Stupid Marketing Tricks Part II

Watching TV Is Exhausting . . .

. . . and exasperating, I might add.

Karl Greenberg of Media Daily News says it better than I ever could. However, I would also add that the same holds true for radio (especially), newspaper and magazines. The article he wrote is located here:

The public, by and large, is fed up. The use of commercial skipping technology is on an ever-upward trend. I have commercial skipping technology on nearly all my electronic devices. I call it the 'mute' button.

People want to buy. However, they do not wish to be sold. Giving the market what it wants, in the way it wants it is key, but does require a completely different set of strategies.

As I have said many times - giving your potential buyers a message, using intrusive advertising tactics not only does not work, it causes them to actually resent your message.

The entire world of advertising is slowly moving towards being lumped under the 'spam' heading.

Do you really want your potential buyers to actually resent your methods? If so, keep shoving advertising in their collective faces. If not, draw them in with strategic publicity strategies.

To be fair here, running intrusive advertising certainly is not a Stupid Marketing Trick . . . yet.

More at http://www.freepublicitygroup.com

Leia Mais…

Some Marketers Just Don't Get It - Part IV

In the last few posts I have discussed the fact that, to become a successful marketer, you must think like a leader, as your communication will flow from your perception of yourself. I also mentioned that a key component in this is that you learn to provide good content to your potential clients or customers, as this is what they desire.

Have you ever signed up for a newsletter? If so, I think you will agree with me that there are basically two types:

In the first, which I shall call Style One, we are pleased to receive a flow of information we both need and desire. Normally, these types of newsletters will start by quoting a recent report or study ie 'XYZ Special Report - Recent Study Shows More Seniors Going Online'. Then, we are presented with perhaps the facts or reports that give us the details. Finally perhaps, we are told why this is important to our business. And then, at the end, we are told that XYZ is a leader in developing effective email strategies.

Style Two is decidedly different. It goes a little something like this -

"Don - NEWS FOR YOU! More seniors are going online! YOU NEED THIS REPORT NOW! Special Discount Pricing FOR MEMBERS ONLY!'

Hmmm. Now, which of these two do you believe will catch my attention, assuming I am a real businessman (with a marketing budget) interested in creating a successful business that involves email marketing?

Style One demonstrates the potential for thoughtful analysis, real facts and rock solid information. Style Two sounds like it was written by a carnival huckster.

Now we must ask the real question. Whom do you trust? The businessperson who provided the information in Style One, or the shady character that jammed Style Two down our throats?

Credibility is key. You will never succeed in marketing without it.

I asked you to think of yourself as a teacher. Now I will ask you to imagine yourself as a consultant.

It is said that consultants make the big money. Why is this so? It is because they provide facts and proven strategies - impartial information.

Real leaders - teachers and/or consultants - do not use these styles of communication. They impress us with the fact that they are credible and really have the best interests of others at heart.

Likewise, nothing impresses me more than a marketer who will admit his competition is also quite good at what they do. This creates a level of credibility in my mind that can be produced in no other way. This shows honesty.

You are a good businessperson. This does not necessarily make your competition 'bad'. If you say this, you will totally lose your credibility. If you even hint at this, you will lose some credibility. A real consultant, real teachers, know that they are not the only ones on the planet with good ideas, theories, methods or techniques.

When learning to create free advertising and publicity, one need only to stop thinking like a marketer and to start thinking like a publicist. Likewise, to become a really successful marketer, one need only to stop thinking like a marketer and start thinking like a consultant.

The whole timbre of the communication offered will change. Others will perceive you in a whole new light. Likewise, YOU will perceive you in a whole new light.

Teachers and consultant are perceived to be leaders. That perception - being perceived as a leader - will cause your sales to soar.

Imagine for a moment that Albert Einstein, after developing the Theory of Relativity, had put out an email to his constituents:

"Don! You Gotta See This! I have developed an entirely NEW, secret Theory of Relativity! I am offering this report to only a very SELECT group of people. You need to HURRY as they are going fast! The price, now just $97, will most likely be raised to $147 very soon. GET IT TODAY!!!!!"

Testimonial " Albert, you are right on the money with this one! This has provided me with everything I need to know to build a rocket ship! Everyone needs this report! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Order my 'Secrets To Relativity' Report today and I'll throw in bonuses worth over $4900! Blah Blah Blah"

Now, would we have put any faith in what he said about the Theory of Relativity? No. Neither will anyone put any faith in what you say if you use this type of communication. This type of communication puts you in that carnival huckster category (in the perception of real business people) in nearly every case.

It goes without saying that, if you wish to market anything successfully, you must become a valued, credible resource to your potential clients or customers. You must become a leader. In your own mind. First.

And then you must speak like a leader . . .

More at http://www.freepublicitygroup.com

Leia Mais…

Some Marketers Just Don't Get It - Part III

Now, I certainly did not mean to give the impression that you can be a leader in your industry simply by deciding that you are (as you may have thought from the previous post). What I meant to impress upon you here is that your communication is only as good as the results it produces. Your communication will flow from your own perception of yourself.

If you believe yourself to be a leader, your communication will reflect that perception. Conversely, if you are not confident about either yourself, your abilities, your ideas or the worth of what you might offer to others, your communication will also reflect this.

