “price.”

There are all sorts of delivery mechanisms for delivering information. The internet has certainly made it much easier to share your content. In the “old days,” you had to share your information in the form of the printed word: Newspapers and books.

Today, you can deliver your content with those same printed materials as well as video, ebooks, blogs, articles, and audio.

It’s certainly a different world – and a better one at that.

Since it’s so easy to serve up content nowadays, many internet marketers “give away the house.” By that, I mean IMers have a willingness to give away their knowledge.

However, knowledge is power.

You must always remember that people may be willing to pay for what you know. You just have to package it right.

All that said, what this post is really about is more than delivery. It’s about how you segment your information into what you’re willing to give away, “rent,” or sell.

Let me explain.

Like I said before, we’re prone to give away a lot, if not everything. I mean, it’s just information, right? How do you monetize that? Well, people have been monetizing their ideas, knowledge, and experience (i.e., “information”) for centuries, mostly in books and magazines.

Here’s how I suggest you segment your content: Think “beginner,” “intermediate,” and “advanced.”

Beginner Information

For your entry-level information, you simply give it away. Build your brand by offering awesome content for free. You basically are presenting your audience with a reason to come back. It’s like free food. As long as the food is somewhat tasty and doesn’t make you sick, you’ll keep coming back.

Take a look at Costco. They serve “samples.” I know I’ve gone to Costco on more than one occasion simply to get the food. Then I walk out with a TV. It works.

Intermediate Information

This is information that is a little more advanced and a little more valuable. People are willing to give something – if not money – in return for the information. Think free newsletters – in order to get most “free” newsletters, you have to give up your email address. This is what I call “rent.” You’re not making a huge sacrifice in terms of a down payment or closing costs – to make the analogy with buying a house – but you are giving up something.

This “information rent” is a key to you developing a greater bond with your tribe or audience. The idea is that you entice them to keep on coming back and then you get them to subscribe to your newsletter or get your “free book.” By doing this, you have created a little separation between your web visitors and your subscribers. You have created a scenario where your subscribers are getting MORE than your casual visitor.

By giving you their email address, you have created a situation where your subscribers have given you permission to contact them on a regular basis to give them – for free – information that you aren’t giving to everybody else.

Advanced Information

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is why you’re here. You want to earn an income, if only a meager one to begin with. Sure, your passion may be helping people. Or it may be to have fun. But at the end of the day, if you’re serious about your internet marketing career, you need to get paid.

How do you do this? You create another segment of your content that is advanced and that a select few people are willing to pay to learn.

I’m often drawn to the idea of “useful but incomplete” information delivery. That is to say that in your blog posts, you can certainly provide a ton of free information. But it should be incomplete information. You will never get paid for all the knowledge you have (and let’s face it, that is really what we are as internet marketers – knowledge workers) if you always give away the entire store for free.

Let’s look at this another way:

1. Give away useful but incomplete information on your website. Condition your visitors to expect really awesome information.
2. Then say, “If you want to know more about this, please subscribe to my newsletter, where I give you all the details.”
3. Finally, once a visitor becomes a subscriber, you cultivate that relationship by giving them even better information than they can get just from reading your blog.
4. Always Be Selling. Again, condition your subscribers to expect some sort of offer with every email you send them. Offer to give them even more information – for a price.

There is nothing wrong with selling. In fact, most people want to be sold – it’s why they’re with you in the first place. They just have to be presented with an opportunity to buy that suits them.

Now that I’ve given you all of this awesome information, why not consider subscribing to my newsletter by filling out the form below?