The 3 “Marketing Paradoxes” Explained (Part 3)
In Part 1 of this Marketing Paradoxes three part series, you learned about the Paradox of Distribution which I defined as follows:
“You can’t get adequate distribution of a product until you’ve proven it can sell; but you can’t prove a product can sell until you’ve gotten adequate distribution in the market.”
In Part 2, you learned about the Paradox of Choice which I defined as:
“The more choices you have, the more paralyzed you become as a result of your inability to make clear buying decisions. The more indecisive you become, the less freedom you have in making buying decisions.”
In Part 3 (what you’re reading now), you’re about to discover and learn about the 3rd and most powerful Marketing Paradox which I coined as the Paradox of Syndication.
Here’s my first crack at its definition:
“The greater the percentage of visitors – readers, listeners, viewers – who consume your content on your own websites or blogs, the less relevant you become on the World Wide Web.”
If you want to grow your business faster, better and with less human effort (especially if you’re an Info Marketer), utilize the Paradox of Syndication as your instant passport to more wealth and status.
J. Paul Getty said, “I’d rather have 1% of one hundred peoples’ efforts than 100% of my own.” That quote notes the principle behind what fuels the Paradox of Syndication.
Any form of syndication can empower your online or offline business to grow faster and gain more marketing reach faster, better and with less personal effort … even if you’re starting from scratch!
Written another way, the Paradox of Syndication insinuates:
“The greater the percentage of visitors – readers, listeners, viewers – who consume your content on other websites or blogs, the more absolute relevance you’ll have on World Wide Web.”
I know that may sound a bit “counter-intuitive,” but isn’t that what a paradox is? Remember in Part 1 how Wikipedia defines “Paradox?”
Here it is again for your quick review:
“A Paradox is a true statement that leads to a contraction or situation which defies intuition; or inversely, it can be a contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth.”
From a marketer’s perspective, the principle of syndication means getting more “market reach” faster, better and easier.
And when it comes to gaining more “market reach” for your business (especially if you’re an Info Marketer), you must learn how to make your content more available (through the power of “syndication”) on other websites and blogs.
Example: If you produce a live Tele-Webcast on your own website or blog, your affiliate partners will be far less motivated to send you traffic than if the Tele-Webcast or Teleseminar or Webinar was available on their websites or blogs.
The practice of sending traffic without getting paid is commonly called bit slinging in Internet Marketing circles and many of the top affiliates simply refuse to do it.
But if you utilize InstantTeleWebcast, you instantly and easily have the ability to “syndicate” your content so it can simulataneously be distributed (just like a newspaper, radio or television show) on many other locations (websites and blogs) besides your own!
Once you start thinking this way, you become a syndicator, just like Ted Turner, Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch or Oprah Winfrey.
The major TV networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox Networks, all acquired their market reach and status as a direct result of the power and force of syndication.
In the 20th century, Albert Einstein remarked that “the principle of compounding is the most powerful force in the entire Universe.”
In the 21st century, Alex Mandossian says that “the principle of syndication is the most powerful force in the Marketing Universe.”
Key Point: Your future marketing success – online or offline – is determined by your future ability to syndicate.
Once your start capitalizing your syndication capabiltities and make your content available other websites and blogs (as well as your own), you’ll enjoy more market reach, faster, better and easier.
End of story.
If you want to see the power of syndication in full force, visit my Teleseminar Secrets Blog and you’ll discover promotional videos that are viewed more often on other websites and blogs (such as YouTube) than my own!
What To Do Now: Please give me your candid comment below and tell your friends and colleagues to read this post and give me their candid comments below as well.
C’mon now … grab your mouse and send your two email referrals so your friends can access this blog post without a required ”opt-in.”
Your courtesy will be most appreciated ;-)
Tags: albert einstein, alex mandossian, blogging, google, info publishing, online marketing, promotion, syndications, teleseminar secrets, website
Alex,
I have been a fan of your teachings for along time. I may not get to read every post you make but I admire your consistency. (I miss the Wednesday Minute) I do my best to keep up. I will surely mention this post to anyone who “follows” me.
