Art Marketing Buzz

A brief word about this post before you get into it.  I wrote this for one of my other blogs about 3 months ago so there may be a few things that dont jive with our current time frame. Ok, I watched this webinar that was very cool.  I am experienced at brass roots bricks and mortar marketing but not a tech guy at all.  I have been researching the whole social marketing or attraction marketing gig now for about 3 months.  Maybe 6 months.  I have spent a ton of money, even though there is a bunch of free stuff out there.  So check this out…I sat in on a webinar this evening presented by Renegade University.  It was way cool.  Again for a guy who is technically challenged this was a godsend.  WOW!  Conceptually I can see what needs to be done but…how to get there?   Ok, Ok, I am getting ahead of myself.  I hooked up with the Renegade University maybe a week ago.  In fact I had to open another page as I am writing this because I couldnt remember who the host is.  That is how new I am.  Ok, I looked it up…sorry Mike.  Mike Klingler, thats who the host was.  This particular webinar was on email marketing.  Mike spent some time talking about why this method is effective for marketers or anyone wishing to have contact with a group of like minded people.  What was really cool about this gig though is he walked through it step by step.  Ya…truly.  I now have an account with icontact that can help me with my email contact list. Lots of tools that will help me manage the list….only I don’t have a huge one yet.  Good news.  Between Ann Siegs Renegade Marketer, and the Renegade University I have everything I need to learn how to get a list coming…  Cool.  Anyway I just wanted to leave a short blast to talk about that.  I don’t even know how to get a link on the site yet.  I told you I have always hired that stuff out.  I am a marketing geek not a computer techie.  So if you want check out Renegade University there is a ton of great information and….its FREE!   lifebyavision.com

ps: I found out if you just click on the link button in wordpress it has a box for my link.  There is hope for the technically challenged.

If you are currently using facebook, following are a few small tips that may help you realize significant growth in your facebook community.  If you are not yet utilizing this awesome tool, I hope this information will prompt you to check it out.

First, Facebook has some very specific rules for networking in the system.  Abide by the spirit and intent of these rules or you could get banned for life.

Okay, so first go ahead and grab your friends from your current email addresses. This may well give you a start.  For my experiment I wanted to start from scratch so I didn’t import anyone.  When you have gone through your email lists asking people to check out your new site on Facebook then find someone on facebook you know from a school or forum.  Visit each one of these people and request to be friends if you have like interests.  As a note of etiquette, don’t just click on friend request.  Tell them where you saw there contact name so they have a reference.  I just wrote it once and then copy and pasted to a few people.  This is the start and probably the most difficult.

Now it gets easier.  First make sure you update your status on your profile as often as possible. When you are at your profile click on home and look at status.  Edit that and update.  Each time you update you will get exposure on all of those friends’ sites.  It goes to the top of each person’s page.  Use twitter to microblog.  You can have these tweets hit your facebook page and automatically update you.  You can even text it from you cell phone.

Post something publicly.  When you post something in a public area it gets recorded in other areas on facebook.  Some will show up on your friends’ pages, some on fan pages, other times to groups.  The power here is that when you post something once it goes out to hundreds or thousands of people.  Many actions go to your networks profile pages so you see it and they see it.  So again every time you post something or change status it updates all of it.  It becomes viral fairly quickly. Post on your most popular friends wall for the same reasons.

Find events on event pages that you have interest in attending.  If you like the subject and may go then click maybe, you will show up on the event page.  It also helps to indicate to your host what kind of interest there may be in a specific event.  A word of caution here. Be a person of your word, if you say you are going to be somewhere, be there.  Social networking is viral and can work against you very quickly if you are not accountable.

Create a group or multiple groups.  Most people have more than just one interest.  The “Make money online” groups are huge and may consist of many of the same people.  Find a group or start with specific to your faith or gardening or any other interest you have.  These will be different people.

Network with other group masters.  Anyone who has a group can broadcast a message to the first 1000 members of that group.  These people are potential affiliate or joint venture partners for you or you for them. Also you can reciprocate support in promoting each others groups.

Target the most influential people, those that have large lists and common interests.  Communicate regularly and get to know them.  Be real though and transparent.  Write content of interest on their walls. Learn from these people and begin to become a center of influence yourself as you train newbies.