What YOU think you are is precisely what others will BELIEVE you are. Again, Psychology 101.

In the physical world, communication is more than just words. Have you ever observed a person walk into a room who exudes an air of authority? All we have to do is look at this person and we know, intuitively, subconsciously, that this person commands and expects respect. The expectation of respect is evident in the way that person walks, stands or gestures. The bearing of this person tells us he or she expects to be treated in a certain manner. It is evident in the attitude of this person. We know intuitively what this person believes himself to be. When this person speaks, his words will command attention and respect from us, as we will believe he KNOWS what he might be talking about.

So what does this have to do with marketing?

In the electronic environment, others cannot see you or, in most cases, hear you. Therefore, the only way to communicate this demeanor is through the words you use in this environment. The words you use, (this includes the tone, the delivery and a host of other factors), will determine whether others will percieve you to be believable and, subsequently, whether or not you will be trusted. Ultimately this will be the factor that will determine whether a potential client will do business with you. The only way to create that all important trust, in this environment, is to use words. The words will communicate everything there is to know about you. These words always flow from your own perception of yourself.

As regards marketing, that's very important. Frankly, it is the single most important factor to be considered, for it forms the basis of all the rest.

Success in marketing always begins with being a leader in regards to ideas. If you have an idea that attracts others, those others will be drawn to you and subsequently your product or service. If you are perceived as being just 'one of the pack', you will never experience the success you seek. The singular trait that all leaders share is that they not only are 'idea leaders', but that they FREELY share those ideas with others.

Even if your product or service is mediocre, you will still experience greater success if you serve as a resource of ideas for others. This does not mean you give away all of your 'secrets'. It does mean you must freely give enough of your ideas to be truly helpful to your customers or clients.

The Internet is based upon the free sharing of ideas - more than any other factor. We respect those who have knowledge that can help us. We revere teachers. We crave information. If you can become the source of that knowledge, can convey it effectively to others and are willing to do so, your success is virtually assured.

Your failure, on the other hand, is likewise virtually assured if your potential clients perceive a hidden agenda of some kind. For instance, if you send an email out to your list every week that provides just a tidbit of good information, covered over by paragraph after paragraph of blatant sales language, you will fail - eventually.

However, when you take on the role of a respected teacher - a teacher willing to share freely with others - your potential clients will buy whatever you recommend they buy. This only happens when you are perceived to have their own best interests at heart, rather than perceiving that you are only interested in getting into their wallets.

This is another area where new marketers fail by the thousands. Some new marketers believe that the goal is to create a huge email list and then to mail a new and exciting sales pitch to that list week after week after very boring week. No indeed.

This does not lead to success - it leads quickly to a high rate of lost subscribers. It leads to disappointment on the part of your potential client or customer.

Those who experience long term, lasting success, are those who realize that the goal is to teach. Through freely teaching others, through the sharing of ideas, they establish a position of dominance in the minds of their prospective customers or clients. This must be established PRIOR TO recommending the purchase of any product or service.

The leaders of thought in the field of education become famous for their creative thinking. The leaders of thought in the field of business have, in most cases, become rich.

To be even more succinct - if you wish to experience success in marketing, become a teacher. Do not sell - teach. It appears to be a contradiction that, if you can learn to teach - to share your ideas with your customers or clients for free, - your sales will skyrocket.

Leia Mais…

Creating Publicity Through Writing For Publication - Part Two

Here are the specific steps to landing writing gigs (and getting a great deal of free advertising and publicity) with small, local publications . . .

Step One
Find a small, local publication and offer to contribute articles or local area specific pieces. Show them samples. Establish the fact that you are a published author and can provide quality content for their magazine or newspaper (small weekly community newspapers are best for this). Contribute in trade for a blurb or for ad space.

Step Two
Write for a period of time. Establish yourself. Get comfortable with the process. Naturally you will want to keep in close contact with the editor of the publication. Solicit feedback, but don’t be a pest. Be professional in your approach.


Step Three
After establishing your credibility with the public and with the editor of the publication, ask the editor of this single publication if he or she would be willing to provide a quick reference for you. Don’t insist. Again, be professional.

Step Four
Now you know somebody. Contact other small publications and offer to contribute to their publication. You can now provide samples of your work from a PUBLICATION SIMILAR to their own, and you now have a reference from an editor. You now know somebody. Somebody in the field. Somebody who is willing to vouch for you. People only do business with people they trust.

This may take some time. Expand your horizons are far as you can and still be comfortable.

Step Five
Continue doing this and build a resume. Take on as many of these small publications as you can reasonably handle. Every one of them is providing free ad space for you. Work your way up to the larger publications. It IS best to start with small publications if you have not done this before. Once you feel comfortable with ‘writing on a deadline’, move up to those larger publications.

Nothing will get you booted faster than missing a deadline! Make certain you are capable of making those deadlines. If you miss your deadline you leave that publication in a real bind, especially the smaller pubs. This is very important. However, if you get booted from a small publication the pain will be far less than getting the ax from a larger, more widely read publication.

