CoolTea Stores Now Offering Digital Downloads for Sale
While downloading music from online stores might be all the rage with iPod enthusiasts, business people could learn a thing or two about how to leverage their knowledge by selling audio content that is made available as digital downloads.
Consider three doctors from New York who recently released their new book, The Somatic Companion - Your 30 Day Emotional Makeover, as both a traditional audio book (cds plus printed booklet) and as a digital download (mp3 audio files with pdf version of the booklet).
This is a seven hour audio course that will change your life in 30 days, and CoolTea is honored to have created their CoolTea Store with our new digital download technology.
For customers on the go who travel and commute, downloading mp3 files to your computer’s hard drive then transferring to your favorite portable mp3 player (zoom, ipod, etc) makes tremendous sense. Not only is the digital version less expensive, it is available immediately upon successful checkout so there is no wait for shipping.
In these days of instant gratification, I’m really excited by this new download option. Part of the trick was how to make the download files private, meaning unavailable off the web root of the server and also making the download link secure so that it could not be shared with others - e.g., somebody pays for digital download and gets idea to highlight the url path (and code) in their browser’s url bar, then copies it to text file and forwards to friends with “Hey - I just bought this cool program and here is link if you want to go get a free copy on my nickel - just paste this link into your browser and enjoy.”
Our CoolTea technology does not use cookies (which can be easily hacked and/or forged) but uses a proprietary method that insures the client has only one option to click on the link to begin their download. Our technology is logging their browser session, their ip address and several other variables so in the event they encounter a problem, our customer service team can quickly confirm and make sure they get to a happy ending.
As more and more of us become knowledge workers, the opportunity to leverage our knowledge by bundling it into audio (and/or video) clips and products is a huge market opportunity.
After identifying your market, probably the most important step is making sure you have a quality production (e.g., solid sounding audio and/or good looking video), and then after that, having an e.commerce partner like CoolTea who can deliver 24×7x365 digital downloads in a secure, fast and friendly format.
I should also mention that our shopping cart with digital fulfillment is only three pages, including the confirming success page - i.e., page 1 - enter your info, page 2 - confirm your info, page 3 - success (or error if credit card is declined) with receipt and download option (if selected, otherwise tracking information for physical delivery is presented) - how cool is that 1-2-3 and downloads away!
Lastly, your bank or ours. If you have a traditional Merchant Account (e.g., you are already processing Mastercard and Visa) and your bank offers Authorize.net as their payment gateway, we can wire our shopping cart to put the money directly into your account. And if you don’t have a merchant account or authorize.net gateway, we’re happy to collect monies for you and send you your checks.
Stay tuned for my upcoming blog post about the joys of processing international credit cards - ka ching and to be continued! cs
Comment by Fran Trelease
I run day-long business writing, e-mail writing, and public speaking seminars for area companies, and I have been VERY interested in converting my materials into a CD or e-downloadable format. How can I find out the steps involved, costs, etc?
Comment by Chuck Scott
Hi Fran - thank you for your post and in response to your question, i have assembled some data points as some food for thought and happy to arrange time to talk … to be continued … cordially, chuck scott
[=] How much does it cost … let me first start by saying, asking how much is akin to asking how much for a vacation? - in that there is no right or wrong when it comes to money but traveling first class via Concord and staying at 5-Diamond resorts is one thing vs hitch-hiking and staying with friends is another … all comes down to goals and money and balancing the two :>)
[=] Converting your materials to digital … essentially there are three buckets, each of which has its own costs and layers of complexities … first bucket is content acquisition / capture … the second bucket is editing / polishing / mastering … and the third bucket is delivery (e.g., compressed mp3s, dvds, cds) … one could also say that marketing / pr are separate bucket but i tend to lump this into the third bucket as part of delivery / distribution …
[=] Acquisition … this can range from as simple as you talking into a digital recorder and giving an editor your wave file, or going to a studio, or hiring a team to come in and capture / record / film live performance in HD and 5.1 Surround Sound … you can also have mix of all the above … i was reminded of this the other day while i was digitizing some of my cassettes in my library and one was Wayne Dyer’s on being a no limit person … in his case, some of the narration was him in the studio, very clean sound and direct .. then other parts were him at conferences with people asking questions, applauding, laughing .. both elements were nicely mixed to fit his “chapters” along with sprinkles of ambient music for cues, plus the Nightingale Conant voice overs (the distributor) … audio is much less taxing than video (cost of capture and editing) and most business content is best served as audio for reasons i can explain separately ..
[=] Editing .. this is where the real magic happens and what separates the pros from the wannabees … with audio, taking out the “eh hms, ahas, coughs” and then leveling volumes for consistent sound is great … noise reduction for any room tones like air conditioning hums etc also helps get clean sounds … if you are doing videos, then you have the added layer of making sure the video supports the audio … humans will forgive bad visuals more easily than we will bad audio … something about our ears being more sensitive while our eyes can “fill in the gaps” but i digress … adding ear and eye candy to mix is another layer (e.g., background music, graphic titles, animations, etc) …
[=] Distribution … are you going to self-publish and burn your own cds/dvds, if so, then all you need is a good master cd/dvd … are you going to replicate (duplication via stamped glass masters) and buy 1000 cds/dvds, then you need someone who can help you create that master along with the visual templates that will accompany your product (e.g., the liners, the jackets) thus knowing how to master for print (e.g., 300 dpi tiff files for graphics) vs 72 jpg files for web, becomes paramount …
the good news is that today we have more choices than ever … you can create a free promo video of your services, park it on Youtube and voila - new calling card … you can create series of audio writing and sell on iTunes as downloads … and of course, you can create a CoolTea store and do all of the above :>)
when it comes to vendors, you can certainly retain one group, like an ad agency to guide you through the entire process, or you can find your own individual teams … many times they overlap - e.g., an audio studio often has ties to graphic freelancers and duplication/replication vendors … alternatively, you can engage someone like myself as a Creative Consultant who will help you pick the best vendors, and help you understand your best options while you are dealing with each of them as you migrate down the content development paths …
lastly i will mention this -> best to have a plan that you can build on so that all your deliverables start to feed your brand (as opposed to have mishmash of products that sound differently and look differently) … which leads to sonic branding and video bugs … these are part of the cues that help your customers (and prospects) know what they are about to listen to our look at … take any good TV show (e.g., Mash, Cheers, Sienfeld) and as soon as we hear the jingles we recognize the show, even if we are in the other room talking to someone else, subconsciously we know that brand and the more comfortable we are in knowing the brand, the more receptive we are to their message :>)