Art Marketing Buzz

Very Cool and unique art using data. I have not seen much of this and had not previously considered it as art. Viewed in the manor presented I thought it was awesome. Click here it for your perusal.

Portrait Artist Rod Evans has become renowned for his innovative portraits by combining an intense love of art and a visionary style.  He has been requested to lecture nationally as well as internationally for a host of venues including PPA’s Imaging USA, WPPI, and Senior Portrait Artists Events.  Rod’s images have been exhibited in art galleries, showcased in Canon training books as well as magazine publications, and he has been featured on the cover of Professional Photographers of America Magazine.  He is also featured as one of 11 top photographers for Canon USA’s workflow training DVD.  He is a PPA National Award winner who has been on Photoworkshop.com and PhotoVision Video Magazine.  Rod was selected to be member of the prestigious Society of XXV and the Canon Explorers of Light Program.

Rod’s background in art and photography has taught him to relax and study his subject, bringing out the best in each person he photographs.  The art is in communication and learning to feel the image verses just seeing the image.  This is how he is able to create art in each subject he photographs.

 “Photography is more than a two dimensional media to me, if done well you can capture a beautiful part of a persons soul.”  -Rod Evans

Here is something else cool about Rod.  He is a fun, upbeat guy.  I interviewed Rod today and had an absolute blast.  What was refreshing about Rod is that he is seemingly without ego.  For someone at his level in the business he is grounded in what is real and what is important.  That is huge.  Rod also understands the importance of  a business plan and marketing.  A rarity indeed.  Although I would argue that most of the people at high levels of success in any industry understand this.

Listen to Rod’s views on studying or listening to PMA (positive mental attitude) book’s, cd’s and dvd’s.  He has unique insight specific to self help as he worked with an industry giant that you have heard of.  We talked about mentorship…is it important, how does it work.

Rod also exposes a few hot marketing campaigns that they are working right now today.  Would you be intrigued if there  was a 4 digit increase in one area of business using some of  these?  Yeah, 4 digit.  Awesome. And finally,  thoughts and comments on creativity and keeping fresh, social media marketing, digital painting, and much more.  Go see his web-site and check out his work.  He has some awesome things coming up.  A digital painting instructional DVD and…… Italy anyone?  go to Rod’s site and get the scoop on a digital painting workshop in Italy. Then next week check out this podcast.

Here is access to a few other resources we talked about in the interview.

The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”

Think and Grow Rich”

The Secret”

OK I know. We visually creative folk may shudder at the thought of boooring stuff like copy-writing.  It will be a common theme sung here though. We have got to get in the habit of self-education when it comes to marketing and copy-writing is a biggie.  Here is a piece written by a friend and expert marketer Ann Sieg.   I certainly cant communicate it better and I do subscribe to  the blog that is profiled.  AWESOME! So here is another free tool for you presented by Ann.

… Here’s a little secret for you: While investing money to expand your business and sales know-how is a necessary part of success that can’t be bypassed…

…it is actually possible to get a million dollar education
by consuming a lot of the free stuff that’s out there.

In fact, some expert’s free content and material is so good that it’s literally worth ten times what you would pay for others people’s products.

Which begs the question: If that’s the case, then why even bother buying any-one’s product anyway?

Well, there are some things that you’ll never learn for free. The stuff you have to pay for will always be more complete and more advanced. It gives you the whole story whereas often times the free stuff leaves a lot of blank spaces that need to be filled in. And if someone’s free content is really good, it means their actual products are that much more valuable to you. Plus, they’re usually laid out in a way that’s easier to follow and in a more “paint by numbers” fashion. As opposed to free content where you may have to go through a lot more of it to find the diamonds in the rough.

I can tell you though that many of the strategies I’ve used that have been crucial to my success were obtained directly from free resources. I’ve gleaned ideas, “light bulb” type inspirations and core concepts from these resources that have without a doubt been worth a fortune to me.

