There’s an old saying in marketing that goes…You’re not selling a drill, you’re selling holes! (more…)

Let’s get hypothetical for a moment, shall we?

Meet Dancer A–Let’s call her Miz Diva. She’s all about the money, isn’t she? Her web site is just over the top, full of exaggerated claims about her classes (become a pro in 3 easy lessons!) and her experience–”I’ve been teaching for 47 years” (oh really, so why does your photo look like you’re in your 20’s–either the photo is reaaally old, or you haven’t been teaching that long.) Miz Diva doesn’t like competing with other teachers or other styles. She posts flyers all over town, even in places that make no sense. She is constantly name dropping all the famous dancers she knows. Her bio lists every show she’s performed in since 1967 (okay, maybe she has been teaching that long. Time for a new photo, sweetie!) She undercuts other performers in the area and basically treats people like dirt.

No one wants to be like that. In an effort to NOT appear Diva-esque, many dancers subconsciously opt for the opposite extreme.

Dancer B–Let’s call her Miss Shrinking Violet. She doesn’t advertise her classes, even though she’s an excellent teacher. She is afraid to tell people what she does because she thinks people will get the wrong idea. When she’s asked for a bio at a workshop performance, she downplays all her accomplishments. She has no website because people might see it and (gasp) actually contact her. Then what would she do? There are no deep-seated self esteem or confidence issues, really. She is a beautiful dancer, and she knows it. But she’s been brought up to be modest. Don’t brag. Don’t call attention to yourself. (I think most of us can relate to that.)

Okay, these are both exaggerations, but do they sound at all familiar? And how’s this for unfair? Miz Diva uses obnoxious tactics. She reminds everyone of a stereotypical used car salesman–but her classes are full and her side businesses thrive. Not because they are better than Miss Violet’s…but because no one knows there’s anything else out there.

Imagine for a moment you’ve never had a belly dance class in your life, but you are curious and would like to take a beginner’s lesson. Who are you going to go to? Miz Diva, of course, because her flyers are everywhere. You don’t know any better. Wouldn’t you be happier if you had a choice of several classes to try out? Maybe Miss Violet’s class would be a better fit for you. Maybe her studio is on your side of town, and she offers a lunchtime class.

By not advertising your business, by not marketing, you’re depriving people of choice.

If you’re a vendor and you don’t have a web site, you’re depriving someone halfway across the country from getting that perfect costume they’ve been searching for.

If you’re a performer and you don’t market yourself, you’re depriving a restaurant owner of the opportunity to hire you and bring in more business for himself.

So, what if there were another way? What if there were some middle ground in marketing?

Meet Dancer C–Miss Dependable, Miss Excellence in Dance, Miss Confident in Her Own Abilities. She posts flyers in appropriate places. She has business cards available at her restaurant gigs. She has a web site with links to her eBay store. She runs a special Tribe page for dancers in her local area. In other words, she markets herself–but she does so with dignity. Unlike the pushy Miz Diva, she advertises in appropriate places (where her target market is likely to be.) She isn’t obnoxious. She doesn’t exaggerate her claims. She doesn’t badmouth other dancers or prevent her students from taking classes away from her school. She is well-loved in the community and around the region.

In order to be successful in this (or any) business, you have to get over the idea that marketing and sales are sleazy or underhanded or undesirable. If you have a good product or service, you are doing the public harm by not getting the word out. You’re also doing the industry harm, because we all become better in the face of competition.

Most people know they need to market. They know it’s important. They even know it can be done without the hype and bluster. But they put it off.

It’s a mindset issue that every business owner has to overcome if she’s going to succeed.

So how about you? Do you struggle with marketing because it’s uncomfortable in some way? Or have you figured out how to get over it? Leave a comment and share with the rest of us!

Our second podcast is up! This time we’re talking with Sarah Skinner about her photography, dancing, blogs and how she markets her business.

Enjoy!

 

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Links mentioned in this podcast:

ShakeMyDay.com

VenusUprising.com

TheHipCircle.com

BellyDancePosters.com

Free Blog Software:

WordPress

LiveJournal

Blogger

I was talking with a friend the other day about dancing as an art form and the words “marketing” and “business” came up. She shook her head a little and told me whenever she hears those terms, things go fuzzy and she just tunes out. This was the second time in a month I’ve heard similar sentiments. The other person said “when I hear the word business, I hear my accountant droning on in my ear.”

