Wired magazine recently featured an article on the “Snack Culture” in which they emphasized the need for smaller pieces of information that just provide a “taste” of topics. So how can information marketers take advantage of this need for smaller pieces of information?

There are three popular formats that can be easily “snack sized” – tips, audios, and reports.

Tips

Tips are the first format that comes to mind. They are the smallest piece of information and the building blocks for all information products.

A good tip is one to two sentences on a single topic and generally offers advice on the action to take related to that topic. Here are a couple of tips:

Use an email address at your own domain. It reinforces your brand, rather than Hotmail’s.

Create one folder at the desktop level that holds shortcuts to the documents you use daily. It will save hours each month navigating to find those documents.

Since tips are flexible, you can combine 5 tips into “the top five ways to…” Ten tips become a top ten list. 30 tips are “30 days to…”

You can publish a tip of the day newsletter – or a tip of the week, if you’re less ambitious.

Because people know that a tip is short and immediately consumable or actionable, they are more likely to open and read them when they arrive in email.

Become a tips collector. Get into the habit of recording tips on index cards or in a database. They are much easier to regroup when kept in a flexible format, rather than a word processing document.

Audios

Audios are the second type of information that fits the description of “snack sized.” In fact, Google has recently announced its audio ads – each limited to 30 seconds. Not surprisingly, this is the length of a radio or television commercial. Is it any wonder most people are able to consume 30 seconds with no effort?

Start your audio career by recording your tips. You can do this in the form of audio postcards, audio on your web pages, or podcasts. 30 seconds gives you enough time to give the tip, plus a little expansion on the idea. Plus a call to action, of course.

As you become more adept with creating audios, you’ll be able to create full audio products and a regular podcast. But remember to keep it short and “byte sized.”

Special Reports

The third format for easily consumable information is the special report. While there is no set size for a special report, most fall into the 5 to 15 page range.

A special report addresses a single topic, in more depth than an article. Joan Stewart, who is noted for her special reports, refers to them as “an inch wide and a mile deep.”

In online business, special reports have been used as an exchange for a name and an email address from someone visiting your website. The quality of those “special reports” varies broadly, from one site to the next. And since they are often a free item, they can be quickly lost on someone’s hard drive – never to be read again.

Many information providers have been more successful selling their special reports. Typically under $10, special reports have seen a resurgence in popularity with the recently released Special Report Profits system. In just a few months there have been hundreds of special reports written and posted on the directory sites that support this system.
Regardless of the format you choose, take another look at your existing information products and ask yourself: How can I make them smaller? More easily consumable?

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Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who works with consultants and other experts who are ready to leverage their expertise into Online Success. She is the creator of Drain Your Brain which walks you through the process of creating your first three information products. You can learn more about special reports at http://SpecialReportProfits.com