Here is a guest post from a very good friend of mine, Heidi Richards-Mooney and she has a wonderful offering to spark up your marketing efforts – Quirky Marketing Calander.
Well, I wanted to add one “non-traditional holiday” you may not be aware of…
Did you know that February is Library Lover’s Month? When is the last time as an author or writer you have checked out to see the programs happening at your local library. Today, I went to the library to return some books and found out about a local charity I can contact regarding an event that is coming up to raise money for their organization. Also, every month, the local writer’s group, Florida Writer’s Association holds free meetings.
Also, as an author if you would like to do a book reading to help promote your book, most library’s will be delighted to have you on the schedule.
Did you know that today (February 6th) is Bubble Gum Day?
Bubble gum was invented in 1906 by Frank Fleer. But it didn’t get to market for 20 years because the recipe was so sticky it was a real challenge to remove it from skin (had to use turpentine). After 20 years and several recipes later, it was introduced as Dubble Bubble Gum. Pink just happened to be the color of the gum because it was the only food coloring on Fleer’s shelf that day. Since then every other manufacture has used pink as the standard. What standards in business are you following and what can you do to improve upon them. Did you know you cannot buy bubble gum at any Disney property? They don’t sell it because they don’t want their streets lined with discarded gum.
Or that January 17th is Kid Inventor’s Day – January 17th was chosen as Kid Inventors Day because it is the birth anniversary of Benjamin Franklin, who invented the first swim flippers almost 300 years ago at age 12! Chester Greenwood A grammar school dropout, invented earmuffs at the age of 15 and accumulated over 100 patents in his lifetime. Need a new product or service to offer your clients? Why not ask a kid (or several) to come up with a solution. You could host a contest or a Day for kid inventors. Get the local community to donate prizes to the finalists and winners. Be sure to check out Kid Inventors Day online for a list of activities, etc. for kids.
And August is National Inventor’s Month? If you are an inventor, think about some of the creative ways you can market your new product. How could you get noticed by the media, by your community and most importantly by your target market? How about Tryvertising your new product? According to TrendWatching.com, Tryvertising is, ” a new breed of product placement in the real world, integrating your goods and services into daily life in a relevant way, so that consumers can make up their minds based on their experience, not your messages.” Hotels, bars and restaurants make good use of Tryvertising their products to build a customer base and instill loyalty in their marketplace.
So what does this mean to inventors? It means there are several “quirky and non-traditional holidays” you can tap into to promote your own invention.
In fact, because you are an inventor, quirky might just be right up your alley.
If it is then I want to tell you about my brand new book that just came out TODAY! It is called Quirky Marketing ~ 365 Ways to Promote Your Business Using Zany and Non-Traditional Holidays. (www.quirkyoffer.com)
The above “holidays are just 3 of the 365 ways you can promote your business!
And that’s not all!
In addition to 365 Ideas to promote your business, inside the 2009 Edition of Quirky Marketing Calendar, we show you how to use the calendar, how to work with the media, give you monthly action plan templates, a blank monthly calendar and more. At the end of each chapter is a comprehensive listing of additional holidays you can explore and use to promote your business. And an expanded resource section.
And there’s more! When you buy your copy of Quirky Marketing Calendar eBook, you also receive more than $2,437.92 in BONUSES my Colleagues want to share with you. F.R.E.E. at www.QuirkyOffer.com.
All this for only $19.95!
And you don’t have to wait. When you order your copy, you get a confirmation message which includes links to take advantage of these business and life-enhancing Bonuses as well as a link to download your copy of Quirky Marketing Calendar.
If you don’t find at least 3 other events or holidays you can use to promote your inventions, I will give you your money back – and you can keep the book! But you have to hurry before the bonuses are all gone.
Go to www.QuirkyOffer.com and read about all the fabulous bonuses and grab your copy today!
To your success … and then some,
Heidi
Heidi Richards Mooney, Author, Entrepreneur, Business Coach
Online Promotion for anyone can be a overwhelming, tricky, complicated and unrewarding part of getting the word out to the masses about your writing or your latest book. However, it doesn’t have to end up that way.
First of all, nothing is a magic pill or an automatic selling machine. To me, those who fill authors and writers’ heads with the notion of instant or immediate sales are the one more likely to be scamming people than those of us who are offering assistance and help with online promotion services for writers, authors, coaches, speakers.
