Question #21: What Are The Types Of Information Products?

Answer: There are three types of information products as information strategies or species. Let us explain.

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3 Types of Information Products

There are three types of information products as information strategies or species.

1. The first is written
2. Next is audio information
3. The third is video

Of those three strategies, I’m going to call them strategies, because within each of the strategies there are tactics and strategies and tactics are different. Strategies have more of an aerial view they’re at 50,000 feet whereas tactics are closer to ground level.

A written information product is like a book, how-to course maybe you read a PDF online or a transcript.  The PDF transcripts are written, when you print them out within a member’s area they become physical, but they’re still written, so anything written requires active learning.

What does active learning mean?  It means that you actively have to focus on the written word.

It’s tough to read two books at the same time.  In fact, I don’t know how you would do that simultaneously.   It’s hard to listen to someone, read and have a high-level of comprehension.  It’s hard to drive and read, because reading is active.

Written copy is active.  Audio is passive it’s not active.  I hope that makes sense.

Audio can be listened to while you’re reading and you can still know what you’re listening to.  Audio can be listened to while you’re driving in traffic.  What a great strategy, because it’s passive you listen to it.

When we didn’t have TiVo and the DVR visual video recorder systems; we used to mute the television, at least I did, to go the refrigerator and get some food, a glass of water or Diet Snapple and we did that, I did that, because I didn’t want that passive commercial going in my ears or in my nervous system, so I would mute it.

I would actively look at the television, but when I turned my head that television was gone, so I didn’t turn off the TV I just muted it.  I kept the TV on, because visually it didn’t bother me that it was a TV commercial.  I would just turn my head, go to the fridge, come back and then un-mute it when the show began.

Now we have DVRs and brand names like TiVo where we fast forward through the commercials and we’re not only muted, but we’re fast forwarding the video.

The video is active, because you want to know where that fast forward begins and ends.  The audio is passive, because you passively can generate information and learn even when you’re multi-tasking.

Between active and passive, passive is more powerful for me.  Passive is more powerful for the information marketer.

You need both, because they’re different methods of learning, but passive is more powerful, because you can meet your market in more places.  During dead or down time, audio works.  You can’t read a book in traffic in your car, but you can listen to audio.

Nightingale Conant created a multi-multi-million dollar company doing that.

There’s the written, the audio and the video is the third type of information content, so there’s written content and audio content.  Now audio content can be on a preloaded iPod, a CD, an audio generator button that you click and it’s a flash, button online.

Audio content can be a download from an mp3 file, an audio blog or podcast like at AlexMandossian.com.

Audio content is audio no matter how you listen to it no matter where you are.  You’re listening to it and its passive, because although it does require attention, you don’t have all your attention on it’s a very powerful modality of information product.

Video is active as well.  It has audio involved, so there’s power there, but it is also active.  What active means is you’ve got to watch the video and pay attention in order to get the complete message.

Whatever message you don’t get visually, what are you getting it by?  You’re getting it auditorily, so even if you shut your eyes and didn’t see the video, which is the more powerful modality of communication as far as power, meaning more reach and more flexibility.

The more adaptive thing is the more powerful thing.  That’s how it is in cognitive psychology, right?  The more adaptive thing, if you have an automaton that’s more adaptive in nature and it doesn’t have to be a human being, the more adaptive human being the more adaptive species is more powerful.  They live long, because they adapt.

Audio is more adaptive, if I shut my eyes I can’t watch the video anymore, but the video makes sense to me, because of the audio.  If I shut my eyes I can’t read anymore and I can’t even get a message.

If I were to rate information content I would rate it audio first, video second, written third, as far as power and reach goes.  With video if you shut your eyes you can at least get the audio if there’s audio playing.

If it’s a silent picture you’ve got a problem if it’s a picture or a movie that’s in subtitles and you can’t read the subtitles, if you don’t understand the language, because it’s in Spanish, French, Portuguese or Russian, if it’s in a different language than your mother tongue, you have a problem as well, because you’re not reading the subtitles, because subtitles are active.

That’s repurpose content.  That’s a movie with subtitles; however, it has less value, because if your eyes are shut or you’re blind — you can have a blind student and it’s difficult for that student unless they read Braille to read a book  — it’s difficult to read a book unless there’s audio content.

If I were to rate it on most power to least powerful, I would put audio first then video then written and that’s my opinion.  The reason for that is if you have any kids or if you’ve known any kids, parents can teach a child to understand the spoken word earlier on than the written word.

A child doesn’t learn how to read or write until age six or seven and some people later, but in the case of verbal or the spoken word a child knows ah-ah-ah and the child knows wait versus; wait versus uh-uh.  Even gestures and intonation have a huge impact on a child.

If that is true, if you believe that to be true, then could it be that adults learn the same way.  The more archaic, older part or the understanding part of the brain, is the spoken word.

No wonder some of the greatest works that have shaped the world have been speeches.  Churchill’s ‘Blood, Sweet and Tears’, was first a speech and then it was the written word.  ‘The Gettysburg Address’ by Abraham Lincoln was first a speech and then it was written.

If you think of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ by Jesus that was first a speech and then it was written.  Even the ‘Ten Commandments’ was first a speech, as the story goes regardless of your spiritual persuasion then it was written on clay tablets.

All great points in history, most in my opinion, were first speeches.  In fact, all tradition or word of mouth that’s the oldest and most reliable way for marketing.  People call that viral marketing now, but that’s the oldest way.

The book did change history, because now we could record history and people could have mass communication.  It doesn’t mean that written word is not powerful it sure is.

As far as having more reach, as an information marketer, because this is going to be very relevant to the question of where do you start repurposing, I’m going to say for the record that audio is the single most powerful way.

It is the lowest hanging fruit and the lowest bar to step over in repurposing.  Always start with audio, always start with the most powerful format.