Information Marketing Association

Glossary of Info-marketing Terms

Here are common terms you will hear within the information marketing business.

Affiliate - An affiliate relationship is one in which there is an agreement between two people to sell a particular product. One individual has customers he wants to market the product to, and another one has the product or service he wants to offer to customers. Typically, the individual who has the product will create an affiliate program. Many of these are executed online, and most of the popular shopping cart software programs today have this feature built in. The affiliate completes an application. Upon approval of the affiliate relationship, the affiliate is assigned a unique website address and given access to the affiliate toolbox that has emails, websites, ads and other things the affiliate can use to help sell the program. Then the affiliate uses the link, uses those sales techniques to help sell the product, and an affiliate commission is paid on those products. Commissions vary substantially by the different products and services sold. Very often the terms are negotiable for individuals who are able to sell a lot of affiliate programs, but for most folks, you normally have to earn a higher commission rate by performing well for a particular affiliate.

Affinity - This is a measure of your relationship to a market. If you have been a member of a market for a number of years, perhaps having established a career there, then you would have a high affinity with that particular market. If you are new to a market (for example, if you are going to sell to Harley Davidson owners and you have never owned a Harley Davidson and you do not know anyone who owns a Harley Davidson), then you would have very little affinity with that market.

Alexa.com - This is a website that allows you to gather information about competitors and about websites within a particular market. It provides a lot of information about the site, including how much traffic it is receiving from the Internet.

Backend - This is the most profitable part of an information marketing business and what distinguishes info-marketers from all other types of information publishers. Info-marketers are able to sell coaching, consulting, seminars, done-for-you products and newsletters, and offer other people’s products to their customers as additional revenue opportunities.

Churn - This term refers to the number of new members joining a market at a given time. For instance, the real estate agent industry is a market where there is a lot of churn. Many individuals are joining that market with the hopes of making lots of money as a real estate agent. In contrast, the funeral director industry has very little churn. Most of the entrants in that market have been family-owned businesses for many years, or they are large corporations buying the family-owned businesses. There are not a lot of new companies jumping into the funeral director business that were not in it 12 months ago. The real estate agent industry has lots of churn, and there are lots of new customers to sell to. The funeral director industry has little churn. The customers in it today are pretty much the same ones who will be in it 12 months from now.

Claims - These are the benefits you are telling potential customers they will receive from using your product. Income claims refer to the amount of income you state others have received from using your product.

Coaching - This is an arrangement where you provide advice and counsel to customers to help them implement their own problem solutions. You may have already provided them the information they need, but through a coaching program you are able to give them specific information for their particular problems as well as specific case examples to help them solve the problems. This is generally distinguished from consulting. Consulting is actually doing it for them, whereas coaching is helping them to get it done for themselves.

Continuity - This is a program where on an established interval, usually monthly, the customer is charged a set fee for a given level of product and service. Most programs are on a monthly continuity. This entire concept was pioneered and made popular by the Book of the Month program, where customers trusted a publisher to send them a book every month related to their interests. This created an ongoing continuity relationship between these customers and the publisher. Info-marketers have used continuity to completely revolutionize their businesses and add many more subscribers versus using the annual subscription model.

Continuity - Forced Continuity - This is an arrangement where the customers are provided a free trial period of a program and then at the end of the free trial, they are automatically added to the continuity program. It does not require a customer to act in order to opt into the monthly continuity. A customer can always opt out if he chooses to; however, he does not have to act to opt in.

Ebook - This is a book in a digital file that communicates information to your prospect and can be delivered electronically over the Internet. Rather than printing a product, weighing it, putting postage on it and mailing it, you are able to instantly deliver an ebook and put your product in the customer’s hand immediately.

Endorsed Mailing - This is a mailing where an individual is given a letter of endorsement, usually a brief letter that is added to the front of his sales message, that gives credibility and recognition to the offer and sales message that it would not have gotten if it had to stand on its own.

