• John Chow
• Shoemoney
• Yahoo!

Anyways, the boys at Unique Blog Designs are celebrating their 1 year anniversary with a great contest - check out the details below.

Enter the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest

In celebration of our one-year birthday, we will be running a contest for the remainder of August (until Sunday, August 31st). The contest is open to everyone on Earth! If you are not from Earth, you are responsible for the cost of shipping. So, what are the prizes?

Grand Prize - Brand New 8GB iPod Touch ($299 value) and One (1) Copy of our New UBD Citrus WordPress Theme (coming next week).

Three (3) runner-up prizes include copies of our new UBD Citrus WordPress Theme.

How do I enter?

Entering the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest is super simple!

• For one (1) contest entry - just reply to this post with a comment. Only one comment per person will be counted.
• For five (5) contest entries - write a blog post about the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest and link back to this post. If your blog post does not appear under the “Pingbacks,” leave a comment with a URL to the post.

The winner will be randomly chosen Monday, September 1st, 2008. We will draw the winner via streaming video from the UBD office.

Official Contest Rules

• The contest runs from 12:00AM PST Friday, August 22nd, 2008 to 11:59PM Sunday, August 31, 2008.
• Winners will be chosen Monday, September 1, 2008 through a random drawing.
• Only one (1) comment entry per person and one (1) blog entry per person. The total number of entries any person can receive is six (6) entries.
• Prizes include (1) grand prize of an Apple iPod Touch 8GB ($299 value) and three (3) copies of our new UBD Citrus WordPress Theme ($99 value) - coming next week.
• Contest is open to everyone world-wide.

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Who Created the Theme for Your Blog? - The Entrenewbie

I also feel that we accomplished more then just playing a good show by the amount of people we networked with.  Like any small business, when we do business, I like to count relationships.  I feel that we built a good number of relationships that night….. relationships with new fans (we added some names to our mailing list), relationships with a new club, relationships with some new bands.

In business we generally refer to relationship building as “networking”.  If the connection is made on-line then we call it “social networking”.  However you want to refer to it; building new relationships opens doors for future opportunities.

The New Fans - This one is obvious, if they signed up for our mailing list then they have given their consent for us to market to them in the future (marketing by consent is one of the most affective forms of marketing).

The Club -  The club was happy with our turnout so they gave us the invite to come back… this gives us one more place to play our music (conduct our business).  If we play there more then we can even build personal relationships with the people in the club and not the club as a whole…. this approach gives us even more leverage for “word of mouth” marketing and can help build our network.

The Bands - We played with two bands that we had never played with before.  This helps us because when they have a future show they need to book, they are more apt to return the favor and give us a call.  If the bands dig our music then they might even transition into the “Fans” section.

On-line we also build our network through “virtual relationships” - we write out blog, we twitter out tweets, we make the most of MySpace, and we reach out through facebook.

I feel that the social networking aspect only turns affective once the relationships has transitioned to “off-line” in our situation, but it is still good to have our network there….. and we don’t abuse that network, we only market when we have something that we think they would be interested in, and we try to activiley be social with them otherwise.

Build and treat your network with respect, and much like the verizon commercials… they will make sure you are covered.

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A Lesson In Marketing From a Rock Band - Part IV - The Entrenewbie

So I’ve used this opportunity to take a short break from writing, SEO, marketing, reading. It’s been a good break, but I can’t wait to start writing again next week!

So…. Check back then!

Until that time - thanks for reading entrenewbies!

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Why I haven’t posted this week - The Entrenewbie

What did we learn this week:

• How to “rock-it-out” with a newsletter
• Why I will probably pay more money to get my car fixed at a dealership
• How to Become An Expert On a Topic

Good articles I’ve been reading this week - continued from last week (I’ve got a lot of reading to do):

• SEObook.com - SEObook PDF ebook
• Coppyblogger.com - How to Become an SEO Ninja
• Problogger.com - How To Get to the Front Page of Digg

Thanks for reading - Have a great weekend entrenewbies!

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Easy Friday - What We Learned This Week 8.11.08 - 8.15.08 - The Entrenewbie

That is ok though… that’s not what this blog is about.  What if I’ve identified a niche that I think would be fun to explore, but I know nothing about it?  How do I become the expert on that topic?

