Sharing my passions...

For the second time this week, I was in the interview "hotseat" this morning. I was on Blog Talk Radio as a guest on The Passion Project with Katherine Reshke

We talked about passions and marketing and of course podcasting. I really enjoyed myself and couldn't believe when Katherine announced that there were only three minutes left! How did that happen? Seriously!

I know they say time flies when you are having fun, but it was borderline ridiculous.

In any case, I encourage you to check out the show and tell me what you thought and, of course, ask any questions you might have about marketing, podcasting, or radio advertising.

Dollars and Sense - The Podcasting Echo Effect

Came across a post this morning that described the cumulative effect of podcasting in clear financial terms that I had not seen expressed quite this way before.

I'm not a spelunker so I don't relate very well to the cave system, so I'm still looking for a good analogy to use, but I really appreciated seeing the costs and benefits outlined with dollar (or at least pound) values.

I've been trying to find an effective way of presenting the on-going benefits of podcast advertising (and podcast promotions through guest appearances) in a clear and concise way. Most forms of advertising have an end date. If you run a radio campaign, it has a clear start and finish (unless you've combined your radio campaign with listbuilding and other sticky features). The same is true of print campaigns, pay per click advertising and many other marketing investments.

Once you stop paying, the benefits stop.

This is not true of podcast advertising & promotion. The benefits continue until the show/recording is de-archived. Which can be anywhere from six months to several years depending on the podcast you choose to promote with.

You can be sure I'll be talking about this benefit (along with many hours) at my free online seminar on Thursday night.

Review : Offline Marketing Strategies for Online Business

I picked up a free copy of Offline Marketing Strategies for Online Business over at Copywriting Tips for your Business by Carol Bentley. One of those fill in a survey and get an ebook type deals.

The book covers the where of advertising offline quite well and may be a good choice for those considering using offline advertising to boost their online efforts. However, this particular book does not touch on maximizing the effectiveness of each medium and you will still need a good primer on any medium that you try before investing in it. There are many variables that make a good magazine layout different from a good newspaper layout that is different from the copy you need to attract an audience through radio.

The radio section was quite light and I'm not certain the news sponsorships which she liked best. are a good fit for many online businesses. Of course, I'm biased and highly averse to a one size fits all approach to any marketing medium - so to suggest a news sponsorship without understanding the goals or budget of an advertiser seems a bit presumptuous.

Overall, it was a quick read that might get you thinking of ways to invest in local and/or offline campaigns to boost your online business. It provides a wide range of options to start thinking about and can help guide you to areas of further study and possible investment.

The moving ordeal

My husband left for his new job today. It was hard saying goodbye knowing I wouldn't be seeing him for nearly two weeks. I am looking forward to spending more time with the boys. We played bowling on our Wii tonight. It was fun and I even bowled a few strikes, which seldom happens in real life. While I enjoy some of the games the boys have for the Wii, I think I'd like to get something like Big Brain Academy mostly because I've always been more geeky than sports-oriented.

In addition to play time, his being away also increases available work time. I'm hoping to use it to introduce new projects and services to my clients - both online and offline. I have some market research to get out of the way first, but I think several recent ideas have some legs to them. Only time and research will tell of course, but I'm quite confident that one or two will fly.

I'm going to keep this short tonight. I'm tired and feeling a bit melancholy at the moment. I think I'm going to attack a marketing plan to keep my mind busy and keep from missing hubby too much tonight.

Good news, bad news...

I was reading an article at Forbes.com earlier this morning about the coming internet radio ad boom. I was particularly struck by the paragraph below.

"Most broadcast mediums, and even many newspapers, are not within reach of the small advertiser due to high upfront costs for ads and the fact that advertisers are paying for a broad brush, thereby creating geographic waste. Internet radio changes the dynamic, allowing advertisers to create and deliver messages to the specific audience they want to reach, and only that audience."

This is the heart of my message here at Easy Results with Radio. I want to teach small business owners how to use traditional radio and online radio to increase the marketing impact of their message.