The right free content can provide you with much of the groundwork and building blocks with which to build your business.

And here’s why this is true: As more competition develops in any given niche, it means that in order for people to stay ahead, they have to give away more and more info that they may have previously been charging for.

That’s the beauty of competition. It forces people to stay sharp and on their toes. And the end winner of it all is the consumer who gets a better product.

As Marlon Sanders says – If you really want to have a killer offer, just take what your competitor is selling and give it away as a free bonus!

Anyways, one of these free resources that has been absolutely invaluable to me is Clayton Makepeace’s free e-letter ‘The Total Package.’ You can check it out at: The Total Package.

Clayton is known as the highest paid copywriter in America and every Monday he sends out an e-letter issue that’s crammed with some of the best marketing and sales advice you’ll ever read.

Did I mention it’s totally free? I don’t think I could even put a price tag on this if I had to. I attribute a lot of the marketing knowledge I have to reading his material.

His e-letter is geared towards copywriters and some of the issues specifically address how a copywriter can find work in the freelance world, but overall the brilliant marketing wisdom he dispenses applies to anyone and everyone who’s interested in making large amounts of money.

If you do decide to subscribe to The Total Package, be sure to go through all the back issue archives. There’s some 87 past issues at the time I wrote this and you can read each one of them at no cost whatsoever. Every issue is usually well over 10 pages of pure gold content and the whole archive is literally a book in and of itself. There’s enough reading material back there to keep you busy for weeks.

When you get your first issue, just look on the right hand side of the page and you’ll see the ‘archive’ menu button…..

OK Tim back here.  definatly check this out.  It is good information and well worth the time. It is one more component of marketing our passionate brushstrokes or shutter clicks.  

This video tutorial may help clear up any confusion on the first Bluehost tutorial. In the first tutorial it actually covered buying a domain name and hosting. I dont think that was really clear. This second tutorial looks at buying additional domain names after you already have a bluehost hosting account. You can have as many domain names as you want and unlimited hosting space, 2500 email accounts, there is a free sitebuilder and best of all…free 24/7 customer service. They will help you walk through the things you need to get up and running if you are a newbie. So there you have it hopefully this video helps a bit

Social Networking or attraction marketing has been getting some press from several art related organizations and publications. The May 2008 issue of Professional Photographer, the official publication of PPA (Professional Photographers of America) did a short article on page 40. The article is appropriately in the Joy of Marketing Area. Sara Petty did a nice job. She ties it in with photographer Scott Crosby and shows how he uses social marketing with real world to create a buzz for his senior photography.

Then in PPA’s online version a short article by Christel Aprigliano, Member Services Manager and Dana Groves, Marketing & Communications Director starts with the following. “Are you LinkedIn? Do you Twitter, Flickr or YouTube? Do you have profiles on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or Zanga? Is your studio listed on Spoke, Ryze, Jigsaw or ZoomInfo? Will you get a Second Life in 2008?” then the next paragraph on networking, “One of the best ways to find new customers is to network. Get involved in the groups and activities that attract the kind of customers you’re trying to reach; go where they go. Networking today includes active participation on social networking Web sites. And if social networking concepts aren’t on your radar, you are ignoring a dynamic trend that could have a profound impact on your business.”

Rangefinder magazine has a blurb in the May issue on page 78, “The Importance of Sharing, The Latest Technologies Build Community”. It is an excellent article profiling Professional Wedding Photographer Dane Sanders and his experience with new technology.

Wired has an published just last week, “Bands Embrace Social Networking”, David Cohn, “In the absence of radio play, garage bands all across America are establishing a presence on MySpace, a social-networking site popular with young adults.”

Do we have a common theme here? If you are new to social networking or still wondering what is it all about, cruise this site and we will try to help you become familiar with some of the methodology to hook up with other artist, photographers and most importantly prospects through social networking. It is a process. Much like learning Photoshop, Corel Painter, Illustrator or any other large software program learning to be effective in web 2.0 will take some time.