—In the 21st century, Alex Mandossian says that “the principle of syndication is the most powerful force in the Marketing Universe.”—
I couldn’t agree with you more in this statement. What I have been teaching to other agents is that in this market and the years to come, it will be the consistent syndicated marketers online that will inherit the business.
Thanks for making it easy to find you,
Tim
I had never thought of this before . . . syndication as the ultimate marketing approach. But it does make total sense to have multiple sites presenting material as opposed to just one. Massive visibility has a strong tendency to suggest massive popularity, therefore potentially leading to massive sales.
Thank you for sharing this helpful perspective of the power of syndication. Much continued success.
Brilliant!
This is a clear and concise picture of what I have been muddling through, often while unfocused and confused about what I am attempting to accomplish. I will keep these concepts in mind for clarity as I progress through the tasks at hand.
A case in point for both paradox #1 and #2 is, a company who’s products I market has just come out with the very, very best dog food ever marketed commercially. Perhaps over confidently, they named it the “Ultimate Diet for Dogs.” It is literally the “B.A.R.F.” diet in a bag. (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food). They also produce the best dry kibble we know of, and we sell tons of it. This new food is MUCH better, and substantially less expensive, but is DIFFERENT—UNFAMILIAR, so most people just stay with THE CHOICE they are familiar with.
So, with your advice, I will engage in educating people about the new, better choice in as many external blogs as I can – hopefully beginning with THIS one :o)
Thanks for your excellent advice!
Bruce Chenoweth
wow! this really blows my mind off the charts! good job alex! and thanks for sharing it with me.
Hi Alex,
I agree with you that this is the Recommendation Age. We are bombarded with too much information and it tends to freeze people from ever taking action to solve what ever situation they may be having.
I have always found your work to be first rate and accurate over the last couple of years.
With all that is out there, it IS hard to seperate the useful from the useless.
And to prove the point, originally if you didn’t have people like Jack Canfield and others like Marshall Thurber who are members of the Transformational Leadership Council “recommend” you I would have never really looked into your work.
And I would have missed out on a ton of very valuable and usable information that I have applied and gotten wonderful results from.
Thanks Alex, and keep up the great work!
Sincerely,
Howard Bifson
http://www.ThePainFreeClinic.com
Alex,
Excellent post. I couldn’t agree more.
Apologies in advance for the long reply, but your post got me really jazzed up.
In 1994-1999, I pioneered online content syndication for Reuters, the world’s largest news agency.
Traditionally, Reuters relied on SYNDICATING their news, stock quotes, forex data, audio, video, and graphics to banks and traders (customers like Bank of America, etc), print (NY Times, LA Times, etc), audio (BBC, NPR, etc), and video outlets (ABC, CBS, CNN).
In this way, Reuters news was EVERYWHERE. We didn’t force people to go to Reuters for the news, Reuters news came to YOU, wherever you were.
An analogy would be this: when you go to a deli or coffee shop, sometimes they offer Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Mr Pibbs, or if you are lucky, RC Cola.
But they ALWAYS offer Coke.
Reuters goal was to be the coke!
So naturally when the web took off in 1994, I created numerous products for Reuters to automatically syndicate their content to ONLINE partners – Yahoo, Excite, MSN, AOL.
It was actually the opposite of what was happening at the time – most companies were building destination sites and trying to get surfers to come to their sites.
In contrast, Reuters news didnt have a strong web site – but its news was EVERYWHERE. At one point, Reuters News was on all of the top ten most visited sites, according to Media Metrix.
This accomplished three goals:
1. It built the Reuters brand across the web
2. It generated TONS of revenues from subscriptions and a share of ad sales on those partner sites
3. It brought in loads of new readers to Reuters
On a side note, in 1999, I left Reuters and started Kinecta, a syndication services provider with customers that included Reuters, Dow, the Economist, the Financial Times, as well as medium and small publishers looking to leverage the syndication model.