For instance - I am very interested in dog obedience training, however …. I am far from being an expert.  Ask my dog, she will tell you.

So what if I wanted to create a website about dog training?  First it’s going to be hard to be the expert on dog training because there are plenty of trainers out there that have been doing this much longer then I have.  So maybe I would try to narrow this down a little bit more, but still make it relevant.  Maybe I would do something like “Puppy Training” or “Older Dog Training” or “Training for Dogs That Dress As Pumpkins”.  You get my point… I have to narrow this down a bit more to level the playing field.

In my interview with Jaden Hair, she stressed the importance of finding your niche and owning it.  If you want to own a niche you have to make sure that there aren’t too many players in that field already.

OK, so I’ve narrowed this down - what next?

The best answer to this is - research it…. research the shit out of it… and then question the research you just did.  Don’t settle for what one or two people say is the right answer - look to see what the generally agreed upon answer from many sources are and then find out why that’s the answer.

So you’ve finished the your research ….. now it’s time to put that research to use.  Create a website - a blog is favored because of it’s great built-in SEO abilities and two way street for communication (If you want to be an expert you have to be willing to establish a dialogue with your readers).

Don’t worry so much about advertising or affliate offers for your website just yet, gain your readers first - FOCUS ON BUILDING GREAT CONTENT ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE AT THIS POINT.

Once you’ve built several pages of content, then start using social networking sites to bring in more readers… DO NOT forget to continue to research your topic.  For my example, if there is something new about do training that applies to my niche - I want to know about it!

I could go to seminars, take my dog to group lessons, talk to experienced dog trainers.

Want some local publicity?  Contact your local newspaper and give them the scoop on the latest thing in your niche…. start with a small newspaper and then go to bigger newspapers.  In my example, I could even volunteer to help train dogs at a local shelter (Don’t do this just because it’s good for business… do something like this because you care about the cause).

After all this hard work you still have to keep researching and making yourself better…. after all you want to be the expert in your niche right?

What tips do you have for being an expert in your field?

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How to Become An Expert On a Topic - The Entrenewbie

We keep our fans up-to-date on what we are doing  (even if it’s not playing out somewhere) with our newsletter.  We only send out the letter about once every two weeks and we will also send out show reminders when we are getting close to playing a gig.

The newsletter is used to remind people that we still exist and it’s also a nice little nudge to go back to our website and check out our latest content.

One of the toughest obstacles of the newsletter is getting people to sign up.  Since we aren’t spamming people, we have to be a little creative to get them to freely opt-in to our mailing list.  Below are some of the tactics we use to obtain these oh-so-coveted addresses.

1. Take it offline

We don’t just use our website to get people to opt-in to the list.  We also bring a sign-up sheet to our shows and keep it back at the merch table.  This way when someone says “hey man/dude/fellas that sounded awesome, when are you guys playing again?” we can tell them to give us their name and email address and we will send them an update letting them know when and where they can catch us next.

2. Give ‘em Free Shit

Ok, so this one costs us a little bit of money …. but not much more per-person then we make off of them at the door (not to mention potential further sales of cd’s and merch.).  With every sign-up to our mailing list, we give everyone access to a free mp3.  If you sign-up at a show we give you an interactive cd rom that you can listen to in your car or put in your PC for even more cool stuff (wallpapers, videos, etc.).

3. Just Ask Them To Do It

In our videos and during shows we ask people to sign-up for our mailing list.  This doesn’t attract people as much as the “Free Shit” give away, but it does work.

Keep your customers up to date with what you are doing by applying these same principals…. whatever you do, don’t use your list for evil.  Don’t Spam them, don’t continuously try to sell to them, just keep them informed.

Check back next week for Part IV of “A Lesson in Marketing from a Rock Band”

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A Lesson in Marketing from a Rock Band - Part III - The Entrenewbie

Last week I had a thermostat go out on my car and had it towed to the dealership.  The fix was right under $300 (this also included a coolant flush).  The service adviser called me and recommended a timing built replacement, a transmission fluid change, and a power steering fluid change.

With the cost of a new timing built coming in at a hefty price of about $480 I had to decline the service.  When I first started working in the real world I was an automotive service technician for a local Honda dealership so, if I feel like it, I can usually do most of the work myself (normally I’m to busy though).

