Looks like the real way to make money from blogging is to write a report on the topic of blogging (business blogging to be more specific) and then to charge $695 for it. That’s the approach that e-marketer are taking with their latest report
• What are the three main reasons blogs have not caught on with businesses?
• How many US businesses are currently blogging?
• How many plan to blog in the future?
• Should marketers tap into the blog market?
• How large is the blog audience?
• What are the dangers of blogging?
• And many more…
$695 for that? How many articles have I seen freely available on those topics – how many have I written myself! I gotta get into the report writing business.
found viaMicro Persuasion
Often, it’s all a matter of packaging, innovation and marketing. But, you’re definitely spot on.
Have you considered doing what some bloggers/marketers/writers do? Create rich content and make it available for a limited period. Then, offer it as part of a collection of articles (in report format) once that period is over.
That’s nothing, you should have seen the $2000 report on the Sony PSP on Amazon.
It’s ridiculous stuff. And the most laughable part, it was 1 page.
Bottom line, many people just don’t have time to do all the research and would rather pay for someone else to aggregate. No matter how high the cost, some are willing to pay, or else why bother selling it in the first place?
Then again, I prefer to go for the grassroots information since I find that to be far more reliable than whatever marketing company comes up with.
Perfect examples of research gone awry: Adveritisng. Music and Movies
Some of the stuff is so far off, I wonder where they get their information from.
Finally, some people miss the point of blogs, at least legit blogs, it’s to try to get an un-corporate view of things.
If you have a business, you can write off the total cost of a report against tax. Who cares what it costs? The taxpayer ends up paying. Hey, that’s me!
This kinda stuff reminds me of those articles on Forrester. sigh..
Anything Forrester Research gets involved in increases the price because of their extensive research methods. I used their market research reports to support my business plan when I was in the Information Technolgy Staffing and training business. By their standards on what they charge for market research reports for various industry niches, this is a bargain. It won’t be purchased by bloggers, it will be purchased by businesses considering blogging. They won’t believe information posted on blogs, they will be looking for this “independent” perspective. I doubt it sells much though.
Maybe you SHOULD write one. Since you’re an expert, you could probably charge $995. ;-)
I wonder if anyone bought it. That’s the question. You can sell anything at any price but someones got to want it and fork over the cash.
that makes, say, a book about blogging seem cheap!
I can see the value in it for some people, think of the case of an overpriced corporate lawyer billing out at $400 an hour.
Say it took the lawyer 4 hours to find the same amount of information. Then his gain in knowledge has cost him $1600, he could have saved $900 if he had bought the report.
It’s a tired cliche but time is money. I’ve often outsourced work I am capable of because I know I can reinvest my time far more profitably.
Amazing, but there must be a market for it because I’d presume they wouldn’t be flogging it if they didn’t think they’d sell a few.
I would like to meet some of the people who buy this stuff. If you’re time is worth so much money that you can’t do a quick search on the internet to find the same info, then I’m sure you have a staff of people you are already paying that could do some simple research.
It costs a lot of money for a lot of these “reports” because the amount of people actually willing to pay for something they can get for free is small, therefore it would be tough to sell a high volume at a lower price.