Step Six
Continue this until you are fabulously rich and extremely famous. The next time you are on the Oprah Winfrey Show, please be certain to mention me. My last name is spelled “M-C-C-A-U-L-E-Y”

Seriously, though, this is a fantastic tool for indirectly marketing your book or business in the public arena. And it keeps you sharp. Many writers dream of making a living writing. Very few actually achieve the goal. This is simply because they are writers, not marketers.

However, you are fast becoming a marketer.

BTW, I have just created a new e-book entitled 'The Greatest Marketing Tool Ever Created'. It is located in the free section of the Free Publicity Focus Group site at http://www.freepublicitygroup.com . This tool, used properly, holds the potential to forever change your marketing life! Enjoy . . .

Leia Mais…

Creating Publicity Through Writing For Publication - Part One

Some of you are writers. You can write. If you can write, this is your greatest marketing tool.

Being the editor of a regional magazine, I can tell you that good writers are hard to come by. This is why so many writers receive rejection letters. That is not to say that a rejection letter means you are not a good writer. You get many rejection letters because the person sending the letter has become overwhelmed with submissions from bad writers. Trust me on this.

Good writers are hard to come by.

As an editor of a small magazine, I am ecstatic when I find a good writer. If I find a good writer and print articles by this good writer, the quality and the value of my magazine increases greatly.

I want good writers. Good writers are VERY hard to come by.

Are you getting the point yet?

The point is simply this: If you are a good writer, small publication editors want to talk to you.

A small pub editor will print you if you are a good writer.

How can you use this?

As the editor of a magazine, I want to compete with larger magazines. I want to do this because I can then attract larger advertising clients, which will increase my cash flow, the bottom line in any business. To compete with the big boys, I must have a quality piece and good content.

Only the writers produce that good content for me.

Therefore, you become very important to me.

I am being simplistic here, but for good reason. I want you to understand the opportunity you, the writer, create for small to medium size publications.

The larger publications are not in this situation. They have good writers. They don’t need you. But the smaller, competitive publications certainly do need you.

The Plan

Start by contacting smaller publications and offer to write for them.

The smaller, local magazines will be open to your suggestion. They will, of course, want to see samples of your work. It is wise to use excerpts from your book, if you can, as you have already had this professionally edited and it represents your finest work.

Try to pick an excerpt that might be relevant to local readers. If your work is fiction, this may not be possible. If not possible at all, start by writing a story about a relative or friend. Show the personal connection. You may also try local history. This will work wonders, if you can pull it off.

HOT TIP: Do NOT ask to be paid. That is an immediate turn-off, going in. There are far too many willing contributing writers to compete with. Offer to be a contributor at first. So, you might innocently ask, why write if you are not being paid?

You are being paid. If you write a full-page article for a publication, it is essentially the same as getting a full-page ad. For you. For your book or your business. However, there is a marked difference here.

The article you write is not so much advertising as it is publicity. These lines are somewhat blurred in the minds of some. The differences between advertising and publicity are easy to understand.

Advertising is a message that is completely controlled by the creator of that message. The goal of any advertising message is to either create awareness or to create action. These messages are purchased by the advertiser.

Publicity on the other hand is not controllable. Publicity can be ‘good’ publicity or ‘bad’ publicity. In addition, the goal is to create awareness, not action. However, publicity CAN create action; occasionally even more so than a properly crafted advertising message.

This is because the public has become jaded in regards to marketing messages. Our email inboxes are jammed with spam. Our physical mailboxes are filled with advertising flyers, letters and postcards of every description. We are overwhelmed with these messages while watching television or listening to radio. Please don’t get me started on the Internet versions of advertising banners, popups, etc.

All we wish to do when going to the inbox, the mailbox, our television, radio or any web page is get the information, the CONTENT we came for. The ad we encounter is perceived to be an interruption. It is the content we came for. Therein lies the simple secret to using publicity as a marketing tool.

The content is gladly welcomed, indeed sought by the seeker. Advertisements, as a general rule, are not. Your writing, your article, will be perceived, in this scenario, as content.

This is gold to you as a writer. Large segments of the public will come to appreciate what you can do and what you might know. And guess what?

There, at the bottom of the page, for the whole world to see is a little blurb . . .

‘Mary Jones is the author of ‘Creampuffs Through The Ages : The Ultimate Guide to Creampuffs’. Her book can be purchased at www.creampuff.com”.

Your article or piece can become a full-page ad if crafted properly.

The only thing you should insist on is that the blurb be placed at the end of any article you write for the publication.

Now most publications will have no problem with this at all. It is normal business practice. This article or piece is a decided benefit for the editor, so much so that many small magazine and newspaper editors are also willing to even consider trading AD SPACE for writers who contribute.

I personally use only local writers for my magazine. I give each and every one of them a free ad for their book or business, every month, in exchange for providing a monthly article for my magazine. This is because I, as the owner of the publication, must otherwise PAY writers. If I instead get a contributor to write and simply trade ad space, I do NOT have to pay for writing.

I can fill up an entire magazine (if desired) with quality writing and never have to pay one penny. The ad space I trade costs me very little as compared to paying a writer. I save money. The contributor creates awareness. In nearly every case throughout the years, these contributors have told me that the articles they write for the magazine produce far more in the way of sales than any advertisement.

This theory will most likely work best with small to medium size publications and local or weekly or specifically targeted newspapers. Please don’t try this one with the New York Times. If you try this with the New York Times please do not mention my name.