Of course, after my call-in to the Moms Morning Show I'm thinking my approach my be a little backwards and due for some fine-tuning and rethinking. I've already announced the free seminar for business owners to learn more about podcast advertising, but Kelly feels I might be targeting the wrong audience with the effort. Which may be true, as only time will tell!

It saddens me to think that small business owners are averse to investing in products that will increase the return on investment of their advertising. I know that I learn an incredible amount through reading and attending seminars that would take me years to learn through experience and experimentation. I don't understand the preference to waste money and time over buying something that will shorten the learning curve so that you can put your money to work wisely from the start.

Ahh the idiosyncrasies of the entrepreneurial mind!

I'm not certain I will ever figure it out...but I must admit I'm having fun trying to figure it all out so that I can find my place in the entrepreneurial universe.

Getting Ready to Say Good-bye -

Since finding out my husband got a new teaching position, everything in the household has been in a state of upheaval. He's leaving day after tomorrow and add to top everything off, my voice has been scratchy for the past couple of days. Needless to say, it has been difficult to balance spending time with hubby, getting my side work completed and taking care of essential work tasks all while trying to make sure I'm getting enough rest to recover quickly.

This is where my poor housekeeping skills really catch up with me. There's tons of laundry to do and the kitchen is a mess. My husband leaves in two days and I'm behind in my goals for the month, and it's only the sixth day. I have a to-do list a mile long for things that have to be done before next Thursday's seminar on Podcast Advertising. I am so excited to be able to present this knowledge publicly for the first time, but could I have picked a worse time?

Of course, I set the date before we even knew this job existed, let alone that he would take it and have less than a week to move. We've moved in less time, but it's never been a particularly pleasant experience.

I'm not complaining.

At least, I'm trying not to.

He's really excited about going, about getting back into teaching. I'm not sure, but I think this last couple of years helped him to appreciate the good parts of teaching. I'm really happy for him that this opportunity came along.

But...

I am going to miss him. I wish I was already portable, so that I could eliminate the need to be apart. I know it won't be a horrible experience without him, but it won't be as sweet without him here. As much as he drives me nuts at times, I wish he didn't have to go. I understand why, and why I have to support him in this, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Podcast Advertising - The first seminar

If you've come looking to register for the seminar, I had to move the form from this post because I could not for the life of me get it fitting in the blog without looking very odd! You can register by clicking here instead.


After spending the night alternating between fitful sleep and coughing fits, I wasn't in much of a condition to work today. I could barely talk this morning and in my job, there's a lot of talking involved. So after attending the morning meeting and making a few quick phone calls to attend to client issues, I headed home.

First I attended the Motivation and Mindset conference room. We talked about changing my persona to "The Podcast Princess". I kind of like it, but don't want to give the wrong impression. It's not like I think I'm royalty or anything like that -- but I am irreverent and quirky with a strange sense of humor.

In any case, after that I attended a telephone brainstorming session with the group from the Skype room, Passion Project Introduction Room and then I took a break from networking to work on a couple of projects that needed attending. I talked with Julie Wolfe and hammered out a rough outline for my appearance on April 14th. When I was done that I started thinking about how to promote my new free online seminar -

I plan to call it "Podcast Advertising: Tap the Power to Propel Your Business" and I'll be presenting it on March 13th, 2008 at 9PM EST.

I know it's short notice but I'll be presenting it more than once and I'd rather get started than wait until everything is in place. Maybe I should re-dub myself "The Impatient Podcast Princess" - at least that would be accurate!

I'll be covering:

• How and why podcasts are quickly becoming the most effective way to reach your customers
• How to eliminate your podcast learning curve by reaching your customers through existing podcasts,
• How to find your target market through podcast advertising

Anyway, I want to do this right so I'm trying to decide whether I need a new domain to promote this. I know at the very minimum I'm going to need a good sales letter and a way to register. It's a free podcast, so there's no point in getting the affiliate program set up for this. Especially considering I don't know how to do that for a free product...I suppose that's something I will have to learn.

