Originally Posted by FGDaBDIT

I'd love to and I've got some things ready to discuss as soon as they are released. However I'd just advise people to watch their news updates every day from now on. Once things are released I'll expand on some things.

One area that I'll mention is to expect a much wider scope of understanding to develop in the role of a marketing editor. Though GDT always pointed to the role of marketing editor being one that encompassed contacting businesses and soliciting their business it was commonly assumed (because of the tool) that you could just list companies and others would do the marketing. While that is true few people gave much thought to who would be doing the selling. I think a lot of people assumed that GDT would go out and do all the selling and let us make huge returns by just listing the companies so that GDT could go out and sign them up. That never has been the case.

The introduction of the email teasers was put forth though around that time anti spam consciousness was on the rise and it began to be clear that opt-in gathering of email contacts would be the more effective way to make use of that feature.

It remains that the listing of companies (that you can never hope to contact or service) -- in your personal DXIO ME database is not likely to be the most lucrative way to make money as an ME. The utter simplicity of doing so indicates that it will never be difficult to find someone to go list web sites. Though I applaud the ingenuity of bomber for his contribution of a software tool to make that possible en masse. This only shows the kind of ingenuity we have out there ready to be applied to the tools GDT releases.

Since the main work of selling the service is where the biggest value is going to be contributed (nobody makes a dime until a company makes a purchase) if follows that the most valued people will be those who can bring sales ability to a marketing team. If you are not sales oriented you'd do well to join the team of someone who is. It also follows that someone with that sort of ability would be wise to surround themselves with team members who can provide support in other areas. A short list would be like this:

- Featuring adsxposed on their web site as an income stream.
- A graphic link to DXDaily to capture income for referrals.
- Income from the DXGPC for accepting payments.
- Structure a portfolio to provide them with yet another income source.
- Possible DXConcierge component to earn credits.
- DXDaily contributions to news for credits.
- Publish a newspaper specific to an industry or region for revenue.
- Leverage DXShopping for additional sales revenue.
- DXAuction is another venue for liquidating items.

Several different talents are required to provide a complete marketing package that leverages the combined power of multiple revenue sources and multiple layers of public exposure. To make serious money with this opportunity an ME will need to build a team that can handle these projects.

Just like the marketing agencies that currently deal in newspaper, radio, television, and billboards with specialties in areas such as:

1. Graphic design.
2. Campaign strategies.
3. Sales.
4. Account management.
5. Technical knowhow.
7. Administration.
8. Creative, such as copywriting, campaign ideas, and so on.
9. Market Research.

These kinds of areas of expertise will need to be found in an ME team as well. An ME could consider a basic business model such as:

1. Farm all these specialties to contractors who work online or use local services in their area.
2. Build an ME company from scratch and hire the staff to make it happen.
3. Locate an ME who can fit you into their operation.
4. Approach an existing advertising firm with the idea of starting an ME division -- or use an existing firm to partner in a pitch to a major client who has shown interest but needs the substance of a larger firm.
5. Be responsible for all these areas themselves.

I'm not raising these ideas for people to debate about which one is best but throwing out proven and viable ways of approaching this. There is no "best" way. All of these approaches can be successfully applied in the right hands. What remains is to either come up with a business model that suits your situation or consider using one, or a combination, of the above models to build your ME business.

If people want to discuss the details of these ideas or brainstorm please take the discussion to the ME forum and get a thread going about this. This thread is for late breaking news and I'm digressing slightly by posting preparatory ideas but that is not to be construed as a change of topic for this thread.

Thanks,

FT

PS: Feel free to copy this post as a thread starter and to post a link to it from this thread.