Then a twist to the plot…. the service adviser said “OK…. I’ll send your car back for a wash, it should be ready in about an hour or so.”

That’s it, no guilt, no disappointment….. even though he didn’t make the sale, he still had my car washed for me…..  Even though I know a dealership can be more expensive for service, I would prefer to go there for a couple of reasons.

1.  Big Company = Big Reputation

If they mess up I can bitch and whine until I’m satisfied because people will be more interested to listen to complaints about a big company then a little company.

2.  Factory standards and training

This really isn’t some BS sales line…. it’s true.  Factory training on a specific car can make a tech. that much better… I went through it and I felt like I gained more knowledge from the factory training then I did from my general automotive training…. Plus the trip to the training center in Ft. Lauderdale was pretty sweet too.

Anyways…. this all goes back to understanding good customer service.  Just because you didn’t make the big sale that you wanted to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go the extra mile to make your customer happy.

Because of this service advisers extra efforts, I will more then likely save money and spend more then I normally would to have my timing belt replaced at the dealership…. WHY? Because I don’t like hassle… I hate dealing with crap from companies and since this company has so-far proved that they have good customer service, I’m willing to spend the extra money for future services.

Can you honestly say that your business goes the extra mile for customers that don’t make big purchases?  Do you think that they might be willing to spend more money with you if you do go the extra mile?

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Going the Extra Mile to Keep a Customer - The Entrenewbie

What did we learn this week:

• How my band uses video to keep interest when we are not playing live shows
• How being genuine and authenticate made Jaden Hair a successful blogger
• How to determine what keywords work best for SEO

Good articles I’ve been reading this week:

• SEObook.com - SEObook PDF ebook
• Coppyblogger.com - How to Become an SEO Ninja
• Problogger.com - How To Get to the Front Page of Digg

Thanks for reading - Have a great weekend entrenewbies!

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Easy Friday - what we learned this week 8.4.08 - 8.8.08 - The Entrenewbie

The best way to pick your words from the very start is to come up with a list of words you think people might search for your site using.  Once you have your list, ask some friends or relatives what they might search on to find your site. Since they may not be familiar with your type of business this will give you a better idea of what the uninformed consumer may be looking for.

Okay, now you have your list of words and a list of keywords from your friends and relatives.  To determine if these keywords will give you the best bang for your SEO buck, use a tool such at the Google Adwords keyword tool.

This tool can be found here:

adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

The Google adwords tool will give you suggestions on other keywords you can use to create key word phrases (which is good because most people search for phrases rather than a single word).

The Google Adwords tool will also help you identify the proper keywords for SEO by telling you how relevant their suggestions are to the words you provided and the popularity for search on these keywords.  It will also give you an idea of what your competition is like for these words by looking at the “advertiser competition” column.  Remember, the more competition for a keyword the harder it will be for a new site with a lower Google Page Rank to show up in the top search results.

What keyword picking methods or tools do you use?  Please share in the comments below.

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Picking The Right Keywords For SEO - The Entrenewbie

In last weeks post I talked about how my band uses our blog to keep a dialog between us and our fans.  This week I wanted to talk about another method that we use to keep interest in us, even when we aren’t playing …. Video.

When we shoot video we don’t do it to sell anything or even to promote our shows.  Occasionally we will mention our website or give a brief mention of where we will be playing, but we won’t base the video on it.  Currently all of the videos that are posted on the website are only of Tim, our Piano player.  But this is ok….  We don’t need to have all band members present to make a quick funny video that reminds people that we still exist.

More and more, online sales letters are being accompanied with video…. Why?

Because people don’t have time to read a length sales letter - WE HAVE SHORT ATTENTION SPANS!

We post our videos on YouTube because this just created another door to our website…. and we have also saved our bandwidth by letting someone else host the video - this is no secret - many people let YouTube host their videos for them.

Anyways, my point is…. make some videos, make them funny, and people will come back for more…. Even if they hate our music - they still may love our videos…. it’s just another way for us to gain a new fan.

How many of you use video in your blog or sales letter?  Does it increase your readership/sales?

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A Lesson In Marketing From A Rock Band - Part II - The Entrenewbie