Finally, fan pages.  There are no limits to the number of people who can join a fan page like there is in a regular group.  Become fans of people who have lots of fans and participate by writing on there walls.

Ok, so there you have it.  Hopefully some of these tips will be helpful in your facebook adventures.  These strategies were paraphrased from Mike Campbell’s site www.internetmarketinguniversity.com.

Next time your on facebook send me a note and say hi.  Be sure to ad me to your friend list.

Do you think it is possible for your website to become a powerful marketing weapon?  Are you interested inbuilding your business with social marketing? Can you separate your website from your competitors so it is immediately obvious you are the person to do business with?  Is it possible to make the advantages of doing business with you so great that clients draw this one conclusion…”I would be an idiot if I did business with anyone else…no matter what the cost.”  I think so.  As I walk through the learning curve ofattraction marketing and internet marketing, one of the big challenges we have is determining the level of hype involved in sales letters. Judging by how much money I have paid in “stupid tax” to online vendors my BS detector must be broken.  So how can we tell what is real?  I am still not sure.  Here are a few things that I have figured out.

1- If it sounds to good to be true…it is.  I know we learned that in first grade, but somehow it doesn’t stick when an astute copywriter is pegging all of my emotional hot-buttons.

2- Contact information.  If it is not there don’t buy.  Again this seems to be common sense but so many of the long form sales letters don’t have that information.  Most people think well, I can check this out for the 10 bucks or whatever…if it was 100 or 1000 then I would do a little more due diligence.  Ok sure, but here is a story I have just of late. I hooked up with a trial for $1.  Informative sales letter and it hit a niche area I was looking at.  It was a subscription gig and I knew I was not going to buy into the monthly deal.  I plunked down my dollar and in a few days after I could not access the free info, I tried to cancel before the subscription hit.  You guessed it.  No contact info, just a series of blind email addresses.  How much time am I willing to spend to get my 100.00 back because that’s how much it was after the subscription hit 7 days after the trial….  Not much.

3-Affiliates, joint-venture partners or testimonials don’t have decent contact info.  No-brainer.  If there is a product launch and the product or service is over a few hundred bucks, they can afford to take a few minutes for a legit check.  I mean I understand the whole volume and distance thing because Jeff Walker could not talk to everyone who wants to talk with him.   I get it.   But somebody in the company should be there at least an affiliate or JV partner who will know the main vendor well.  If you are a one man shop like me…well hire a service for a few hundred bucks I don’t know. At least have a working email address for service.

4-ok, here’s a novel idea.  How about don’t buy from someone you don’t know.  Huh?  Well I mean if it is an expensive product or service surely there is prudence in communicating with that person a few times.  I am not talking about a 100.00 item.  The volume of that is so high you won’t get that chance.  But, again at least an email address.

5-A website or blog.  Gee…I didn’t think of that.  Truly though.  Many times we are introduced to a product or service through a link and an opt-in or squeeze page.  That’s ok.  We have them and they work great. But still find out more like a blog or a website.  Not that someone cant just bail if they have that stuff.  They can and they do.  It may be a little less likely is all.

Okay so there are a few ways to maybe curb the number of times your hosed.  I mean maybe I am the only guy that has bought anything on hype and been scammed.  Shame on the idiots out there who rip people off.  The web is a great tool. Just remember that ultimately the gold (our list) in this business is not a name, a number or an email address.  It is the person behind that address.  Relationships.  That is the way to build a long term nice residual income.  No different than it has been for a long time. Find a place place to learn step-by-step how to build your business on a budget there are many places to choose from.  So communicate and we will celebrate you baggin your JOB.