Kinecta’s syndication infrastructure was so important that it is now part of Oracle.
The importance of the syndicated model on the internet is summed up in your sentence above:
“I’d rather have 1% of one hundred people’s efforts than 100% of my own.”
That was our mantra at Reuters and Kinecta. It is more important to be seen (and get a percentage of ad revenues and customers) from the top page of Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google, and other top-ranked sites, than hope that people make their way to your site!
Yahoo and the others have spent a fortune trying to attract and retain readers. They do this by aggregating content from syndicators – this could be YOU.
Instead of building a destination site and trying to re-invent the Yahoo wheel, you (and your content) should be part of the spoke!
On a side note, one of my advisors at Kinecta was Kevin Werbach. Kevin profiled syndication and my company in 1998 while he was editor of the prestigious Esther Dyson’s Release 1.0. That issue was all about the importance of Syndication as a business model on the internet. Can’t believe it is 10 years old…
Kevin was on the FCC new technology advisory board for President Bill Clinton, where he wrote the seminal piece on the impact of the Internet on telecommunications, “Digital Tornado.” This was in the very early days of the Internet.
Interestingly, today Kevin was selected to head up President-Elect Obama’s FCC transition team!
This means we now have a very strong proponent of the business model of Syndication (and telco policy in the PUBLIC interest, vs corporate interests) at a very important post in the new Administration.
I encourage your readers to figure out ways to leverage web 2.0 tools such as RSS, social bookmarks (delicious), social news sites (reddit, digg), twitter, blogs, podcasting, videoblogs, and YouTube.
Don’t force people to beat a path to your door. Instead, syndicate your content everywhere, and provide a link back to your “buy” page.
Its a great strategy. Thanks Alex!
While the 3 posts were complex in nature, they all make sense within the context of how we are deluged with information leading to too many choices.
The syncication aspect seems worth exploring to be sure, although I am wondering about the willingness of current-day marketers to share.
Thanks for your input in so many ways on how to build a successful business. You are one of the people I trust completely.
Peace, Art Ramsay
Alex,
Such good information and I understand because you made it clear for me. I am new to the internet as of July 2008 so I appreciate your information and committment to excellence.
warmly,
Kathleen
Alex-Your explanation of the 3 Marketing Paradox’s, Distribution, Choice and Syndication is very insightful. I really liked your explanation of the Choice Paradox and the need for people to have trusted advisors to help with the decision making process. This is exactly how we position ourselves with our clients but we also work to increase their knowledge base about the specific subject which in our business is the actual body they live in .
The amount of information available, both good and bad, and the lack of a functional knowledge base prevents any decision making process. Functional knowledge is a necessary component which also enhances the “trusted advisor” relationship.
You’re absolutely right. See your own website as your hometown. And see the World wide web as the country you live in. When everybody in your hometown knows you, that can be great for business. But when you’re known nation-wide (keep popping up all over the net)… wow.. you’re a ‘celebrity’ and with that status you automatically gain a certain credibility… which is, of course, great for your sales.
Alex, I knew in my gut when I started my marketing journey a few months back, that the power of influence and success comes from the principle of leverage, from the “one to many” concept. I called this “leveraging networks” in my own words. I learned today that I really meant to use the term “marketing SYNDICATION”. It is this concept alone that accelerates results. Thanks Alex! I appreciate all that you share with us. I know that those who are serious about making a difference in the lives of others, will become and remain your student. To your continued and abundant success, Cindy.
Hello master Alex, I couldn´t figure out the sense in the affirmation: “The greater the percentage of visitors – readers, listeners, viewers – who consume your content on your own websites or blogs, the less relevant you become on World Wide Web.” it doesn´t make sense I think.
On the other hand when you postulated that “The greater the percentage of visitors – readers, listeners, viewers – who consume your content on other websites or blogs, the more absolute relevance you’ll have on World Wide Web.” it absoultely makes sense without any doubt as well as the rest of this wise post, thank you very much for your way to make people think. You are a very smart man.
Thank you very much for your words of wisdom.