This, of course, puts your writing into the public arena. This gets you published. This creates credibility. But there is something more here.

This creates relationships. You do remember relationships, don’t you? If you are an author, having a good relationship with an editor can pay off handsomely when it's name-dropping time.

Don't be afraid to approach these local publications. The potential payoffs are huge. Next week, I will show you specifically how to make an approach to a publication that can result in your message being placed in literally hundreds of print publications for free.

Leia Mais…

Creating Publicity That Sells

Before I begin I would like to offer my apologies. Much like the 'how-to' books I write, this 'how-to' blog will be short, sweet and very much to the point. My goal here is to give you as much as possible, using as few words as possible. I am not here to sell you anything. I am here to give you the facts.

There is an entire economy and culture that has sprung up built upon 'those who know' selling 'information' and 'informational products' to 'those who don't know'. This is sad. For it takes but a moment of reading through the first few pages of this information to come to the conclusion that a great many of these people have never once actually done what they profess to know so much about. This is a terrible way to begin this blog and I did agonize over it, but I felt it necessary to say. I am saddened by the fact that this is sold as the 'truth' and is bought by those who innocently believe it.

And so I intend to simply give the facts away here. I will start at the most basic of levels and build as we go along. Some of this may be perceived as being a bit simplistic. However a firm foundation will be necessary to your ultimate success. This first post is an attempt to lay that foundation.

Once we have built this foundation, I will attempt to offer you some of the most creative, relatively unknown techniques out there regarding how to use these concepts in ways used by some extremely successful, 'out of the box' thinkers. In every case these will be people who actually DO this every day.

I would like to start by defining the word 'publicity'.

Publicity creates awareness about you and or your company. Publicity is not necessarily ALWAYS purposely created (look at Britney Spears), though this is what we are going to attempt to learn here. It goes without saying that publicity can be positive or negative. Publicity, as a general rule, is therefore not completely controllable. However from this point onward, we will define publicity as:

Your attempt to create, through various means, a positive impression in the minds of your prospective clients or customers.

Publicity is, in a word, awareness. Publicity is not marketing. Publicity is not advertising, Publicity and advertising are but two legs of the beast known as marketing.

As mentioned, publicity is not completely controllable. However, unlike publicity, advertising IS controllable. You create an advertising message and then place the message in the proper media. All aspects of an advertisement are completely controllable by you. However you control only the message, not the response TO the message.

The First 'Rule' Of Marketing

I have stated over and over again that you must completely and thoroughly understand the first rule of marketing. That rule is this:

People Only Do Business With People They Trust.

Ultimately, in every message you send to your potential client, whether publicity or advertising, your first and foremost goal must be to create that all important trust.

You can take classes in publicity. You can take classes in advertising. You cannot take classes in trust building.

Wnen I am asked to offer an opinion on a client's press release or ad or letter, my first reading of the piece is to look for the number of trust building statements. I then analyze the overall feel and positioning of the piece from the trust building perspective.

Now the other side of this coin is that you must not SUBTRACT FROM any trust those clients might already hold in you. Therefore, the third step in this process is to look for those trust destroyers. Only then do I look at the actual mechanics being used.

This is so vital, so basic that it should not need to be verbalized. However, I am somewhat appalled at the messages being put forth by well meaning people in both their publicity and advertising campaigns.

Take a moment today to look at what you are using in your campaigns from this perspective. Are you creating trust? Or are you potentially destroying trust?

Trust can be built or destroyed consciously or unconsciously. Though this goes to the very heart of the matter, I simply do not have the space to cover this completely here, so I will simply recommend you read my recent article 'Creating Trust - Using Words That Sell' located here

http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/articlecreatingtrust.html

Anyone can buy an ad and control the content. This does not create mistrust, but Joe Public knows anyone can do this. Very few can create positive publicity. If Joe Public sees someone on the front page of his local newspaper, he believes that person has EARNED the right to be there.

Therefore, publicity creates trust far more effectively than advertising.

All that being said, we shall start at the very beginning by asking the most basic of questions:

How does one create publicity that creates trust?

This is accomplished quite simply by creating a trust building message - a brand - and using that brand consistently. This brand, this message, is the core of the message you wish to present to the world. This is at the very center of everything else you will produce in your marketing and publicity campaigns, from press releases to advertisements, from radio interviews to brochures and everything in between. Each and every single sentence or paragraph you produce, from sell sheet to website must contain, contribute to or relate to this branding message in some way.

Please do not go off half-cocked without accomplishing this most basic of steps. Learning to do this can mean the difference between your success or your failure. Any person, from interviewer to web site visitor should be able to perceive this message in the first three seconds of exposure to you and your material. This is precisely how long you have to get that message across. About three seconds.

This is often a subconscious process. In that three seconds you must catch the eye or ear and create enough curiousity to keep that person interested enough to continue listening to your message. How do you know if you have accomplished this? By your response rate. Response rates can be difficult to track in some cases, easy in others.

A good example of an easy method is Google Analytics. This is a free tool anyone can use to get great information on the response rate of a particular page or pages on a website. On my sites for example, it will tell me how many people hit the index page - how long they stayed there - and whether they moved to another page on my site or simply clicked away. How can this information be used? Is this important?