So, what is it about these guys…they’re just words, after all. What do they represent to us that makes us not want to pay attention? This is going to sound a tad sexist, but I think some women find those words intimidating. Men love to talk about business strategies and marketing metrics. Even if they have no clue what they’re talking about, they can go on and on and on. Women would rather talk about anything else. (I realize I’m making a rash generalization here…I, for one, love talking about growing businesses. It’s why you’re reading this blog.)

Let’s tackle the word Marketing for now. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Years ago, way before the Internet or even cell-phones, marketing was something done with a warlike mentality. You hired a big expensive advertising agency where guys in thousand-dollar suits would convene in a “war room” and build “strategies” for your “campaign.” (Seriously, doesn’t that sound like someone about to take over a small innocent country?) The goal was to build an unforgettable Brand, establish a platform, and saturate the media with images. All this in hopes that with repeated exposure your name and image would be “Branded” on the public’s subconscious. So, when they felt like getting a cool refreshing drink…the image that immediately comes to mind is Coke.

It worked really well in the days of three TV stations and captive audiences. It was called “interrupt marketing,” and it was really really expensive.

That was then and this is now.

Brand advertising via media saturation is dying a slow, tortured death for all but the largest companies. It’s not going out quietly…it’s kicking and screaming all the way. But people are just sick to death of interrupt marketing.

We hate commercials, and now that we have Tivo, we don’t have to watch.

We hate obnoxious radio jingles, and now that we have ipods, we don’t have to listen.

We hate pop-ups–so we have pop-up blockers.Technology is constantly trying to figure out the next way to get around advertising. And old-school marketers are constantly fighting for new ways to get in front of the public eye (like mobile marketing–ads on your cell phone).

The death of interrupt marketing is fabulous news for your belly dance business! Here’s why…

The new meaning of the word marketing is Relevant information delivered to an interested audience.

You can call it “social marketing” or “relationship marketing” or whatever you want, but it’s all about building communities of like-minded people and talking about what interests them (including your products.) How easy is that? Belly dancers have been doing this forever. It’s what we do. All the time. In our sleep.

Do you have a newsletter? That’s marketing.

Do you have a group on Tribe? That’s marketing.

Do you talk to your students about what’s happening in their everyday lives? That’s marketing, too.

When you build a community around your product (which most of the time is YOU), word of mouth just happens. And thanks to the Internet, you can build a community with members all around the world! There’s no limit to who will be interested in what you have to offer.

When someone asks a friend where she got that gorgeous hip scarf, she’s going to say “I got it from this awesome vendor. I met the owner at a seminar, and she was so nice. She let me try on every scarf they had! They have a web site you can order from, here’s the address. Oh, and make sure you sign up for their newsletter–I got the best recipe from last month’s issue.”

You can’t buy that kind of advertising!

You have to build it…one customer at a time.

Just by being a nice person. Just by making friends.

Tribal Marketing. How cool is that?

Our first podcast is an interview with Aonochi. She’s a dancer, a teacher and has taken her passion for photography, makeup and costuming and created several sideline businesses which complement each other perfectly. Learn how you can create a business by combining several different income streams and get some great time and “stash” management tips.

Check it out!

 

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LINKS:

Where to find Aonochi:

http://myspace.com/designsbyAO

http://tribes.tribe.net/yaao

Other resources:

Eye Kandy

I Touch Roses

Etsy

These are the answers I’ve received the most so far on the marketing survey. (If you haven’t taken it yet, you can still join in. It only takes a minute or two.Just click the tab at the top of the page. The one that says “what do you want to know”)

“I kinda market my business online”

“I sorta stay in touch with my list”

“Huh? What’s a list? And why do I need it?”

You all have lots of great questions! I’ve got them all in a little notebook, and I’ll get to them all in my posts here–eventually.

But as a business owner myself, I know how important each tiny nugget of information can be to an individual. I want to help you grow your businesses as fast as possible, especially now during this tight economy. So, I’ve come up with a way to get a lot of information out to all of you–Fast!

I’m going to hold a free Q&A teleseminar sometime in the next few weeks. If you’ve never done one of these, I’ll explain. A teleseminar is just a big conference call. I’ll talk for a bit answering the most common questions on the survey, and then I’ll open it up to you. This is your chance to ask any burning questions about getting new students, keeping people interested, selling online, booking gigs, whatever’s on your mind.

