Published monthly, on the 15th of each month
Published and edited by Angela Booth

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Editorial: Happy 2005!

In 2005, Commit to Daily Marketing [Article — A. Booth ]

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Editorial: Happy 2005!

Here we are in 2005. We've got lots of plans for all our sites this year. If you have a specific want or need, speak up. You can contact us at any time and make your wishes known. If you have a question, we’ll answer it, or point you to someone else who can. If you'd like to see something discussed in CSB, we're happy to do that too.

As you've noticed, if you're a longterm subscriber, we're trimming down the ezines. Chiefly this is because of the amount of sp#m around. The ezines get caught in traps, and don’t get through to you.

The other primary reason is blogs and RSS — Really Simply Syndication. RSS and blogs help you to be an instant-publisher. They get your information to the people who want it, when they want it. Blogs emerged into the mainstream with the US election. A blog is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way for you to interact with your customers, because a blog is a conversation.

The material that I used to publish in Creative Small Biz and Your EveryDay Write now appears in our primary blog, so for ongoing DAILY writing and business tips, inspiration, motivation, and information, I encourage you to visit Angela Booth's Writing Blog daily, at:

http://copywriter.typepad.com/copywriter/

What's RSS?

RSS powers blogs. Or collates blogs. To get up to speed on RSS and instant-publishing, visit:

http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml

My favourite newsfeed (RSS) aggregator is Bloglines —

http://www.bloglines.com

Once you've signed up at Bloglines (it's free), you can add your newsfeeds very easily. Just read the Help file.

Want To Know How To Get Started Blogging?

Our latest Pro Write workshop, "Blog Your Writing", helps you to get started blogging. The first lesson will be available on January 15.

http://www.prowrite.biz/

The Internet is changing fast. Are you making the most of the opportunities the brave new electronic world is bringing you? In 2005, I encourage you to THINK GLOBAL, no matter what kind of small creative business you own. RSS and blogs will help you to reach a global marketplace, as fast as you can type. What's not to like?

Wishing every success with your creative biz!

Angela

Copyright © 2005 by Angela Booth. All rights reserved.

Your creative small business success is built on marketing. Look at any successful enterprise, from Pizza Hut to the solo home business operator. They all market consistently. There's no way they can survive without marketing.

If you've recently made the transition from paid employment to your own business, you may find the marketing concept difficult to get your head around. When you're working for someone else, they handle all the marketing.

An employer's marketing efforts may be invisible to the staff. The marketing may consist of: a yearly Yellow Pages ad, local advertising, attendance at trade shows, private networking, and outsourced telemarketing.

If you're a solo operator, at least 40 per cent of your working time each week needs to be spent on marketing. You need to have processes in place so that you can simply get it done without thinking too much about it. If marketing is difficult for you, it's because you don’t have the processes in place which make it easy.

You can choose to spend half your daily working time marketing, or you can devote a couple of days each week to marketing. Your choice. But you must get it done.

What's best? Online or offline marketing?

That depends on your client base, and your own comfort level. Where do your clients come from? If you've just started your own small business, you may feel more comfortable dealing with local businesses, by which I mean businesses within easy driving distance. On the other hand, you may feel comfortable dealing with national and international businesses from the start.

I'm happy dealing with international businesses, because I started my professional writing career working with a British publisher over 20 years ago. (I'm in Australia.) In those days, international phone calls were an event, and if my editor and I wanted to get in touch quickly, we sent telegrams.

Nowadays working with someone on the other side of the world is just as easy as working with someone locally. Easier, in some ways, because of the time difference. A US or UK client can email me a brief, and I can usually have the work done for them by the time they hit their office the next morning.

For most small creative businesses, I suggest a mix of both online and offline marketing.

Here's a good starting place: combine intensive local telemarketing (cold calls), with creating a quick blog (Web log).

Our latest Pro Write workshop is "Blog Your Writing", and will get you up to speed on blogging.

http://www.prowrite.biz/

Remember the name-recognition factor

Nothing will derail your marketing efforts more quickly than misunderstanding the marketing cycle. As a rule of thumb, consider that it will take around three months for your initial marketing efforts to parlay into a viable small business. Therefore, if you're just starting out, make sure that you have sufficient funds to keep you going for at least three months.

Your prospects need to see your name over and over again before they buy your services. Make sure that when they want your services, they recognize your name! Build the relationship.

You can get bored when you're doing the same thing over and over and you get no result. You may have inserted a paid ad into your local paper for eight weeks, with zero reaction. Place the ad for another four weeks, please. It takes at least three months of placing your ad for you to start getting business from it.

Making time to market every day builds your business. Your first resolution for 2005 should be that you will market your business every day ---- no matter what!