Ok,  I have been a tad down lately.  Who knows why.  Maybe because the work involved in this new venture of internet attraction marketing is a bit overwhelming.  Maybe its because the learning curve is so big or I am tired of being scammed by slick internet marketers who can afford to hire a gifted copywriter to put together ads and sell me their crap.  I dont know!!  I just know that when I start getting down I need to boltster my attitude.  I mean lets consider what we are trying to do online.  Replace a six digit income and do it from home with very little overhead.  Sounds easy enough and it can be done.  The challenge is being realistic about those expectations.  We see the Jeff Walkers or Joel Comm’s or (insert your favorite) of the world and think wow if they can do that….I should be able to do this.  I mean is anyone really ten times smarter than me or willing to work ten times as hard?  Not likely.  What is the difference then.  I am sure many differences.  But one major difference.  Time.  Seat time.  With time comes knowledege and failure.  Maybe you have heard the stroy of Picasso at a outdoor coffee shop.  A women saw him there and convinced him to do a sketch of her.  It took a few minutes with a pencil on a napkin.  When he finished he said that will be 30,000 dallars.  With a gasp the women said, “but it only took you a few minutes”.  ”No ma’m” he replied,  ”it took me a lifetime and a few minutes”.  My point is this.  I really believe that a huge number of multi-millionaires will come from the “new frontier”.  I will work diligently to become one of them.  But lets be realistic.  You probably are not going to make a million dollars in the first few months…or years.  You could and I dont want to be a naysayer because many people have and will.  But what I am saying is lets focus on what we can control.  Here are a few things that will help move us along.

1-Set some goals and write them down (a rarity)

2-Set workable daily, weekly and monthly tasks and make sure those get done

3-Develop a mastermind group that you can find support and be support.  Every one has something they are gifted at and can bring to he table.

4-Get training on internet attraction marketing and social networking.

5-Dont be afraid of failure.  Failure is a part of success.  It in itself is not an event but part of the process.

6-Read.  My kids and family are probably tired of hearing it but… readers are leaders.  Continue on your personal growth path.  Read positive mental attitude books, self-help books and business books.

You really do need to spend time on what you want and why.  Anything worth having is worth working for. This will be hard work no doubt but make it a good work.  There will be times when you are down and off, tied and beat-up, like today.  That is when I pull out my “why video” and my goals and really soak.  I read them daily but when I am down I meditate and really get into detail.  It is one common cure for what ails you.  So get your vision for success.

In his book The Winning Attitude, John C. Maxwell, noted author and speaker tells us that attitude is:

ü            The “advance man” of our true selves

ü            Has inward roots but outward fruits

ü            Is our best friend or worst enemy

ü            Is more honest and more consistent than our words

ü            Is an outward look based on past experiences

ü            Is a think which draws people to us or repels them

ü            Is never content until it is expressed

ü            Is the librarian of our past

ü            Is the speaker of our present

ü            Is the prophet of our future

Your attitude, or your willingness to think positively, affects many people—from your family to the stranger you smile at in the grocery store.  An optimist will see opportunity in difficulties, while a pessimist will see difficulty in opportunities. 

You must choose which you will focus on:  if you choose poorly, you will doom yourself to never achieving your goals and being successful.  Count on that. 

So how do you begin to think positively if you’re a natural pessimist?  I don’t really believe there ARE natural pessimists, just people who have been taught how to consider the darkest side of every cloud. 

You cannot change the fact that a problem exists, but you can do a lot to determine what opportunity is within that problem.  Begin to see that problems are a fact of life and that your job is to find a way over, around, under, or through them—as quickly as possible.  When you’re upbeat and consider how quickly a problem will be behind you, it’s easy to be optimistic. 

Cynicism is another killer when it comes to attitude.  It’s a cousin of pessimism—it considers everything suspect and everyone as having an ulterior motive.  It never looks at someone handing you a piece of candy just to be nice, it always considers that there is a reason you’re being handed the candy and the motivation of the person who’s giving it. 

Cynicism comes from having unrealistic expectations.  Many people expect great and wonderful things to happen to them with little-to-no work on their parts.  They expect things to fall from the sky in to their laps.  When it doesn’t happen as they expect, they become suspicious of others who have achieved success and ultimately, cynical.

You must harness the power of your thoughts and words when setting your course for success.  Use positive affirmations daily:  remind yourself that a stumbling block is temporary and that you will overcome it; admit to yourself that you are courageous and able to move on when others cannot; agree with your vision for your life and your goals. 

As you discipline yourself to do this, you will find optimism and positive thinking chasing you down the street.  And who couldn’t use these two friends when we’re aiming for success?