Online promotion takes time to be done effectively. I am sure you have heard, people buy from those they know. If you have just self published your book last week and then you join Facebook and Twitter and think just because you are a member and suddenly thousands of people are going to buy your book or hire you as their editor or writer, it is unlikely. The reasoning is because they don’t know you. Now, six months down the line it may be a different story. Since you have been on the social networking sites for awhile and if you are an author, you have talked about the subject of your book or you are a freelance writer and you have shared ways people can utilize a freelance writer in their business, perhaps you will start seeing some movement in the book sales or clients you receive.
Online promotion and marketing your business, whether you are a freelance writer, blogger, musician or book author, is about relaying your message and getting in front of those people who most want to read or hear it. Yes, you can spend tons of time and expend energy being on, Twitter, Facebook, several internet radio shows, writing blog posts, doing article marketing, and in the end not see much results. So before you do these things you have to ask yourself why this would be happening? One thing to look at is, are you aligned with and in front of those people who will relate best to what you are writing and have written?
Know your target market, who is your writing and book for? Speak to those who will benefit and want to hire you or purchase your book. When you are fully aware of who will be receptive to your message, you can more easily align yourself online to those who audience will be eager to hear the message too. You can go online, do some research and make a list of networking groups (Yahoo or Ning) or internet radio shows you would like to be a member or guest. Then start making those connections.
Also, be involved or be gracious. If you go into your business (yes, writing and being an author is a business) and think it doesn’t require deliberate action on your part, don’t be upset when the results come out less then spectacular. Take the time to offer tips, suggestions, ideas to others when they ask. This is another way others can get to know you and you then build relationships. Offer to be on a brainstorming round table with others in your industry or better yet, begin a mastermind group with a few other people in your business community local and online. Blog about those things involving the subject of your book or related to your message.
The pieces of online promotion – branding, blogging, internet radio show interviews, media kits, article marketing, social media, networking, virtual blog tours, are all part of the bigger picture in getting your business and/or book out to the people who you want it to reach. And it isn’t instantaneous and there are alot of “moving parts”…the objective is to keep the online promotion moving and speak to those who will want to hear or read your message.
Time just flies by, doesn’t it. Can’t believe January 2009 is already gone.
Did you begin 2009 successfully with your marketing, pr, and/or online promotiongoals for this new year?
It can be a bit overwhelming to get these components solidified in your business.
Here are a few things to remember about your online promotional/marketing efforts:
1) If you are new online, be sure to take your time. Do not try and do all of it all at once. This can happen kind of easy because there are so many neat things you can do online and you will have others telling you, “Oh, you should do this, or you “have” to do this”. Each person means well, however, if you start doing all of these things, it is very easy to get overwhelmed, very fast. I know because it happens to me sometimes. Yes, there is alot of things out there however, take your time and do it a little bit at a time. Put together one marketing or promotion plan in its completion before tackling another.
2) Remember to think about your audience and target market when you are putting your plans into place. What does your target market need from you? Have you seen discussions online about a certain subject in your industry? If so, find a way to give the solution to your clients and be sure they are aware you can provide the solution.
3) Ask questions about what others may be doing successful for them. For some, online ads still work well. For others, joint ventures work better. Don’t be shy about asking others for help. Sometimes, we get stuck in the mode of “I don’t want to ask, because…” (you feel it the blank). You may be surprised at how often people are willing to help you. But if you don’t ask for help, the answer is always, no.
Now, I tried to get my own radio show off to a start…this proved to be a bit more cumbersome for me. I am not sure yet why this is…however, it did occur. I choose to do this because I have questions about writing a book, various writing skills, publishing options, editing, and other topics to due with the writing and publishing industry. I figured if I still have questions, other people might have questions and I would like to offer the opportunity for others to learn from authors and writers who have been there and listen to their experiences.
So are you happy with the results of your marketing, pr and online promotional efforts so far in 2009? Are there other avenues you wish to try but don’t know where to start? Or don’t think it will work for you?
Now, this is a discussion I had with my daughter this afternoon. It started because she is doing this project for school where she can earn an award for submitting about four examples of her writing. The submissions are due on Monday and we were talking about what she still needed to do in order to get the writing ready to give to her teacher.
She told me that really all she needed to do was to type them up (she had written most of these last year for assignments, which she can use). I asked her if she thought she wanted me to look at them and she replied, “No, thank you. If there is anything I would like to change, I will do it. She continued, “It isn’t that I don’t want your help, however, I want the writing to stay in my voice because I like the way I write.
So, then a question came into my head. If someone else helps you with your writing, do you feel they are telling you can’t write? Or do you take it as being helpful?
For me, I wasn’t going to change what she wrote but I felt I would be helping her. However, I do understand her point of view too.