You bet it is. Initially I had a rather high 'bounce' rate i.e. people who hit the page, stayed for a few seconds, and then clicked away. This told me my message was not giving them what they wanted. What they wanted was trust. And so I then rewrote, rewrote and again rewrote that page until I now have a situation where X% of people hit the page, X% stay for X minutes, then click through to read an article or two, then move to the purchase page, tell their friends about the site or leave the site.

Eventually we began to test by changing just specific WORDS only. In one case, we changed a single word and increased our ongoing click thru rate by 9%. I use this same theory with press release headings and ad taglines. Sometimes one word has the power to increase your trust factor dramatically. This past week has been spent developing a branding statement for a good friend and life coach. A full week of phone conversations and emails, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to find those all important 4 or 5 words that will say it all in just a few seconds.

Always remember: Marketing your product, be it a business, a book or a practice is not about you. It is about your response. What you believe may be creating trust may actually be destroying that trust in the minds of your BUYERS. Response rates will tell you how you are faring in the minds of those clients, regardless of your own personal preferences.

Response ratios allow you to fine tune your message for the greatest response. Other forms of publicity and advertising are somewhat harder to track, but it can be done to a degree.

Over the next three weeks I will tear apart the press release creation process and will demonstrate using the branding statement and the words that will get that editors attention in the header of your release. I am starting with press releases in that nowhere is the 'lack of trust factor' more clearly illustrated than in the fine art of getting a press release printed. In the meantime, here is your 'homework'. . .

Develop a statement that you will use the next time someone asks you:

'What is your (business, book, practice) all about?"

This statement must be less than 3 seconds long.

For instance, in my case, my answer is 'I show people how to build massive marketing campaigns for little or no money'.

Yours should be much the same.

Leia Mais…

The Old Days Are Gone

The Good Ol' Days Are Gone

As a new, perhaps self-published author, you must understand something and understand it fully if you are to achieve any measure of modern-day success:

The old, archaic systems for marketing and publicizing books are dead. At the very least they are quickly dying out.

For now, in the modern environment of e-marketing, it is possible for the author of any
well-written book to bypass these ridiculously prejudicial systems totally and to take one's
campaign directly to the public at large.

You, yes you, can construct your very own bookstore at no cost, from pieces of electronic code,
and create traffic through that store that will number in the millions.

(I apologize. This will be quite a long post as it will lay out for you all the reasons I believe you need to accept this now. Future posts shall certainly not be so long. Bear with me for a time. . .)

We have seen this happen in countless established old-school markets, most recently in the investment world (my old stomping grounds). Nowdays it is only grandpa and grandma who actually go to all the time, trouble and grief to call and make an appointment with the opulently rich, slick-haired stock broker sitting in his top floor office across town, drive over, sink into
the leather chair and make some insignificant little trade. The modern investor now plops down in front of the computer in his or her pj's, click - click, six bucks and logged off.

This eventually became a joke among us poor abandoned middlemen. As investment counselors, as we collectively found ourselves 'all dressed up with no one to talk to'. It was not funny at the time, but certainly it is now.

It was simply longer necessary to grovel before us, the self-important brokers. In the old days, I made upwards of six grand on a hundred thousand dollar trade. That six grand came out of the hapless clients pocket and went directly into mine.

When it all went south, there was a great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth from us middlemen. Nonetheless, happen it did.

Those good ol' days are gone. With them has gone the middleman. In no area is this fast becoming more true than in the world of book publishing.

The Fairy Tale

If you are like most self-published authors, you most likely, however innocently, have believed in a fairy tale. For you believed that once that perfect piece - your book - had at long last been ‘put to bed’, the final semicolon placed just so, everything oh-so-perfect, that the rest was just handing the thing off to the marketers, sitting back and waiting for the sales to come rolling in.

However, perhaps by now you have come to realize that this simply no longer happens. You have certainly come to realize, however reluctantly, that what you perceived to be the end of the road is really just the beginning of a new journey . . .

You must now become a self-marketing specialist.

In this brave new arena, there IS no middleman.

Under the old systems, the odds were stacked decidedly against you. They still are and perhaps to an even greater degree. Thousands upon thousands of books are published every year. Yours is but one little tiny one among them. This is a little disheartening and more than a little frightening, isn't it?

I am going to teach you how to self-market and self-publicize your book.

What will be presented here will show you some innovative ideas regarding how to present your child unto the world without spending a fortune and without using the middleman. However, common sense dictates that you most certainly will not find every idea available to you. No indeed.

I will NOT cover specifics regarding getting listed here or there or obtaining an ISBN or the best options for printing or getting your piece on Amazon or anything of the kind. This information is available to everyone and is covered in great detail very well all over the place. There are tons of great books and free resources that will very effectively walk you through these processes. There are very experienced people out there on the boards. Getting your book out there is now the easier part. Managing to get people to actually BUY the book once there is the difficult part.

This is also the most important function in the equation.This is NOT common knowledge, and it is some of these techniques I will illustrate here.

The middleman of days gone by has been replaced by the modern-day consultant. This means that the potential profit ratios, YOUR potential profit ratios, have gone through the roof.

