How do you get your books these days? Many people are using Audible to listen to books rather than reading them in a written format. In fact, so many more people today are listening to books rather than reading them, it has become a revenue source for authors, publishers and especially Amazon, who of course, owns Audible.
How many more people? According to a NY Time article today by Alexander Alter, consumers bought 90 million audiobooks in 2016 up 42 million since 2012. Further, it has become so dominant, many authors are testing out going direct to audio instead of to print.
Cool, so what? How does this apply to you? If you think about audio, it is the original way stories were told- before the written word. To find that people want to hear a story, that they want to hear the book being read, is moving and deeply satisfying. Look at how popular podcasts are! This all plays to a human need that is not satisfied by our eyes. It is different when we read the works on a page-that is our own voice talking. it is different when we watch a movie-that has all the visuals of someone else’s interpretation of the story.
So is it only auditory learners who are listening to books rather than reading them? Perhaps. Perhaps, we treat our customers as if they are all visual learners and are ignoring the auditory and kinesthetics among us. When a competitor comes up with a new way to satisfy the auditory learners will they swarm to that competitor?
Or is it more than just auditory learners who are listening to audio books?Could it be that more people only have time while commuting, or working out to hear a story? In the same way, has the world changed so it is harder for your customers to get to your offering in the old way?
I suspect that like the book author, you have “old content” or ways of doing business that can be recrafted and resurrected – that will increase the value of your product or service. You can do a better job segmenting your customers and creating more specialization in the delivery.You can make it easier to listen to your story, to get access your product, to get the value of your expertise.
Perhaps you need a better website, an easier payment process, more access to your expertise on line, on chat, on off hours? Are you forcing your customers to buy your product, your way?
This week, think about how you could remove barriers for your customers and make your offering deeply satisfying like a great story.
Interested in Vistage?
Image courtesy of Readers Digest