Front End - This is marketing your products and services to new customers.This is the first step of your info-business.After you are able to obtain customers through your front end, you can develop the back end of your business by selling additional products and services to the customers who have already made a purchase from you.

Guarantee - This is your assurance to your customers that your product is everything you say it is. You promise to stand behind your product and offer their money back if your customers are not satisfied with it.

Guarantee, Conditional - This is a guarantee where you force the customers to go through certain hoops in order to receive their money back. They may have to implement certain features within your product to demonstrate they have tried some things before you will give them a refund.

Guaranteed, Unconditional - This is a guarantee where the customers can simply ask for the refund, and they are given the refund without any conditions whatsoever.

Group Coaching - This is a model where, instead of the coach interacting with one student at a time, the coach interacts with many students at one time. In general, a coach is providing advice and counsel, examples and encouragement to the student and is not performing actual services for the student. In the group coaching environment, there are many students interacting at the same time with one or more coaches.

Joint Venture - This is where two or more individuals get together to create and market a product to a particular industry. In many cases, one of the joint venture partners has a list of customers and the other joint venture partner has a product or will develop a product or service for those customers. The partners work together to sell the product and then split the proceeds.

Kit - This is a collection of materials you are delivering all at one time to your customer.

Lead Generation - This is the process of identifying individuals within a market who are interested in more information about the product or service you are offering.

Market - This is a collection of customers who have something in common and, most importantly, have a common problem you can solve as an info-marketer.

Mastermind Meeting - This term was coined by Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, who said that one of the factors successful people share is a group of people they can work with to help solve problems. By working together to solve each other’s problems, each of them benefits. Many information marketers have been able to duplicate the benefit of mastermind meetings through their coaching programs.

Monthly CD - This is an audio program or other program offered through podcast and other means that individuals subscribe to. They can be provided by one person as a monologue, or they can be in a conversation or interview format between an expert and a host.

Multipay - This is an arrangement where the info-marketer helps the customer afford the product by putting it on a payment program. It can be two-pay, three-pay, five-pay, etc., but this helps lower the initial price of the product and decreases the risk the customer may perceive from the sale. For example, if a customer looks at an offer and it is $250.00 a month for four months, that may be more acceptable to him than paying $1,000.00 all at once, even though he could probably self-finance that $1,000.00 through a credit card. It feels like $250.00 is all he is risking, so he is more apt to participate in a multipay program than in an all upfront sale.

Newsletter - This is a publication that is published, usually monthly, by an information marketer to communicate with customers and provide ongoing help and information and to reinforce what the info-marketer has taught them in the past.

Niche - This is a group of individuals with a like interest or a similar demographic. Normally, these niches are defined as business oriented - it could be plumbers, restaurant owners, chiropractors, doctors or accountants.

Subniche - These are specialties within a particular niche. So a plumber could be a commercial plumber who only works in 30-story buildings or he could be a residential plumber. There are many subniches for doctors: dermatologist, surgeon, gynecologist, anesthesiologist - all of these are subspecialties or subniches within the niche of medicine.

Offers - This is what you are agreeing to provide your customer for a fee. Most teachers within the info-marketing world will tell you your offer is the most important part of your marketing campaign. You should create your offer before you create a product or anything else. You should create a compelling offer, a collection of resources, tools, techniques, manuals, CDs, videos, coaching - whatever you want to package in your offer. You should decide what your offer is going to be first, and then you can go about the job of creating the product and offering it to the marketplace.

One-step Sale - This is a process where you go straight from introducing yourself to the customer to asking for the sale within one marketing piece. This is contrasted by lead generation marketing, where you first generate a lead through a lead generation ad, and then create a sales sequence to sell to that lead. Through one-step sales, you are trying to sell at the point of first contact.

Online Marketing - This is a method where you use the Internet to communicate with a large population of people using automated software to handle the lead capture, marketing and the sales process and, many times, the product delivery.

Order Form - This is also called a response device application. This is a piece of paper, the document or the webform the customers use to make the transaction. This is where they fill in their name, address and credit card information. The order form is mailed, faxed or completed online or on the telephone. If completing a telephone order, the person taking the order usually has an order form to fill out for the customer.

