Scrappy Marketing Solutions Blog

Carnival of Marketing

Have you heard about Blog Carnivals?   

How does it work? Once a week, a different site will host a bunch of links from other sites that are talking about marketing. The topics can be case studies, interesting ideas, cool examples, things not to do, exposure for a product, etc… People can send in any new articles for the week from their websites Examples of carnivals can be found here and here.

Why should I host or submit to the carnival?
Submitting articles is a great way to get exposure to people interested in marketing. As well, hosting will draw lots of traffic to your site. Plus it is fun and you get to be a part of an online marketing community.

If you haven't heard of blog carnivals, you probably haven't heard of the Blog Carnival of Marketing.  While I had heard of blog carnivals, I only just stumbled across this Marketing one.  I'll have to check it out more, but I plan to participate.  If it goes well, and/or if I see any traffic increases, I may consider doing one more directly related to scrapbook marketing.  Any thoughts?

Scrapbook Industry Advertising....what works???

Jan Mollet Evans has posted some excellent insights and advice on Industry Advertising on the Pink Martini message board.

Her advice comes in response to a question posed by a new scrapbooking manufacturer:

What type of advertisements catch your attention?? Banner ads, ads/writeups in newsletters, magazine advertisments (large page/back of mag small ad), etc.?  For anyone that runs a business in this industry and has advertised... what kind of advertising worked best for you?

Jan offers suggestions for pay-for advertising, as well as some more "grass-roots" ideas.  I tend to go more for the grass roots ideas, personally -- for my three books, I had no marketing budget of my own, so I had to do everything myself.  One promotional vehicle I like is chats -- there are several online communities that host chats with manufacturers and 'celebrities'.  When I was heavily promoting my books, I often emailed the site owners and offered to do a chat.  Many of them were quite welcoming and gracious, and I got to talk about scrapbooking for an hour or so.  Win-win!  ;)

 

Tips for Increasing Traffic to Your Blog and Building an Audience

Great, succinct post on increasing traffic to your blog at Suzanne Falter-Barns' Get Known Now Blog:

Basic rules of the road:
1. Find five blogs who reach a similar market and preach a similar mission to yours
2. Post a comment to them once a week
3. Subscribe to them thru RSS feeds and read what they're posting about
4. Comment, connect, be polite and helpful

Read the other three tips at her blog.

There's a couple of cool things about commenting on other blogs -- first, if they're in your niche or field of interest, you'll probably learn cool stuff by reading other blogs, just for your own benefit.  Second, when you comment on other blogs, chances are that blogger will notice you, thank you for the comment, and you might just start a dialogue.  I've met a lot of people this way, people I wouldn't have met otherwise.  Is this networking?  Yes.  But is it also just cool to meet new people?  Yes, that too.

Marketing Idea: Marketing Your Business through Podcasts

Denise Wakeman over at Internet Marketing Tips for Professionals mentioned today that PRWeb has started a new service that taps into the marketing power of podcasts:

in February PRWeb started PRWebPodcast.com. At the $200 distribution level, they will conduct a 5-7 minute interview about the news in your release and then distribute it all over the podcasting networks.  This is a brilliant way to extend your brand for a low cost.

Very interesting, and an innovative service to offer their customers.

Denise's post triggered these thoughts for me:

I have thought about offering this service to clients -- interviewing them for a fee, doing all the sound editing and "prettying it up", and then they can post the mp3 in their online press room. They could give me a list of talking points they'd like to make sure make it into the interview, to get the most marketing mileage out of the experience.  For my scrapbook business clients, this could be a powerful marketing tool, because I know exactly what questions to ask, because of my experience in the industry.

Also, what about recording your press releases to an mp3, then offering that to podcasters in your niche, yourself? You should know your own niche, and who's podcasting to that audience already. Chances are good that they'd welcome the content for their show, if it's well written and edited.  Think of the podcasts being done in your niche, what their show focus is, then offer them a press release that coordinates nicely with the content they offer.  (Note: I'm currently working on a podcast episode that lists out all the scrapbooking podcasts -- watch my Wholly Scrap! podcast blog for the episode and show notes.)

I might try that last idea myself -- I'll just have to write myself a press release!

So, what do you think?  Do you think you might try something like this?   Would you be interested in the audio interview service from me?

Marketing Tip: How to Recycle Press Releases

Ayana Glaze has a great article at Entrepreneur.com: 9 Ways to Recycle a Press Release.  I've written before about "re-purposing" your marketing materials -- I believe I said something pithy like, "write once, use...more than once." 

