In the previous section we saw the benefits of setting up a paid content business over the Internet. Like every other business, the first step for creating a paid content business is to figure out what are you going to sell. Without an attractive and unique product or service, your business cannot succeed.
The web is a huge marketplace that has attracted businesses with its potential for big-time revenues. Dizzying success stories of ventures started in a basement that grew to become stock market's darlings are constantly parlayed in the media. Small businesses came to the Internet, tentative at first, and then in droves - eager to sell everything from information to fake estate jewelry to handcrafted tapestries. On the other hand, the stories of failures and crashes are legion. We all know by now that merely setting up a jazzy site and attracting eyeballs and hoping to reap huge revenue from advertisement does not work. You must deliver value to a customer who is willing to pay for it. Remember that the Internet is only the medium and not the end. The Internet only helps you to find prospects, take your offerings to a wider audience, provide them convenience (and choice) and promote interactivity and personalized offerings. All this, in a very cost effective manner! However, the Internet by itself does not create the offering – the information or content has to be yours and it has to be special.
Selection of your business idea is the most important step in the whole chain of setting up a paid membership business over the Internet. Execution of the idea is important and this book tells you how to go about successful execution; however the idea has to come from you. This section points out to you some content categories and business ideas that have been successful. The idea is to illustrate to you what can be done.
You can sell just about any content or service — as long as you have an offering that has a market and an ability to get it (legally) to your customer. Yes, there are exceptions. In some cases you might be competing with big companies with a chunk of the market share.
The Internet is primarily used to communicate, entertain, educate and research. It is thus no wonder that nonperishable, information-intensive content - including software, books, travel, and magazine subscriptions - are the most popular online services at present. Content-rich subscription-based sites focusing on a wide range of topics have been sprouting all over the Internet.
Here are some categories that you may like to study and pursue.This category includes business news, finance and investment advice, business research, digital content used for business purposes, business tips, and other information about all kinds of businesses. It also has business listings, corporate information, market research, and industrial reports and statistics. Market researchers, consultants, sales and marketing managers need information about market trends, market size, major players in their sector and a lot of statistics. This information can be difficult to find and it can consume enormous time. If you are experienced in information research, you can compile information on specific business sectors and companies and provide them to members with your own analysis. Almost all the large consulting companies offer paid content through their site; some use their site to offer their specialized market research reports.
Corporate information from the financial perspective is another sought after category. It is valuable for both, investors and analysts.You can also include business information and case studies pertaining to different countries and government. Some such sites are WSJ.com and eMarketer.com
Several portals and community sites are found on the net that promote interaction and collaboration between select groups of members. A large number of these are subscription based member-only sites. You can think of your own idea of a community site – you can organize a sports league in your town to play tennis, badminton and squash; or a community of ‘low riders’ to interact. These community sites can benefit from providing additional services to their members; thus the sports league site could sell racquets or other sports gear, or it could have such suppliers advertise their wares on the site.
Community Directories include sites whose content is created in large part through the efforts of other site visitors, for example, Ancestry.com, IMDB.com and Classmates.com.
There are several sites aimed at the individual - mainly motivational and selfbetterment sites. Such sites offer tips, articles, advice and counseling on how to build self-esteem and self-confidence and reduce stress for a happier life. You may also provide great inspirational quotations, inspirational stories, motivational poems, and other resources to motivate and inspire your visitors. It could include psychology tests, IQ tests, emotional intelligence tests and personality tests for self-help improvement.
The market for personal advice and counseling, especially for students is pretty big. You can provide educational counseling through such sites. Professional advisory information and training is covered in a subsequent category.
These sites provide complete guides, articles, tips and counseling on proper eating and exercising habits, benefits of diet and exercise, fitness techniques, diet articles and diet tips, weight loss, as well as some of the popular diet plans. It includes tips from fitness experts, reviews of fitness and diet programs, message boards, forums and discussions on health and fitness.
Information of various nutritional and diet supplements, healthy and non-healthy foods can be included. Some of the popular fitness and health sites are eDiets.com and WeightWatchers.com.
Not all the sites are comprehensive in nature; most in fact focus on some specific program(s) and try to promote those programs to their members. Members are provided not only great details about some proprietary programs, but also personalized guidance to suit their individual cases. Members are also able to share their experiences. Generally, such sites will also offer privileges and discounts to their members to avail of fitness equipments or nutritional supplements or membership of fitness clubs.
A recent report on the US Market on Spending published by the Online Publishers Association and comScore indicates that the Personals/Dating category surpassed Business/Investing content to become the leading paid content category in 2002.
