Attention Economy Monetization Methods

Published 5 February 2024 by

Martin Hamilton

In a previous article I described how the Attention Economy evolved through the 3 historical eras of wealth creation – the ‘waves’.

“Attention economics” treats a potential consumer’s attention as a resource. Traditional media advertisers followed a model that suggested consumers went through a linear process they called AIDA (attention, interest, desire and action). Attention is therefore a major and the first stage in the process of converting non-consumers. Since the cost to transmit advertising to consumers has become sufficiently low given that more ads can be transmitted to a consumer (e.g. via online advertising) than the consumer can process, the consumer’s attention becomes the scarce resource to be allocated. As such, a superfluidity of information may hinder an individual’s decision-making who keeps searching and comparing products as long as it promises to provide more than it is using up.

How To Turn Attention Into Money

To turn attention into money we need a process and calculated approach based on human psychology. What this means is the use of a personal brand. The Attention Economy creates money through the sales of digital or physical products, and people buy from brands they trust.

I spoke in the earlier article, referenced at the beginning of this one, about how this third wave in the history of wealth creation alluding to how personal brands are now positioned as the corporations were in the second wave of the history of wealth creation. The personal brand is rooted in psychology through trust bias. People can now do hours of research and sum up who they want to do business with. We are now spending money with those we feel comfortable with by gleaning from their expertise, authoritativeness on the subject or product, and/or those who have built our trust.

The 3 Trends: what works in the attention economy era.

Trend #1: The Hyper-Productization of Every Object Known to Mankind.
The world has changed, and it’s ok for you to create products to sell for money. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. Turn humanity’s biggest needs into product solutions. The opportunities are endless, because for the first time in human history you have two product types to choose from – digital and physical.

You might think digital products are too competitive, but nothing could be further from the truth! Digital products are so new that nobody’s really stopped to consider all the possibilities. You have probably heard of MasterClass. The founder of MasterClass, David Rogier, in 2014 built a this digital version of learning. It’s now worth over $2 billion. He paid a group of celebrities to teach what they knew through videos and written material and threw it up on a website. He didn’t need a building like Harvard or Stanford. The entire education course is on a passwordprotected membership website. Instead of hiring a traditional of faculty, he partnered with celebrities, and paid them an upfront fee plus revenue share. They’ve got people who teach what they have done in the real world. Actors like Ron Howard. I first remember seeing him on the Andy Griffith show. Then when I was in middle school he starred on the show Happy Days. Now he’s a producer and quite successful.

It’s really easy to set up a website and add a shopping cart like ThriveCart that has a password protected member area for your courses, create a pdf, and/or a few videos, and voila you’ve got a course to sell.

Trend #2: Cash Flow Out Of Thin Air – the rise of virtual services. A good example is a SMMA (social media marketing agency).

Way back in 2012 I started a Digital Marketing Agency and included SMMA. Little did I know helping businesses with their social media, websites, and email systems would go on to be such massive industry that has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs learn to launch a virtual, service-based marketing agency.

Out of thin air, you can create a service based business with high-paying clients. You can begin selling virtual services to business owners who will gladly pay you in exchange for marketing services that are too cutting edge for the business owner to handle themself.

Remember, the average business owner is over 55 years old in the United States, and the world is moving so fast with social media, video marketing, and artificial intelligence, that they are not at all interested in learning how to do their online marketing. They’ll gladly pay marketing agencies to do it for them.

Trend #3: The Instant Business – reselling other people’s product as an affiliate.
So what can we learn by reverse engineering the strategies of the wealthiest? Thanks to the new wave #3, you can get paid by referring your social media followers to a company’s products. Most good companies now have an affiliate program that pays anywhere from 10 to 80% of gross revenue.

Most people don’t understand the reason why Apple became the first trillion dollar company in human history. Many think that what made Apple so valuable and Steve Jobs so wealthy was some genius technology and fancy inventions like the iPhone and the iPod.

That may be part of it, but if you look at the actual numbers (because people lie but numbers don’t), you’ll be shocked to see it’s not the physical products that make the most money. It’s the covert App Store! Inc magazine says, “Some analysts have estimated that the iOS App Store has a profit margin of almost 80 percent, meaning that it turned out to be Apple’s most profitable business.”

If you look into how the App Store works and think about it deeply, it’s obvious why it’s Apple’s most profitable business. In layman’s terms, Apple is just a giant affiliate reseller of other people’s products.

They get a hefty affiliate cut – 30% of gross revenue! Apple is like a security gate for businesses that sell products and services through their Apps by allowing these businesses to place them in the Apple Store for download.

Apple gets money per sale or else they’ll take the App out of their app store. This kind of ‘instant business’ affiliate reseller business model is almost like an old fashioned flywheel that gains momentum the longer it runs. For each of these apps that they profit from, Apple doesn’t have to have a business, Apple doesn’t need to hire more employees, and they don’t have extra expenses. They collect 30% of the gross revenue off the top.

One tip I want to share with you is to focus on one of the trends first, because like Confucius says, “The man who chases two rabbits catches none.” Over time you can keep expanding until all 3 trends are paying you every month. That will be realized if you start by focusing on one. Don’t overthink it or you’ll get caught up in overwhelm and feel burned out. The trip wire to starting is overthinking. Analysis paralysis is real.

The most common question at this point is which of the 3 trends to prioritize; physical/digital products, services, or affiliate reselling.

The answer is always,

“Well over time you want to do all three so you have 3 diversified streams of income.”
Tai Lopez

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Each day over 300,000 new people start using the internet. That’s a big number. And they all want to figure out how to make money online too.