![\"Cheap](\"https:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2560\/3771934928_22f2e4c39a_m.jpg\")
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\nPhoto by Chris Brogan<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
The recent controversy within the social media community over Chris Brogan’s Blog Topics newsletter provides a pretty good example. I’ve known Chris for years, and we’ve done business together, but I have no connection with his blog topics service.<\/p>\n
Charging for Blog Topics<\/b> Charging money for something of value is not automatically a rip off, even if others offer a similar thing for free.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n How does Chris compete with free? How does he keep it from being a rip off? He adds extra value to his service. Let’s see what we can learn from how he does it.<\/p>\n Adding Value<\/b><\/p>\n 1. Over deliver on content.\u00a0<\/b> 2. Build a community.\u00a0<\/b> 3. Share the spotlight.<\/b> 4. Be committed.\u00a0<\/b> 5. Give access to you.\u00a0<\/b> How We Do It at Tourism Currents<\/b><\/p>\n Sheila Scarborough and I run Tourism Currents<\/a>, to teach updated marketing skills to tourism professionals. We definitely over deliver on valuable content, tailored specifically to tourism. (Sheila simply will not stop stuffing even more valuable information into everything we do.) We make ourselves available to our paid members through email and a forum. (I’m thinking of re-working the forum into a comments section, but we’ll still be making ourselves available there.) But we can do more to connect our members with each other, and to be their mirror. During our charter offering, we used the commitment of paying customers to drive us to complete the course.<\/p>\n While there are plenty of free lessons and resources available on social media in general, we excel at customizing everything we create specifically to tourism, as well as adding value in these other ways.<\/p>\n Your Small Business<\/b><\/p>\n How are you competing with free?<\/p>\n Free is a pretty compelling price. How can you compete with that? Is it possible to add enough value to be worth more than a competitor that is free? Cheap or FreePhoto by Chris Brogan The recent controversy within the social media community over Chris Brogan’s Blog Topics newsletter provides a pretty good example. I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,7,27,17,11],"tags":[104],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7268,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/7268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Chris is offering a weekly e-newsletter of blog topic ideas<\/a> and charging just under $10 a month for it.\u00a0This caused backlash from people who didn’t like him charging for what seems like a very simple service: a list of blog post topic ideas. I heard it referred to as a ‘rip off’ since others offer blog topic ideas for free.<\/p>\n
Based on the sample of his newsletter<\/a>, Chris is not just emailing a bullet point list of ten blog topic ideas. He writes a paragraph description and direction on each topic. He includes a piece of writing advice in each issue. His goal apparently is to help people improve their blogs overall, not just through topics.
Make sure you pack your products full of extra valuable content.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Chris is connecting those who subscribe together with many interactive features. He describes it as “a writing group stuffed in your email.” He also added a Facebook Page to allow members to share their experiences. And by creating that group in a public place, others can observe. Never forget the Liz Strauss point: in social media there are at least three sides to the conversation: you, the person you are talking to, and the people outside observing.
You can give your customers ways to interact with each other. Do it publicly, if appropriate.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Chris is currently featuring some posts written by members of the blog topics community on his own blog, that ranks in the Advertising Age top 5 with over 200,000 unique views a month.
You should be the social media mirror to your community<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Chris has a strong incentive to keep this service going and high quality: 250+ paid subscribers as of this writing. Those offering free services have weaker incentives: support from their audience, exposure, and good feelings.
There is nothing like cold hard cash to build your commitment to your customers.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Chris’s subscribers know they are part of a very small group, with much better chance of getting his attention. (It’s easier to be one of 250, than one of 200,000.) And paying customers always get a higher priority than non-paying customers.
People crave personal attention. Make your paid products one way to get more of it.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n