How to monetise anything: part 4

Last post I continued the discussion on “How do I monetise anything” with a look at the value in a situation. This, the final post in the series, looks at identifying the packaging that your monetisation should take.

Packaging

When I say packaging, I mean how things are packaged up, or what’s in the bundle and how is it presented.

We all like to consume value in particular ways that are specific to our demographics. For instance in Melbourne if you were charged extra for your coffee when sitting in the nice seats, you would be outraged, but in Paris it’s the norm. However, if you charged a separate fee for sitting outside, Parisians would equally be outraged because that’s not how they expect their coffee drinking experience to be packaged up.

The way value should be packaged may not be immediately obvious either. The value may be hidden deep inside a different situation that is palatable to the consumer. For instance you sell value add network services, inside the telecommunications contract, inside the “free” mobile phone you give away.

In many situations there is also an expectation for some services to be provided free (eg. a speech you make) and some services will be paid for (eg. the food supplies). The perception is generally that if the situation involves you doing what you do to make a living, you should be paid, but if you are doing a favour or some marketing, you should do it for free. Working with that situation may mean you need to get a fee from the service providers or you need to represent that this is how you make an income.

Some suggested packaging questions and ideas around a community event:

• Is public speaking considered to be you job or an “add on”?
• Can you be paid directly?
• Can you be paid in kind?
• Can you sell your book/community membership/videos/posters/donations, etc at the event?
• Can you market or represent a third party who sees value in the event?
• Could you be paid for your inconvenience (a bottle of scotch for your travel time)?
• Could you be covering the cost of the A/V people and be making a margin on that?

Some suggested packaging questions and ideas around the Wikinomics group:

Some suggested packaging questions and ideas around the great network:

• Can you create products or services your network wants to acquire?
• Can you market or represent a third party who sees value in your network?
• Can you sell access to your network in a format that’s palatable such as private dinners?

Almost every attribute of a situation has value, the questions you need to ask are:
1. What costs do I need to incur to access that value?
2. What are my risks?
3. What ROI can I achieve?
4. Is this monetisation aligned with my tangible and intangible goals?

Monetisation is easy in traditional areas such as selling goods from bricks and mortar and really difficult in innovative areas where there are no obvious or routine solutions. In fact I think this is one of the main reasons why:

• Gen Y is more focussed on being entrepreneurial around technology enabled social ventures than money-making ventures.
• Competition is incredibly fierce among traditional business models.
• Web 2.0 offerings have difficulty getting revenue full stop.

Hopefully by thinking about the attributes, the value and the packaging, I’ve given you a framework to think about how to monetise an idea or a situation you find yourself in.

To read more Brendan Lewis blogs, click here.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club, Flinders Pacific and L2i Technology Advisory. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia and Vietnam. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.