According to eMarketer, 19.2 million Internet users from home and 7.9 million Internet users from work went online to personals sites in December 2002. Personals and Dating is by far the most popular and visited category on the Internet. These sites foster match making and dating. They include personal classifieds, chat rooms, messenger tools and cater to a global audience. Some popular sites include Match.com, and friendfinder.com.
Consumer research sites contain links to consumer booklets from government and corporate customer service centers, consumer advocacy organizations, and TV consumer transcripts on a variety of consumer topics. These also include consumer price index links, college and scholarship resources, and other general resources. Consumer resources and research help consumers make a wise decision on buying new appliances, jewelry, wine, toys, or long distance service. A site may focus on everything automotive: information on car buying including wholesale price lists, car reviews and crash test results, consumer rights under state lemon laws, and car complaint histories. It could contain telephone directories including reverse directories by address, phone number or email address; company backgrounders; and directories of lawyers, directories of consumer agencies and organizations.
You may cover information about home improvements, repairs, contractors, and home buying. Consumer research websites incorporate health information as well as consumer information about nutrition, tobacco lawsuits, and medical news.
There are several subject areas to choose from. Many sites have been set up for product comparison – features as well as price comparison. Generally you will find these for electronic appliances and computer equipment. These sites also provide you access to actual consumer feedback and experience from other buyers. Some sites are free, but for specialized and tailor-made advice, they have fee-based services.
People search websites are a good way to find out addresses and other information on people. These sites are generally used to locate “lost” friends and relatives. For such sites, the site owner needs to purchase databases of public records from government and other agencies. Most people would be listed with such agencies making it easier to track them down.
You could search for people by name, address, or phone number. Some people search websites also provide background checks for higher fees. Property as well as business search may also be included.
Legal research websites are an effective source of all kinds of legal information. These include information on laws ranging from abortion, advertising, automobile, home buying, marketing, business, matrimonial, debt collection, education, criminal, computer security, constitutional, commercial, bankruptcy to anti-terrorism. You could find a list of attorneys for all states as well as list of organizations and associations for legal issues.
Information on bar associations, law schools, human rights services, and immigration services could also be incorporated. Information on case records can be annotated and indexed to offer powerful search and retrieval facilities. LexisNexis is one of the best-known sites in this category.
These sites focus on medical issues and/or health insurance. Medical research websites provide an extensive listing of research resources on various diseases and promotion of health through public education. It includes clinical information as well as information about doctors and hospitals in all states. Information on medical ethics and fraud is also provided.
Medical Journals, publications, and articles are often presented. Such websites are a good resource for lists of National Institutes of Health, medical encyclopedias and dictionaries, and extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs. Apart from these, all information related to Medicare and health insurance can be found on these sites.
Consultants, paralegal and legal researchers and consumers are amongst those who have interest in such sites.You may also like to consider a site that provides information on health and medicine for the general public or for a specific target group, say women, nursing mothers. While there are quite a few sites that offer this type of information free, there is room for those that can provide uniquely targeted information. Alternate and complementary medicine and therapy is another area evoking considerable interest and audience.
These are one of the most popular categories of subscription websites. They include latest sports news from around the country and the world, information on all kinds of sports, sporting personalities and sporting venues. These also contain chat rooms, message boards, and forums for the sports fanatics to interact with each other. Links to various league sites could also be provided. A major crowd puller is the sale of sporting goods and memorabilia to members.
Online greeting cards are a great way to send wishes to loved ones all over the world. Electronic greetings are far more convenient and cheaper than paper greetings. Online greeting cards are for every occasion from birthdays to weddings to festivals. They also include general love and friendship cards. The main advantage of electronic greetings is that these can be interactive and animated. Flash technology can be used to create amazing cards.
Initially, most websites offered online greeting cards for free but this trend has changed in the last few years. All quality sites offer paid subscriptions at nominal rates. Single-purchase revenue in this category includes revenue generated from the attachment of gift certificates to content. BlueMountain and AmericanGreetings are some of the most popular greeting card websites.
Online gaming is a huge market especially for kids and teenagers. Many websites offer interactive online computer games. Some of the most popular gaming categories are arcade, sports, adventure, trivia, and card games. Game packages can be purchased at low rates from other vendors and installed on your website. Apart from these, you may develop your own games as well but this would be far more expensive and time consuming. Recently multi-player games have gained a lot of popularity. These games allow people from different parts of the world to log on and play against each other rather than one player playing against the computer. Many websites also offer monthly prizes and sweepstakes to its members as a marketing strategy.
According to a report published by Jupiter Media Metrix, revenues from online games will total $1.8 billion in 2006 in the United States compared to $260 million in 2001. Datamonitor predicts even higher growth. It concludes that the online gaming market is already $670 million in 2002 and will rise to $2.9 billion in 2005.