I will not teach you how to BUILD a car; I am going to teach you how to DRIVE the thing. I will teach you the secrets to self-marketing and self-publicizing your new book, regardless of where or when or how or why you may choose to make it available. Then, once you learn how to drive, we are going to learn to race.

The ideas presented here are an attempt to show you how to create a massive marketing and publicity campaign on a very small budget, on your own, and to take that campaign DIRECTLY to the public.

You can be a part of this and take advantage of it. Or you can be left behind.

Self-Marketing.

Throughout the last 3 decades I have had the opportunity to work with some of the top marketing consultants in the country. From the very beginning, I incorporated their methods into my own.

I internalized the best of the best they could offer me. I systematically experimented with everything they offered and began to consistently use what I found to work. My career at the time depended on my ability to produce verifiable results - not theory.

Numbers - not excuses.

I have continued to this day to use these ideas and methods with great success. I have built two very successful magazines and one successful marketing agency, among other things. I have helped hundreds build their own businesses. I consult with start up magazines and book authors.
The fields of endeavor are diverse, but the methodology remains the same with a few tweaks. I mention this to impress upon you that I do know a little about many things, but I really know only one subject very well . . .

Self-Marketing.

When I first entered the self-publishing arena I knew nothing of the marketing of books. As I found myself joining others in writers groups and meetings, I began to realize that very few writers have had any kind of training at all in regards to marketing. They had a marked tendency to fall back on old, outmoded but safe ideas that did not really produce the effects
they desired:

Numbers. Sales.

For many authors, the word marketing is a four-letter word. This is because it brings to mind an image that we naturally reject. The very word has a somewhat negative feel. People are simply tired of being bombarded with unwanted marketing messages coming at them from every direction – from newspapers stuffed with flyers to mailboxes stuffed with junk mail to inboxes overwhelmed with spam.

This is not marketing. It is intrusion. We all have things we wish to buy. However, as a general rule, we never wish to be SOLD something.

For our purpose here I shall define self-marketing as: The ability to communicate clearly, DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC, the idea that we have a product our potential client either wants and/or needs, and is willing to take action to acquire.

If you are an author it will be best for you to face the facts right now – you MUST market. If you are self-published you will have no choice but to self-market. And even if you get lucky and land that big pie-in-the-sky deal at that big publishing house, you are going to be surprised to find that that mega-publishing house is going to require YOU to market your book.

There is simply no getting around this most basic of facts.

Marketing. Books out the door and off the shelves.

I cannot tell you the number of absolutely wonderful books I have read - the kind of book that
makes the hair stand on end and creates a shiver down the spine - that have sold just a few
hundred copies! This is not lack of writing skill. No indeed. This is lack of marketing skills. They got sadly lost in the quicksand of traditional book marketing.

The Good News

Take heart! Yes, the field of book marketing has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. What used to work no longer works in many cases. Again, with the advent of the Internet, every single rule has been thrown out the window! Even the publishing companies, the old school, know-it-all-big-boys-on-the-block, have now at times found themselves scampering wildly about, trying to figure out what to do next. The Internet stores are destroying traditional bookstores . . .blah . . . blah . . . blah.

The middlemen have come to realize that it is possible for a single individual sitting in a cabin off in the wilds of Idaho somewhere to take the publishing field literally by storm; with no help or company backing whatsoever! It has been proven time and again that deep pockets are no longer a prerequisite to publishing success. This, my friend, is one of your greatest advantages.

You can not only survive here - you can thrive here!

Take the old stand-by, the press release as an example. In the ‘good ol’ days’, the writer would send a press release to a newspaper, announcing the birth of their new creation. The editors would look down through their magnifying readers at the release and, using their executive position, give the thumbs up or thumbs down, effectively helping to create or possibly helping to destroy the career of the hapless, well-meaning writer.

Or perhaps the formerly all-knowing, self-important, uppity almighty Reviewer Of Books would
find no pity in his or her heart for the innocent penman and would literally, out of jealousy, spite or otherwise, tear the work to proverbial pieces, summarily ending the hopes and dreams of anyone foolish enough to put their work in harms way.

Well, no more.

For now, the independent writer can bypass this archaic system totally, if they desire, and take their work DIRECTLY to the public. If the author has taken the time to do his or her own homework, he or she can succeed IN SPITE OF the obstacles that are, quite simply, no longer obstacles.

Take heart! For the ideas required to accomplish this feat of modern-day marketing are available to anyone. Yes, even you.

I think the best example of this is a young man I spoke with recently who makes literally tens of thousands of dollars per month marketing an ebook! He accomplished this on his own, with no outside help whatsoever.

Here is another that might surprise you:

http://smartmarketinghabits.com/?p=13

Certainly this is not what you will be attempting to accomplish (assuming these unverified second party numbers to be correct). Nonetheless, the opportunity is there and it is real. By now you have most likely come to realize that the old, outdated and archaic systems of the past may not be the path you wish to tread towards self-marketing success.

There is a very important point that you must understand here. As a matter of fact, were I able to impress just a single point upon you here, that point would be this:

The quickest road to marketing success is not found in marketing. It is instead found in the
ability to create PUBLICITY!

Publicity

THE INTERNET AFFORDS YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO BYPASS THE OLD SYSTEMS UTILIZED IN THE PAST AND TO TAKE YOUR MARKETING AND PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN TO THE PUBLIC DIRECTLY.