In any case, while I try to figure out how to write a decent sales letter, I'm going to host the registration here. So if you think you might like to attend, feel free to sign up now!

Okay, that's all for now. I'll let you know when the official sales page is done.

Sunday Musings

I just posted over at Internet Based Moms about social marketing, after my recent interview of Jason Alba and reading Melody Thacker's post on "The Unwritten Rules of Social Marketing". It was as I was writing that post, that I remembered that one of my goals this week is to post to my blog on a regular basis.

There's been a recent surge in posts about blogging over the past week over at MomMasterminds. Alice and Lynette are planning a blogging bootcamp. It's a bit out of my price range at the moment since all my income (other than business expenses) is spoken for. I'm working to increase the income, but the results haven't started to flow in yet.

In any case, the recent interest in blogging has inspired me to take another stab at making a solid effort at keeping up with blogging on a regular basis.

You wouldn't think this would be a difficult thing. I certainly type enough emails and twitters and chat messages! It really shouldn't be stretch to write a short blog post at least every couple of days.

Somehow it is though.

It's not hard to come up with ideas. I get flashes of inspiration on topics I could write about all the time. And therein lies my particular problem. There are so many flashes of inspiration that I have a hard time narrowing down what I'm going to talk about in a post.

I do at least want to keep this coherent and topical -if not particularly profound. I'd like to aim for entertaining or educational, but can't make promises on that end. It's somewhat of a stretch for me to be entertaining (or so my children tell me) and the risk of being educational is that it may end up bo-oring.

I despise the thought of being boring. Quirky - that's fine. Weird - whatever, it doesn't bother me to be a little off the beaten track. Boring, though - ugh! Spare me from being boring - or bored, for that matter.

I don't do well bored.

Who does?

By now, I've lost all train of thought and forgotten what I had originally intended to write. That's a risk of writing at nearly 10pm on a Sunday night that was spent catching up on overdue work that I had intended to have completed yesterday had it not been that the main floor was a disaster area and I couldn't concentrate until it had been scrubbed clean.

In any case, the goal was to make sure I typed up a blog post tonight. It may not be exciting, but not everything in life is. At least I can go to bed knowing that I got the job done and didn't leave anything on my to-do list unfinished today.

Which is a very odd accomplishment for me, as I have been too often sidetracked by procrastination. But that's a post for another time. I'll talk about my procrastination, later!

Till Next Time...

Clarity of Vision

I overbooked myself this last week. It was quite the challenge and quite the learning experience as well. Last night, as I wrapped up my weekly review and analyzed my plans for the coming week a clear image emerged of where I'd like to focus my energies.

It was obvious that my efforts are much too scattered to produce measurable and tangible results. In other words, I've been lacking focus and haven't been taking advantage of opportunities to multi-task. Which is an odd turn of events considering I wrote and spoke about these valuable time management skills just a couple of years ago. Though not completely surprising considering I am a bit organizationally challenged at times and often neglect to take my own advice.

It's a good thing I'm a member of MomMasterminds or I believe I'd flounder around stuck in that rut for a great deal longer than I have. The mentoring, support and resources there have all worked to provide inspiration and guidance as I muddle along trying to refine my plans and develop S.M.A.R.T goals.

I'm constantly rediscovering and re-tooling my vision and focus for my varied interests. I'm learning that's not altogether a bad thing, though it does slow down my progress at times.

So what does this mean in the greater scheme of things?

Essentially that I'll be able to start streamlining the services available through Easy Results with Radio, meaning that you'll be able to find a wider range of audio marketing resources at more regular intervals than I've been offering thus far. It means that things will be much more coherent and easier to apply over the coming months.

I'm excited and can't wait to get started with the new plan in hand. Considering it's a plan that integrates traditional radio and podcast advertising with a view to meeting the needs of small business, I'm sure it's going to be valuable to many. So, to steal a line from Disney..."Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Off to work I go"