Entertainment websites include digital music and multimedia, humor, recipes and other content intended for amusement, leisure and diversion. This is probably one of the most visited website category.
Nielsen//NetRatings conclude that more than 72 percent of Internet users surf the web for Entertainment sites, although the total consumer spending on these sites is not as high. A report by the National Research Council estimates that there are between 2 million and 8 million subscribers to entertainment Web sites, and that they paid between $40 and $100 for a year, for a total of approximately $800 million in 2002. This may include adult content sites, though, but there is considerable need for the entertainment categories listed above.
E gambling is another important market area amongst entertainment websites. Many researchers predict that E-gambling would soon be responsible for the highest consumer spending in most developed countries. A research report published by the Informa Media Group estimates that worldwide revenue from e gambling would climb to $14.5 billion by 2006.
E learning or online learning is a very promising medium to provide training. The list of subjects and topics is vast. The Internet is a great medium to deliver training in a very cost effective manner. One of the greatest advantages it offers the student is anytime, anywhere learning. There are sites that offer online driving lessons as well. Most states provide suspended sentences to first time traffic offenders if they enroll and complete a course providing driving lessons and take a test. This has spawned numerous sites that follow a prescribed course as per a given State’s laws and offer an online course and test on safe driving and, well, they have a large clientele! There are sites that offer training in nursing, gardening, interior decoration or alternative medicine. Sites that offer training in personal growth and development are increasing rapidly. Some teach you to lose weight and stay fit; others teach you time management and leadership skills; still others teach you about the cultures and languages of the world.
Corporate training is another area that has attracted subscription websites. There are online “universities” that offer training on subjects like HIPAA (the regulation that covers hospitals, medical providers and health insurance companies, whereby training is required on the subject of maintaining security and privacy of medical records), or Computer programming or several other subjects that are important to businesses and their employees.
Test preparation training and practice is another prominent business area in subscription or paid content websites. Students aspiring for exams like SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT or those aspiring for Industry recognized certifications like MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) and several like these sign up as members on these sites and receive practice tests and tips for their examinations.
Ebooks or Electronic books are self-contained "executable" files of HTML. Ebooks are very similar to normal physical books in the sense that they are rich in content. They are a huge resource for information. Anything you can put in a physical book, you can put in an Ebook. Executable versions of Ebooks can be created using one of the many Ebook generators available on the Internet.
Ebooks are great marketing tools as well. The Ebook you create should have a message promoting your website and a link to it. Thus, Ebooks can contain advertisements or links to your website that would persuade the reader to come back to your website and create an opportunity for more business.
Ebooks should be relevant, complete, clearly written, easy to follow, effective, and affordable. Books that score very high on content, usability and readability are the ones that ensure success. Apart from Ebooks, paid Newsletters are also a neat way to develop your member base. Like Ebooks, Newsletters should also be educative and informative and each Newsletter should be targeted at a relevant customer base.
You could start a paid content website offering an e book on a topic that is of interest to some segment of the public and where you have some expertise. You can have e books ghost written for you. Or you could have a site that offers several e books.
The success of marketplaces has been slow but the success stories are just remarkable. Witness the phenomenal success of Ebay, the auction site and some others like Elance, the reverse auction site for professional services. Ebay is a classic example of a simple idea of developing a community of people on the net, which just grew on itself due to some innovative ideas and the strength of convenience, lower transaction costs, simplicity and most of all due to the large community of buyers and sellers. Maybe you could think of nurturing a marketplace of teachers and tutors to answer questions and help solve problems of students online.
This category includes sites offering access to consumer credit history records and related content, for example ConsumerInfo.com and CreditExpert.com. Such websites also offer credit counseling and tips as well as credit consolidation services. Articles, guides, and tips for credit improvement are provided.
Technical Helpdesk websites offer a 24 x 7 computer helpdesk hotline with telephone support at a fixed cost for members. The staff should be trained to assist in problems with most software. Technical helpdesk website services include installation, configuration and system set-up for hardware, operating systems and software applications, tutorial assistance, navigation assistance (online services), problem identification and resolution on supported products.
These are specialized sites that offer to read and interpret individual and family horoscopes. Such sites also allow you to trace and maintain your family tree. With historical indexes and records, customers will have access to centuries of historical data. Not only can they find interesting information but can also help you develop a family tree. Members can include family photos, documents, and more on the site for their friends to view..
Celebrity fan clubs are on the rise. Fan clubs offer memberships at reasonable annual rates. Such sites offer members a lot of information on a particular celebrity along with photos, news, and memorabilia. For instance, for a rock celebrity you would have access to latest news, inside information, information on the artist’s history and band members, concert dates, discounted tickets, and gift articles and memorabilia.