Have I said this enough?

Now, you will not get far by merely attempting to market, to sell your book. As I mentioned, this is because people are quite frankly tired of the glut of marketing messages they are hit over the head with every day.

People are spending more and more and even more time on the Internet. It is fast becoming a way of life. The Internet affords people the opportunity to find WHAT they need quickly, without being assailed by commercial after commercial! Television is fast being replaced by the
world-wide web. People have come to see these interruptive marketing messages as intrusive and are reacting negatively, now that there is another choice available.

While many people have come to detest marketing messages, they still love a good story.

Therefore it is urgent for you to understand that the key to getting good response to your book
is to learn to create publicity.

Anyone can buy an ad. The consumer understands this now. They have come to mistrust advertising. But, if you and your book are seen on the evening news, or on the front page of the local newspaper, the consumer believes you have earned the right to be there somehow. This leads to TRUST, the key element in selling any product or service.

Take a moment to look at what Jerry Simmons, retired V.P and Director of Field Sales for Time Warner Books has to say on the subject:

http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/TopTenSecrets.html The quote is near the top of the page.

You do not have to hold a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering to turn on a light. You simply hit the switch and get the light. Likewise, you do not have to hold a Master’s Degree in marketing to successfully self-market a book. In my long career I have attended hundreds of educational classes and seminars in regards to marketing. I have taught many more. In every case I have managed to condense the hours and hours involved in each down to just a set of simple rules or group of techniques. This is precisely what this blog will attempt to do.

You don’t have the time to ingest a library full of unnecessary information if you wish to start being successful right now, today. You certainly do not have to bow before the almighty keepers of the gate.

Here is a simple illustration. In NLP, we use a theory known as modeling. Let us say you wish to learn a skill such as running a wooden lathe. You could approach this in two ways:

a. You could read about the subject. Take classes. Take tests. Study theory. Spend years in education. You might then actually turn on a lathe. Get used to the tools. Study some more. Experiment. Try new things. Eventually, after a few years you might be able to turn out a fairly well-formed wooden bowl. OR

b. You could be paired with the finest operator of wooden lathes in the place. He would show you step-by-step precisely and exactly how he does it. The tricks. The nuances. Do this. Do that.

In example A, you could spend years educating yourself and still not be able to perform.

In example B, you would not exactly know everything, but you would most likely be able to perform as well as the world’s top expert. Beginning tomorrow.

The style of this blog is based on modeling. I will show you step by step how to be a master marketer beginning the moment you finish reading this.

When we have completed this process, you will have gained the same amount of information yo would have gained had you read ten books on self-marketing, or attended months of classes or seminars. Period. The due diligence in regards to these techniques has been done for you, by thousands of professional self-marketers in the real world. Everything you need to know is right here, right now. Do it first. Study it all in detail later, if you wish.

If you manage to stay with this until the end, you shall become what you believed you could never be: a master self marketer.

That is a wonderful thing. For no one will ever believe in your book to the degree YOU believe in your book. No one will ever have the passion YOU have for it. And no one could EVER market and publicize your book the way YOU can market and publicize your book.

The bell has rung. Let us begin . . . .

Leia Mais…

Free Advertising VS Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Here is a question:

Would you rather:
a. spend $200 on an ad that no one has any interest in reading OR
b. spend $0 on an ad that EVERYONE wants to read?

The answer is very obvious. But, believe it or not, many people just cannot see the sense in using option B.

Everyone is selling something - might be a product, a service or perhaps just your knowledge. Regardless of what you are selling you only have so many tools with which to work. I have said this before and I will say it again:

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

assuming the publicity is positive. You can easily create any amount of publicity for no out of pocket cost. You must of course pay for advertising. This is why learning to think like a publicist, rather than trying to advertise your product or service will pay off in ways and amounts you simply cannot imagine.

You must understand something and understand it fully - People are TIRED of advertising messages. People, as a rule, find them intrusive. They skip over them or fast forward through them or hurl them in the trash or simply ignore them. The old days (and the old ways) simply do not work anymore.

However, people still love a great story. They love to read about others. They are heads over heels in love with free information.

This is bad news for advertising professionals, but great news for publicists.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

However, free publicity, COMBINED with creative advertising, will blast you, your company and your product into the stratosphere of marketing success. If you are advertising exclusively, you are concentrating only upon the smaller side of the equation.

I am now going to say two words:

Britney Spears
You saw a picture in your head when I said those words, did you not?

Britney would have to pay 100 million dollars a DAY to buy the same publicity she gets every day for free. Granted it is negative publicity. But I would venture to say that 90% of people on the planet recognize her name. This is why famous people hire publicists. To get famous. (Of course I would not want to be Britney's publicist). Now I will say two more words:

Ella Stipowicz

See. No picture. You have no idea what Ella might look like. Or even if Ella really exists. Ella has no publicist.

