I think you’ll agree with me when I say:

It’s REALLY hard to keep your info products from getting pirated and reused. 

On an average, around 13M $ of revenue is lost to piracy in the coaching industry.It doesn’t just affect the top tier coaches, but mid and solopreneur coaching businesses also lose a considerable chunk of revenue due to priracy!

Well it turns out, you can protect your intellectual property to an extent with a few simple tweaks.

In fact these are the exact instructions we pass on to all our coaching clients which helped them to protect their courses and materials from getting distributed for Free.

TIP #1: Consistently Brand your content

One of our clients started wearing a T-Shirt which had the Brand Name on it whenever he was creating any content for visual channels.

It was absolutely GENIUS!!

He says ”This helps build a sense of community and family amongst my students and even if pirated, the user will feel guilty for taking it for Free for the amazing value I provide and end up paying the money”

Isn’t it amazing? Well you can do the same for your products too. Here are a few other things you can do to brand yourself

1. Have a watermark on all your material and videos
2. Have your logo on the top left corner of the videos
3. Have the trainer’s name or signature on the right bottom of the video

TIP #2: Show your Face

Being a part of multiple coaching communities on Facebook, I had an opportunity to converse with around 100-120 coaches up till today. 

One thing I realized is, the coaches who show their faces while teaching the course, had stronger communities and a clear sense of authority in the market.

By showing your face, even if the content is pirated, your authority & expertise in the niche will grow and there is a very good chance that this customer is going to buy your followup courses through the right channels.

TIP #3: Make courses interactive, review-optimised & community centric

Quick fact: The industry course completion rate is 21%. While the challenges completion rate is 56%

It means, the more the interaction better the completion rate. 

Now, you might be wondering what does building challenges do for piracy? Well the answer is your content structure also helps from discouraging piracy.

The structure of challenges and accountability based content is more review based and the videos are just a part of the content, so even if pirated, the user will be left with half of the puzzle, which will push him to buy the original product.

TIP #4: Have Terms of Use and Disclaimers in place

THIS IS MANDATORY

Well this is a no-brainer. Having the legal terms of use accepted by the customer makes the copyright infringement laws on your side. 

Talk to a lawyer and get a checklist of things you can do to protect your intellectual property today.  

TIP #5: Setup Google Alerts

Knowledge is Power (This was also the motto of my university)

What if you can know when people type the exact set of words in Google? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Well it’s possible. It is called Google Alerts. When a certain keyword is searched by anyone across the world, you get a notification.

This is how you do it 

1. Search for Google Alerts in Google and go to the first Search result
2. Configure the keyword you’d want your result to pop up for
3. Done. You’ll get mail whenever that exact keyword is used.

Use this template for keyword alerts:

[Brand Name] + Free Download

[Product Name] + Free Download

[Trainer Name] + Free Download 

BONUS TIP: Migrate to a good LMS

You’ve probably hosted your courses on a LMS like teachable, thinkific, New Zenler etc, if not…go and do it now ASAP.

Why ASAP?

If you’ve hosted our courses in google drives and Youtube unlisted videos, they are easily shareable to multiple mediums. You have almost zero control on the distribution.

That’s where a good LMS comes into play.

A good LMS takes care of user and coach’s security by providing multi-level authentication every step of the way. It provides a platform which is easily accessible on-demand while keeping your content behind a well protected wall.

If you are looking for a LMS, I’d suggest New Zenler. Check more about it here

Conclusion

Nowadays it’s just too easy to download a video from any platform. There are tons of on-demand softwares out there which make it a piece of cake. But implementing the above mentioned tips can actually help you push your branding and your name (Word of mouth is still the most converting marketing channel).

So which tip are you going to try first?