Form of Value #8: Audience Aggregation

So long as there’s a jingle in your head, television isn’t free.

—JASON LOVE, MARKETING EXECUTIVE

Audience Aggregation revolves around collecting the attention of a group of

people with similar characteristics, then selling access to that audience to a
third party. Since attention is limited and valuable, gathering a group of
people in a certain demographic is quite valuable to businesses or groups that
are interested in getting the attention of those people.
In order to provide value via Audience Aggregation, you must:

1. Identify a group of people with common characteristics or interests.

2. Create and maintain some way of consistently attracting that group’s
attention.
3. Find third parties who are interested in buying the attention of that
audience.
4. Sell access to that audience without alienating the audience itself.

Audience Aggregation benefits the audience because it provides something

worthy of their attention. Magazines and advertising-supported Web sites are
great examples: readers benefit from the information and entertainment these
sources provide in exchange for being exposed to some level of advertising.
If the advertising becomes obnoxious, they’ll leave, but most people are
willing to be exposed to a certain amount of advertising if the content is
good.
Audience Aggregation benefits the advertiser because it gets attention,
which leads to sales. Think of a conference or trade show: buying a booth in
the center of a building full of people interested in what you have to offer can
be a smart decision. Done well, advertising attracts attention, attention brings
prospects, and prospects lead to sales. As long as the sales bring in more
money than the cost of the advertising plus the business’s Overhead
(discussed later), the advertising can be a valuable tool to bring in new
customers, which means the advertiser can continue to support the aggregator
by purchasing more advertising.
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 Form of Value #9: Loan

Money talks—but credit has an echo.

—BOB THAVES, CARTOONIST AND CREATOR OF “FRANK AND ERNEST”

A Loan involves an agreement to let the borrower use a certain amount of

resources for a certain period of time. In exchange, the borrower must pay the
lender a series of payments over a predefined period of time, which is equal
to the original loan plus a predefined interest rate.
In order to provide value via Loans, you must:

1. Have some amount of money to lend.

2. Find people who want to borrow that money.
3. Set an interest rate that compensates you adequately for the Loan.
4. Estimate and protect against the possibility that the Loan won’t be
repaid.

Used responsibly, Loans allow people to benefit from immediate access to

products or services that would otherwise be too expensive to purchase
outright. Mortgages allow people to live in houses without having hundreds
of thousands of dollars in the bank. Auto Loans allow people to drive new
vehicles in exchange for a monthly payment instead of a 100 percent down
payment. Credit cards allow people to purchase goods and services
immediately, then pay for them over the course of several months.
Loans are beneficial to the lender because they provide a way to benefit
from excess capital. The addition of compound interest on top of the original
loan (the “principal”) means that the lender will collect much more than the
original loan—in the case of long-term Loans like mortgages, often two to
three times more.
After the Loan is made, little additional work is required on the part of the
lender aside from collecting payments—unless the borrower stops making