Prerecorded Message - This is a message, usually through a toll free number, that you offer within your lead generation ad to encourage your customers to leave their names and contact information so you can deliver the rest of your sales message to them.

Reachability - This is a term referring to a niche that describes the amount of ease with which you can put your marketing message in front of your prospective customers. If a niche already has several magazines, others already marketing there or its own cable television channel, then that market is highly reachable. If there are no magazines specific to that niche, then its reachability is low.

Response Device- See Order Form.

Risk Reversal - This is a marketing term for a guarantee with which you ease a customer’s fear of making a purchase by taking on all of the risk of the sale. As the customer evaluates whether or not he wants to buy your product, he is deciding whether or not he can trust you. By offering a refund of the purchase price and to pay for return shipping if the customer returns the product, you are taking on all of the risk of the sale. This will help your customer buy from you with confidence.

S&D - This is a term coined by Bill Glazer that means “steal and distribute.” Rather than reinventing new ways of doing business or new marketing programs for a particular niche, you should be adapting programs that have proven themselves successful in other areas and implementing them within your own market.

Self-liquidating Leads - This is where your lead generation ad charges the potential customer a fee to receive the rest of the marketing sequence. For example, the ad will have an offer, invite people to respond and charge them $9.95 to get the rest of the marketing sequence. This type of lead has two benefits: 1.) it provides income from the lead generation process that helps pay for more lead generation ads; and 2.) it increases the quality of the lead because even though it is a nominal fee, only the most motivated individuals will be willing to go through the work necessary to respond. When you use a free lead generation system and all people have to do is pick up the phone, you are going to dramatically increase the number of leads you get and the number of opportunities you have to sell to individuals, but you are also going to increase the marketing cost.

Squeeze Page - This is a webform that captures a name and address from a prospect before you allow the prospect to see the rest of the sales message.

SRDS - This is the acronym for the Standard Rate and Data Service. This is a manual that has details about every list commercially available for sale. From the SRDS manual, you will be able to learn about markets based on the types of lists available for them and evaluate how easy it will be for you to reach this market through direct mail.

Subculture - This is a way of evaluating a potential market. Where niches are based on professional designations such as doctors and plumbers, subcultures are based on hobbies and interests of particular individuals. Golfers, fishermen, hobbyists, Star Trekkies, bird lovers, fish lovers - all of these are subcultures you can market to.

Telecoaching - This is a process of delivering coaching services over the phone rather than in person or by mail.

Telemarketing - This is a process of delivering a sales message over the telephone.

Teleseminar - This is a seminar delivered over the telephone. Most teleseminars offered by information marketers are free and designed to provide a sales presentation. The sales presentation can be for a telecoaching program as a backend product, and many info-marketers also use teleseminars to convert sales on the front end. So not only will they offer printed sales letters and CDs, but they will also invite their leads to call into a teleseminar to hear a sales presentation.

Toll Booth Position - Once you have developed a list of customers, there will be other individuals who want to sell products and services to your list. Because you have a relationship with your list, you are in a position to charge others for access to your customer list, either through an affiliate program, JV opportunity, endorsed mailing or some other agreement.

Try Before You Buy - This is often called a “puppy dog close” because it was borrowed from the pet stores that allow you to take a cute and cuddly puppy home for the evening. Once you have taken a puppy home, gotten used to him, shown the puppy to your neighbors and friends and taken him for a walk, the likelihood of you bringing that dog back to the store is extremely low. An info-marketer very often may offer a try before you buy where the customer is able to complete an order form, fax it in, receive the product, examine it for 30, 60 or 90 days, and then the charge goes through automatically if the customer has not returned the product.

Wordtracker.com - This is a website that allows you to find out exactly how many people are searching for particular key words and phrases. When you are trying to determine how to position your product within a market, you can examine the types of key words and phrases individuals are searching for on the Internet. That will give you a hint of what you should be offering them.