Best Regards,
Daniel Cajiga
Hi Alex. I love the concepts and the absolute powers of syndication. Thanks for reminding me of this. As a new Student of yours, I can’t wait to get started applying this to all of my businesses. Thanks so much. Terry Atkinson.
Alex,
As usual, you share points in a way that anyone can understand. I could not agree more about your thoughts on syndication. I have found that my content on other sites get more views and leads to my site than the other way around.
Recently, I was asked to be on the strategy team for the Central Illinois project for ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and we employed this very concept. We ended up with over 76k hits in one week on our blog extrememakeoverupdates.com – the same week the site went live! Our goal for the communication was to be able to pay for the build and the family’s mortgage. We started the week with $400 in the account and ended the week with over $120,000. Using syndication, blogging and social networking all interchanged worked famously. Had we had more than a week to set everything up, I’m sure we could have done even better.
To your success!
Stephanie
Productive & Organized – We’ll help you find your way! tm
Well Alex, you know how I feel about this one – it couldn’t be more important and, again, is the basis for everything I’m doing right now. I have no desire anymore to be met on my terms – I am meeting people on their terms.
I produce content (more times than not starting as a teleseminar) for those who want to “method” of touch. I then make available via Podcast for those who want that. From there, we go to physical product – CD, DVD, preloaded player, etc.
And of course, it doesn’t stop there, … they get transcribed and made available via website, email, printed book, Kindle.
You know what a stats freak I am . A small percentage of my content is consumed via the very teleseminar that started it all – if that isn’t a paradox, I don’t know what is.
Paul
The info you provided in this series was so easy to understand, whenever I get something you’ve written or recorded I find some of the best info available! You fill in a the “blanks” other programs leave behind.
Thank You!
Jan
Alex;
The 3 Paradoxes were great reading and you left me wanting more. Thanks,
John
Outstanding!
You really have a grasp of the big picture. I just started learning from you, and I expect I am in for a wild ride. I think you are right on target with how people are interacting and business is developing to capture their attention.
Dr. Mark Zakowski
Thanks for pointing out the power of syndication.
I have been syndicating my articles on the Internet, which is a familiar strategy used by feature writers in print media. This is one step closer to syndicating Right Track Coaching teleseminars, PassionandMastery.com blog, etc.
Your article has added clarity and wisdom to Internet business development.
Best regards
T-M
Syndication is the ONLY way and if you can find one source to syndicate to all of the possible platforms than you have found a gold mine.
Very powerful, this would make a GREAT course!!!
Hi Alex
This is great information and it is absolutely 100% correct. Alex you are brilliant. I will do my best to put this to work ASAP.
Great Alex! Sooooo true!
We have syndicated our various quizes, most recently the “Communication Quiz” with great results. We now find the quiz on other blogs, MySpace, FaceBook…each advertising our quiz as it offers a great tool for free, plus advertising for us.
Thanks!
Matt
http://www.positivelymary.com/ColorCommunicationQuiz.html
Very enjoyable and stimulating.
The content was crisp clear and easy to relate to.
For those of us with the “HOW” mentality we now need to think through how we can apply it.
Thank you.
I totally agree about syndication. Perhaps the most dramatic example was the way amazon birthed the modern affiliate program by syndicating the ability to have a bookstore without needing inventory to thousands of website partners, around 1995 or 1996. I am totally convinced that this was *the* move that took Amazon from obscurity to category killer.
On the paradox of choice, I’m not 100% convinced. Limiting choices makes sense in some situations, but not in all. It works great with PPC, because the person clicking has already voted yes. But if someone is looking for information and presented only with a sales choice, or if the prospect hasn’t yet segmented him- or herself into the silo that the sales copy addresses, it may backfire.
I may have found a “third way”: a triage page that does the segmenting and then leads to the salesletter. You can see an example at http://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com
Shel Horowitz, author of five marketing books including Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First
Just want to say your article is impressive. The clearness in your post is simply impressive and i can assume you are an expert on this field. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with incoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the fabulous work