When I was very young, fresh out of high school, I joined a rock and roll band. We drew huge crowds, but were not really that good. We drew the crowds because of the band's name. When we played a gig, the club owner was forced to publicize our name on the sign outside the club. The sign looked like this

Saturday Night - Free Beer

This was a publicity stunt and this worked great until the club owners tired of explaining to their huge crowds of new customers that there was no free beer. Eventually we were literally forced to change the name of the band and so we did. Now the signs said:

Saturday Night - Naked Girls

Again, huge crowds. Still not very good musically.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

On the Free Publicity Focus Group website I make the statement that anyone, anywhere can create a marketing campaign to rival any corporation in America for little or no money by learning how to create free publicity. Anyone can do this. You can do this.

I have worked with some of the top corporations in America in their marketing divisions. I have worked with some of the highest level marketing consultants in the US. I have sat across the desk from thousands of business owners whose goal was to get their message out there. I have never been complacent. To this day I still sit and wade through 40 newsletters a day, looking for some new idea, a fresh technique, some cutting edge piece of creativity. Frankly, I am appalled at what I see and what people will fall for.

Not only do I read about these things - I actually test them personally. If a technique works, I incorporate it into my stable of strategies. If it does not work, it is simply tossed.

So, from this point on, think of this blog and my website, Free Publicity Focus Group, as personal resources to gain training to become a publicist. Learning how to create publicity is what I intend to teach here in this new and improved blog and on the website. So here is lesson One, from Book One, Chapter One, first line of the first paragraph in the book entitiled 'Publicity 101'.

'Advertising pulls money out of your wallet and does not work well anymore. Publicity pulls ideas out of your head and works very well'.

Now - where do you think YOUR efforts should be concentrated?

More at http://www.freepublicitygroup.com

Leia Mais…

Free Advertising VS Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Were I able to impress a single fact upon the mind of anyone wishing to be successful in selling any product or service in the marketplace, that fact would be this:

Free publicity is the singular key to marketing success. Regardless of the product or service you are attempting to market, this is fact.

You are really up against it when you look at the sheer numbers of competitors for that sales dollar YOU are trying to get your hands on.

Little ol' you, with your little ol' computer, will be competing with corporations who spend millions of dollars per year to advertise and market the exact same product you might be selling.

You will never be able to outspend them.

The corps employ buildings full of experienced salespeople and marketers.

You will not be able to outwork them.

They have roomfuls of analyists on board whose function is to get market share. They have the connections. They have the experience. They have the systems. They have the procedures. They have the contracts in place. Forget it.

You will never be able to outmarket them.

But you, with the help of that single computer and some good information, it is possible that you can . . .

out-think them.

The Internet brings an entirely new opportunity to the small to mid-size marketer, in that it is no longer necessary to follow traditional METHODS to achieve success. It is no longer required that one jump through the well established hoops to achieve the goal. The Internet allows the marketer to go directly to the consumer. We all know this. This is good news. However, there is another even more important problem here.

The Internet is unregulated. This can work greatly in your favor. Or it can kill your efforts.

Any 10 year old on the planet with an html editor can set himself up to look like a major international corporation and offer to sell you products and services. If there is one point I wish to make here it is that most of the methodologies and marketing 'information' you will encounter on the Internet is, in a word, bullshit.

Everybody it seems has the latest, greatest idea. Everyone will show you charts and graphs and numbers and supposed facts in an attempt to lure you in. You may fall for this because you are inexperienced. You may fall for this because it seems so logical. You may fall for this for any number of reasons. In any case, you are, quite simply,

falling for it.

If you really wish to achieve the all-new American dream, the dream of making a really good living while sitting in the comfort of your home or virtual office. you will need to be armed with FACTS.

The FACTS are what I am going to give you here. Here is Fact 1:

If you can create massive amounts of free publicity through TRADITIONAL, well established and acceptable channels, your IMMEDIATE and LONG TERM success is virtually guaranteed. If you cannot, you will fall short of the goal. Period.

Oh yes, granted, you will make SOME sales using the homespun techniques of the 10 year old in Idaho, or the guy who made a hundred sales in a day using some sales letter he sent out to his opt-in marketing list he bought from someone else. No offense here to anyone. Everyone is doing the best they can do using what they have. You can experience a little success using these methods and ideas. But you will never achieve true, long lasting success.

To achieve that goal, you will need to play with the big boys. And you will need to learn to out-think them. You will need to learn how to steal their thunder.

You can ride on the coat-tails of those who have developed these channels and take advantage of their work. You can use the ESTABLISHED channels in creative ways. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the newspaper ran a story on you that was picked up by the wire services and ended up running all over the country? For FREE? How about radio? TV perhaps?

The old, established marketing channels are old and established because they work. They work extremely well.

Guess what?

You do not have to spend $500 to buy a newspaper ad. You can have it for free.
You do not need to spend $275 for a 30 second spot on TV. You can have it for free.

You CAN do this. Believe it or not, armed with the FACTS, it is far easier than you think.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising. Publicity is not advertising per se, as publicity can be positive OR negative. So let's restate this by saying:

Free POSITIVE Publicity CREATES Free Advertising. Massive amounts of it. No cost basis whatsoever.

And so now I will present you with Fact 2. You will want to memorize this one.

To create massive amounts of free publicity (aka free advertising), you need simply to:

Start thinking like a publicist.

For a publicist is nothing more than a master of creating . . . you guessed it

Free publicity.

More at Free Publicity Focus Group

Leia Mais…

Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Leia Mais…