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8 Years Ago
I wrote a series of Marketing on the Cheap articles and they are still out there around the net. If you search Google for Marketing on the Cheap by Floyd Snyder you should find most of them. These were original articles that I wrote for Strictly Business Magazine, a monthly publication I use to own. This was written in 2002 I think so it is a bit time dated and you need to keep that in mind. But the concept is still valid. You have to realize that blogging is now the way to go. But if you blog, I think you should submit you blogs to these article distribution sites and broaden your reach.
Marketing on the Cheap: Write? Right!!
We all know the value of writing articles for promoting your website or online store. However, writing articles to promote your old-fashioned, traditional brick and mortar business has been around forever.
Contact your local newspapers, and chances are, depending on what business you are in, they may be interested in giving you your own column. Most small or medium-sized media markets will have at least one daily serving the communities and probably at least one weekly newspaper. Offer to supply a weekly or even a monthly column for free. They are always looking for editorial content and "free" is always attractive. Be careful about a daily commitment, this can get overly demanding in a hurry.
It may be a little more difficult to approach the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times, but in major media markets there are any number of regional weeklies that can be approached.
Other considerations may be regional or even national trade publications, Chamber of Commerce newsletter or other professional associations and organizations you may belong to.
If you can’t get the column for free, don’t be afraid to pay for it. But make sure the layout is designed to look as much as possible like a regular story or editorial content. The paper will probably require that you put some sort of disclaimer on your column like the word "advertising", but this is not a big deal.
Have a professional photo taken and include it in you articles whenever possible. Don’t use your high school photo or one that is touched up to make you look totally different than you actually do. You are trying to build recognition and credibility. After your column has run for some time, you will be surprised how many people will easily recognize you. People like to do business with people they know.
Okay, so now you have own column; make good use of it. Give it value. Do not make it a blatant advertisement and/or sales pitch. In fact, except in extremely rare occasions you probably don’t want to sell anything directly in your column at all. You want to write real content, stories that are either of real value or entertaining. I had a friend once that owned a restaurant. He paid to have his own column in our local newspaper. He never once wrote a story about his own restaurant. Instead he wrote about his world travels, famous chefs, and the wonderful restaurants he had enjoyed.
Another approach you may want to consider is a "How To" column. I once supplied a weekly column for an art gallery/picture-framing studio. We wrote a series of how to buy and frame your own artwork.
Check your local newspaper and you will no doubt see examples. If you are writing the column for the newspaper and not paying for it, make sure you retain editorial control and copyright to the work. If you are paying for insertion, ask your ad representative or ad agency for samples. As you travel around, pick up the local newspapers in the area you are visiting and see what others are doing.
If you don’t have the time or the feel you are not capable of writhing your own column, check with an ad agency. You should be able to find one that provides this service. If you belong to a professional association, check with them and see if they supply "ghost" stories. I have worked with accountants, stockbrokers, lawyers and others using ghost stories.
I will suggest that if you are not writing the story yourself, you may want avoid the by line that says "by" and use "furnished by" or "supplied by" or something of that nature. The last thing you want to do is get caught taking credit for writing something someone else wrote. If you pay acopywriter for original copy, this is not as likely to happen. But if you use ghost stories from an association, you are more then likely not going to have exclusivity. Someone in another publication may be running the same story.
When you start this project, think long term. It takes a commitment. It will take some time to build readership. You are establishing yourself as an expert in your field to people that don’t know you. This will not happen overnight.
I mentioned retaining editorial control and copyright. After you have created a number of columns and/or stories, you may want to consider putting them all together in a book. Keep this in mind in the early stages. If you are working with a ghostwriter or ad agency, make sure they understand your intentions so proper preparations can be made and taken into consideration from the very beginning. If your traditional non-web based business does have a web site, and it should have , make sure you prepare your writings for distribution on the net as well.
Once you start writing you can use the materials in any number of different ways.
So…go write something!
Reply Order
8 Years Ago
This is super information, Floyd -- my weekend-lazy brain cells are sitting up and taking notice.
Thank you kindly!
~ Wendy
http://www.art166.net/artist-sos.html
8 Years Ago
Thanks, Floyd, blogging is the way to go to be found. Here's a tip from my experience. I started posting on the newish blog platform on LinkedIn within the last year.. I now have about 20 posts... and around the seventh I started getting these connection invites from editors at news and magazing publishers. Never happened when I was on WordPress. What happens on LinedIn is all my connections get a notification when I blog, and I get notified when they blog. When my connections interact with my posts who they know sees it and then the post gets ranking. LinkedIn search is just as powerful as Google ... only you're searching on LinkedIn instead of Google which many in business do these days.
