Information Marketing has made big money for many people, before Internet Marketing 
there was the Direct Mail masters like Streetwise Publishing and Agora publishing. The idea was to sell information that people wanted, information that can change people’s lives for a profit and a very good profit at that.
In the 1980s magazines and comics aimed at men (Viz was one I remember the most) had several small adverts in the back of them advertising small special reports showing how men can be attractive to all women guaranteed or how to win the jackpot on all gambling machines found in pubs, or how to become rich working from home etc.
These small reports were expensive compared to the cost of making them; they were usually cheaper though than the follow up products that would drop through the letter box once the marketer had got your postal address. These days many Information Marketers use the internet and require just your main email address.
The pricing was based on the information itself, for example, and this is the answer that the information marketer uses to justify his business, if a person had the winning ticket to the lottery jackpot, the winnings were £1million yet for some reason he was unable to collect his winnings so he approached his friend and asked if he was interested in buying the ticket for £10,000, the answer would be yes.
A small piece of paper with a few lines of ink across it would not and should not cost £10,000 however, once it represents £1million which is a life changing sum of money, the paper and ink no longer determines its price.
Another story many information marketers repeat in their defence is the story of Sam the Shovel, the first self made millionaire from the gold rush days. Unlike all the people panning for gold to become wealthy and make their lives easier with that new found gold, Sam the Shovel opened up a hardware store that sold shovels and panning equipment to the people.
Information Marketers see Sam the Shovel as a Wild West equivalent to the new Information Marketer. He gave the people the things they wanted. He sold his equipment using the supply and demand method, there was a demand for them and he supplied them, he might have even charged more at the height of the demand.
Information marketers work on both those principles, when people want to learn something (a demand for the knowledge & product) that is life changing like making a million pounds in your spare time in 6 months then the cost of the product will be high and they feel that they are justified in doing so.
So with this idea, and based on the story of Sam the Shovel, the Information Marketers began selling products at prices that too many defy any logic. Workshops and seminars were sold to people wanting to make money and leave their jobs for prices of £5,000 – £10,000.
The systems taught at seminars were workable as they were usually based on those that worked for people in the past, mainly those running the seminars. However, they usually needed a lot of time and money invested to make them work. Which after spending large sums of money to attend these workshops the customers are left with very little money left to go any further.
Many of the Information Marketers who sell these products, usually using a funnel system that sells a cheaper product, followed by a slightly more advanced and expensive product which is either followed by one more higher priced product or the high ticket costing workshop/seminar.
The funnel is designed to sell just enough information to excite and entice the purchaser into wanting to buy the next more expensive product. Many Information Marketers actually see themselves in the make money industry more than the selling information industry.
One UK Information Marketer (Initials AR) actually made front end products that didn’t work, they got the person further addicted to the need to succeed that they would spend the money need to buy the next product. They were in fact scammed.
In many ways, these Marketers create lists of buyers that buy products and do nothing with them. They often hope they do not succeed so they become repeat buyers. It is often easier to afford the next few cheaper products and seminars that should help you achieve the dream than it is to actually fund setting up the business models they were taught.
This was all good for several decades but we now live a decade into the new century, the internet is now full of people adding information for free everywhere. Also there are so many places where people can put their true feelings and reviews of products that any over priced product can easily be researched.
Is it right for people too create funnels purposely designed to take money from people time and time again yet say that they are trying to help these people leave the day job? In reality they are not, yes they like success stories because it is rare and it gives them a great testimonial. Testimonials are big in this industry; it helps to sell their products. Great testimonials give social proof and credibility.
The real truth is that today in the high speed internet world we live in, most of the information that sold for thousands can be found for free or at least very cheaply as self published books on places like Amazon or Kindle.
Think about the Dummies series of books, they may not be business opportunities that they publish but they are information products and they use the method the Information Marketer try hard to avoid and that is sell cheaply to large numbers.
The Information Marketer prefers to sell a DVD for £67 or more instead of the usual £14. It keeps costs down with higher profit margins. They will also charge for the postage so they do not lose any money. As I said earlier, in reality they are in the make money business.
With companies like the Dummies publishers and the advancement of technologies giving Amazon the opportunity to publish books by individuals who can charge what ever they choose. Information Marketing has taken a change in direction. Maybe the day of charging thousands to a few hundred has now come to an end where charging the usual average cost of a product to thousands possibly hundreds of thousands of people is now the new method.
Even though I am in the industry and wanted to be in the industry, I would only charge thousands for a product if it was really life changing and quick. I haven’t yet seen one of them. I for one want to see more people utilising modern technology to share great information to many for a fairer price.