I don’t have a date nailed down yet (because I decided to do this literally about 15 minutes ago) and I don’t want to publish the nitty-gritty details on this public forum. So, I’ll be sending the date, time, and phone number by email. If you’d like to get the details just email me. Or you can go to the top of this page, look over on the left (where it says “Free Report: 67+ Ways to…”) Add your first name and email address in the form provided. That will subscribe you to my newsletter. Don’t worry, I never give away email addresses (I SO hate spam!) and you can always unsubscribe later. If you’re already subscribed, we’re connected. You don’t need to do it again.

I hope you’ll consider joining me on this call. Even if you don’t want to speak up, you’ll get a ton of free information to apply to your business right away. You’ll get fast answers to your questions without having to wait for me to get around to posting about them. The company I use for the call will limit the number of open lines, though, so please let me know if you’re interested as soon as possible.

I thought it was time for a post for vendors. (And a bigger font!)

We love you vendors~ we really do. You spend all that time and energy schlepping sparklies to and from workshops. You place special overseas orders for us when we just GOTTA have a new troupe costume next month. You know all our favorite music and can recommend CDs we’ll love. And you take photos for us, put up websites, and let us use PayPal to get our monthly hip scarf fix.

I learned belly dance in the 1980s. Workshops were few and far between. There were a few vendors, but the selection was limited. And, of course, the Internet was unheard of! (I can still remember the first belly dance CD I saw at a vendor’s booth in NC…I thought who in the world would want that? We all use cassette tapes.) Ah, how the world has changed.

If you’re a full-time, or even part-time, vendor of belly dance goods, chances are you are doing it more for the enjoyment of the art than because you make boatloads of money from it. Let’s face it, as much as we drool over those $800 beaded beauties on the table, most of us just can’t afford to blow that kind of cash on a costume. So, we try it on, ooh and ahhh, but ultimately settle for a $20 veil.

So, how can vendors make more money? Well, one way is to expand into non-belly dance markets. In other words, sell to another crowd. Find another niche. Take a long look at your merchandise and think “who else could I see wearing this?”

SharifWear has done this with ballroom dancers. They have wonderful stretchy tops and bottoms that a wide variety of dancers can appreciate. The tags at the bottom of the website say things like “street wear” and “club wear”, “salsa wear” and “tango dress.” They have photos of tribal hip belts worn with blue jeans. They aren’t targeting just belly dancers. We know who Nourhan Sharif is, but most of her market does not. And it doesn’t matter.

I’ve also noticed traditional dancewear companies like Discount Dance Supply which used to sell tights, leotards and pointe shoes are increasingly crossing the dance genre line with their belly dance inspired clothing. Yoga, gymnastics, ballet, belly dance, ballroom–the lines get blurrier every day. Even hip hop has drawn from our influences…and you can take advantage of that!

Try this. Make a list of all the different dance genres you can think of: ballet, jazz, modern, lyrical, liturgical, hip hop, salsa, competition ballroom, Latin, Tango, contra…the list goes on.

Now, add on other performance styles and places people wear costumes (just brainstorm, don’t get caught up in the topic): live theater, high school theater, high school bands, street dancers, music videos, Vegas-style promotional performances, casinos, historical recreation groups (like the SCA), figure skating (did you know there’s a huge synchronized skating and skate theater movement right now?), fashion shoots, cheerleaders, fan conventions (comic book, Anime, Sci-fi, etc.)…keep going.

Finally, brainstorm a list of non-performers who might think these things are cool: high school girls (for everyday wear? for prom?), college girls, transvestites(don’t laugh…they buy sparklies, too! and spend lots of money doing it), brides to be, moms to be, women’s groups, certain religious groups…don’t stop here.

So now you have a huge list of potential markets for your products (and I’m mostly talking about things you wear right now, and veils–but you can brainstorm about props and music and DVDs too). Go back and look at what you sell. Is it mostly sparkly cabaret stuff? Or do you mainly have a tribal style? A mix?

Keeping your merchandise in mind, go back over your list and circle the three groups who are most likely to buy your stuff. Then rate them 1, 2, 3…

You’ve just expanded your market! Now all you have to do is reach them. But that’s a post for another time.