8 Years Ago
More great info, Frank. I never really 'settled in' at LinkedIn, but your experience reminds me I should take a second (or third) look at the platform. Thank you!
8 Years Ago
Well, that says a lot of why you are always complaining about not selling, now doesn't it?
How many times has Abbie removed your neg comments you have left on all of me threads and blogs?
8 Years Ago
Vincent, yet again you have come in with nothing to actually say positive about a very helpful thread. I understand you are commenting on his work elsewhere also negatively. This will desist now please as it is considered troll like behaviour.
Do not troll.
In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
EXAMPLES OF TROLLING
Posting replies just for the sake of posting.
Posting comments irrelevant to the topic.
Posting ridicule because someone said something that was wrong.
8 Years Ago
I guess moderators can choose to shout louder themselves, or contact the person in private.
Sorry Abbie, but where is
It'l all very interesting but do not see how it relates to art
different to
Very interesting. Thank you;
taking into account the line you chose to emphasise: Posting replies just for the sake of posting?
8 Years Ago
10. Forum moderators reserve the right to remove posts and threads, and to ban offenders from the forum, temporarily or permanently, without warning. Any ban can and will be at moderator discretion. Disciplinary action will NOT be discussed on the forum. The Community Manager will make the final decision in any rules dispute or disciplinary action.
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=260080
I will say, you have not been on the forums that long Michel but you will find that I rarely chastise in public and, when I do, I have a good reason to.
8 Years Ago
Your blogging needs to be useful in order to get noticed and read. You have to provide a service. Unfortunately my blog is laser focused on autumn. But the rest of the year it dips down until people once again start to make their fall vacation plans. I get good traffic but that subject is limited, what are you going to write about?
What do you know or better yet what are you passionate about? And is this something other people want to know about?
For everybody saying, HEY! I'll write about my art and how great it is. Do you hear that sound, it's crickets in the field.
There are damn few people who care about your art face it, nobody cares. Hurts right? It's the truth.
UNTIL they have a connection to you. Floyd said it above, don't advertise in your writing . So writing about how your art is outstanding is out.
What do you do?
You start by finding another subject that people need help with. Solve a problem for people and you will be popular. Maybe you can find something art related but from my experience, you want to find something that will be of interest year round, then you won't have the peaks and deep valleys like I have.
But what ever subject you choose it should be something people search for in google.
IE, google, how do I do this, find this or fix this. Simple right?
Write about it on a regular schedule. I have heard many folks on here mention, yeah I haven't written in mine since...
Well I'm recovering from writing 3 per week in my fall foliage blog and also one per week for visitnewengland.com and I squeezed one in on my guild blog in early October also. I also drove 5,500 miles between 18 Sept to 4 Nov. This isn't bragging, this is to say your dedication to it has to be the equal of your dedication to your art, your spouse, your life. It goes part and parcel.
This is why I mentioned "making it something you can be passionate about"
Maybe you can't make the time from everything else in your life but the more passionate you are about it, the easier it is.
You'll notice that no where did I say it was easy or fast. I've been building my readership since 2011 and every year I get more.
I don't have all the answers but I'll answer questions if you have them.
8 Years Ago
You bring up many excellent points Jeff.
Do not advertise... problem solving... regularity ... just to mention a few.
Thanks for post! Excellent!
8 Years Ago
First of all Floyd, thank you so much! The information you give away (for free) is extremely valuable.
I can apply your suggestions to not only paper newspaper but also to blogging (personally) or add some value to another, community, blog. Also, some professional organizations (in my case it is for example California Watercolor Association) would be happy to have an artist writing stories or providing a step-by-step lesson for free in their newsletter).
I did participate in Outreach program with them (for free) but I did get a lot of exposure; and, was asked to teach in the different local communities.
Blogging did become my thing. But I do mostly "brag" about my achievements and my new art series. It gets a lot of exposure on Google search; that's why I do encourage artists to blog.
And when I noticed that my blog started becoming too "narcissistic" so to speak, I opened an additional blog, where I post some articles on art history and some step-to-step ideas , or free photo references for painters. Oh, and I need to mention that I do blog with Google Blogger. I find this base is quite good for the marketing on a cheap.
Thanks again. Your discussion topic did get me thinking on how to advertise on a inexpensive basis.
Irina
http://www.artirina.com/