Ayana offers the following suggestions in her article, plus four more:

1. Use them as web copy.
2. Add them to your press kit.
3. Use them in your newsletter.
4. Blog them.

Something I appreciated about this article was that she offered specific suggestions on how to do each of these things -- she went the step further to explain what she meant by "use them as web copy".  That's what makes an article really useful.

Re-purposing press releases also helps make them more cost-effective -- if you hire someone to write a press release, and you're able to use it several times for several different purposes, you just made your business investment more valuable.  That's using your Noodle!

Why Blog? Aren’t websites enough?

Kristie T provides excellent food for thought in her blog entry, Why Blog? Aren’t websites enough?

She covers the following points:

• What is a blog?
• What do you blog about?
• If I have a website, do I still need a blog?  (how blogs are different from traditional websites)
• Why Blog? (the benefits of blogging)

A good overview with useful tips.

FYI - the audio recording from my Blogging Blitz teleseminar is now available -- that's when I did two one-hour telephone classes: one that explained exactly what a blog is and how you can create one simply and easily, and one that explained how to use a blog to reach your customers and the best ways to sell your products and services.  Read more about it here.

Forget about Using Business Cards?

Via Duct Tape Marketing and Home Biz-a-Pa-Looza, I recently read Bob Bly's fairly controversial philosophy about business cards:

So ... what should you put on your business card? And how do you get it into people's hands so they pay attention and file it for future reference? My answer may surprise you:

1. Don't worry about what you put on your business card. It doesn't matter.

2. Don't carry business cards or hand them out to people.

Instead, do the following ...

When a prospect asks you, "Do you have a business card?" say, "I don't have any on me. But give me yours, and I will put one of mine in the mail to you."

Whoa.  DON'T carry OR pass out business cards.  Yi.  I definitely see the value of following up after receiving someone's card, but don't really see the harm of handing them one of yours. 

The comments in John Jantsch's post provide interesting and innovative uses for business cards, as well as a valuable tip for mentioning search engine results.

For more thoughts on business cards, related to the scrapbooking industry, check out Stephanie Barnard's article, It's in the Cards, at DesignerZine.com.

Using a Blog to Promote an Online Store

I recently got the following email:

I have recently found an online scrapbook store that carries most of the lines I love, at prices my pocketbook loves too. But one of the coolest features is her blog. She lets us know what is coming, and asks for feedback on what to order. It just feels more real-time and interactive than a periodic newsletter. I emailed the owner, and she credited you with the idea. Well, then of course I had to visit your blog. GREAT marketing ideas! I'm passing it along to several friends that have small businesses, even though they aren't scrap-related. Thanks for the wonderful resource.

How cool is that??  So I had to go check out Linnecards.com, and Sharon is doing AWESOME things with her blog!

Here are some things I noticed:

• She writes in a VERY conversational style -- she's obviously a REAL person!  ;)
• She mentions product orders she's recently placed (so people know to expect them in the near future)
• She mentions back-orders (so people know NOT to expect them in the near future perhaps, but eventually.  This goes a long way to establishing reliability with customers)
• She mentions specific dates when specific products are expected to arrive
• She solicits feedback -- should she order this or this?  She posted her current 'wish list' then asked if she should order more.  She received 15 comments in response, very specific, direct from her excited customer base. 
• She posts graphics of items recently ordered or received -- adds color to the blog, and gets people excited about the product.

All this, and she's only been blogging a MONTH!  Rock on Sharon!  You're doing it right!

Using Press Releases to Promote Your Scrapbooking Business

Ran across this press release recently: Scrapbook Decor - the Newest Trend in Scrapbooking.

What a great example of using a press release to promote your business.  Notice how she:

• gave statistics about the hobby of scrapbooking (establishes an audience)
• mentioned a current "hot trend" within the hobby (establishes timeliness, and broadens the audience beyond scrapbooking into home decor)
• included a quote (establishes expertise)
• suggested three ways to incorporate scrapbooking materials into decor projects -- including tips in a press release is a great way to make it more newsworthy
• Describes the company's mission/purpose, and provides a link for more information about the company

The links to the projects probably wouldn't get included in a write-up, but it would help a media person get a better idea of how the information could be approached in an article.  Visuals are always good in print media.

Get those wheels turning -- how can you craft a press release to promote your scrapbooking business?  (And remember, I'm here to help -- I write press releases!)

Seven Super Trade Show Promotion Steps

With just 135 days left till CHA-Summer, and 216 days left till MemoryTrends, I thought it apt to post this link: Seven Super Trade Show Promotion Steps from Advertising.About.com.

Among the tips:

• Decide on a pre-show promotional strategy.  How are you going to let your target audience what shows you will be attending and what you will be presenting?
• Reach out to the media with press kits
• Organize A Visitor Competition.
• Plan Hospitality.

What are are your trade show promotion plans?