Wednesday, March 31, 2010

OMM #2 - Do Less More Often - The Actors Business Blueprint



If you're like me, an actress or an actor in Hollywood or elsewhere, you are constantly trying to figure out how best to market yourself. I had the opportunity recently to attend a Dallas Travers workshop, which was all about How to Do Less More Often when marketing ourselves to the masses.

Dallas is a very well known consultant here in L.A. and beyond actually, who very effectively (the best methods I've heard of so far here in L.A.) provides actors with a very well thought out system that is sustainable, highly successful and powerful.

Here is a blurb from her teachings:

"Whether you're an emerging actor looking for a solid career plan or you've been acting for years and need a new strategy, I want to share what I feel is the most important principle you can apply to achieve acting success. This simple rule will help you discover how to increase your auditions, build stronger relationships, and manage your time effectively. Finally you'll have a measurable and manageable plan to take your career to the next level."

Does that make sense? We have to be more than just a headshot to them. We have to come at these people with a unique spin....one that they don't see very often. That's what I love about Dallas' methods. Even though a postcard, or a newsletter doesn't seem very unique, the way that Dallas presents them, provides us with creative and unique ways to present an old tool in a new way.

She wrote a great book called The Tao of Show Business - How to Pursue Your Dream Without Losing Your Mind, which I highly recommend you check out. Her book was one of five books honored with the 2009 National Indie Excellence Award. The Tao also won first prize in the How To Category at the London, Hollywood, Nashville and New England Book Festivals. She's good, really good.


It dawned on me as I was sitting in her workshop that day, that I have been spinning my wheels, worrying about marketing, *trying* to be consistent, and sadly NOT being consistent....rather than creating a system, or in this case, using a tried and true system, that takes the worry away, and allows me to consistently stay in touch with those that I want to make an impact on: Casting Directors, Agents, Producers, Directors and Fans.

Her system involves spending 30-90 minutes per day, 5 days a week focusing on a *short list* of favorites in each category that I've listed above. The secret then is to only focus on these short lists, sending them a marketing *ship* every month, and getting in front of them numerous times, through workshops, telephone calls, short one on one meetings, and so on. By the way, a ship is just a marketing tool - a postcard, a Castability Sheet, a newsletter, a press release....well you get the picture. I'm really only scratching the surface of her system - but I just wanted to share it, and let you know that I've already started the process, and I feel better about my marketing already - it feels manageable now!

Her motto, which is also the motto of people in sales - The Rule of 7 - you must get in front of your customer between 7 and 10 times before they really come to know who you are. Which is what helps us book jobs. They not only have to know who we are, but they have to know who we are.

Finally, Dallas is a great teacher, full of realistic, valuable and solid information. Check her website and her book out if you get the chance, and keep me posted on your successes with the system. I will too!

Now go market yourself! The world is waiting.......


Cheers until next time,

Victoria

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

OMM #1 (On My Mind) Subject: You've Got Mail.



First a little about me: My name is Victoria Drake and I live in Los Angeles, CA. I am an actress, a social media/internet geek, an adventure girl, and a researcher. I am working my way through the acting world here in LA as well as working to create a social media center throughout my websites and blogs, that encourage discussion, consideration, input, networking, learning and growing as individuals and as artists.

As I said I'm a researcher and in the process, I attend a lot of workshops, classes, teleconferences, webinars, you name it. And because of that I learn about things that I want to share with others who may be winding through the maze like me. This is my first blog in this series - OMM #1, so welcome! Thanks so much for coming aboard. I hope you stay awhile because I have lots to share!
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As I sat here looking at this beautiful photo and having thoughts of traveling to Santorini Greece, I started thinking about email marketing systems. What? You don't believe me? Well... you'd be right actually. I just thought it was amazing, the photo that is.

But seriously, thinking about traveling great distances, made me realize how important email marketing (systems) are as a marketing tool for us and how it allows us to travel further and faster in our careers as actors, and as other self employed, business owner types of people, as well as anyone else out there who's ever needed to manage an email list. So they, email marketing systems, become the topic of my first OMM blog.

Why email marketing systems? Think for a minute about all of your email contacts and then categorize them in your head. For my actor friends, here's an example: Casting Director addresses from workshops, bookings, networking event contacts, agent possibilities, producers, directors, photographers, Facebook Fans, family, friends, well, you get the idea. Do you manage that list pretty well? Does your current email system track the emails for you and provide reports to let you know who reads your mail, and who doesn't, or who clicked on your links and when, who forwards them to others? The list goes on. Does it allow you to consistently and automatically send out follow up emails? If not, then you (and I) need an affordable and effective email service.

If you have any type of email list that you need to manage, Contact Contact is definitely a service to take a look at. Their website is http://www.contstantcontact.com. Constant Contact is one of about 3 or 4 companies that provide very affordable email marketing services such as this. Their prices start as low as $20/month. I'm just in the trial period of the product right now - they offer a complimentary 60-day trial, which is great! It's also why I attended their free seminar the other day in LA I'm still researching the others, (MailChimp being the other highly rated) and will post on a future OMM blog. The mantra I'm starting to take (thanks to Dallas Travers, AMAZING Marketing for Actors Consultant - http://dallastravers.com) is Do Less More Often. I'm working on ways to streamline the marketing I do for myself as an actor and as a self-employed person. An email marketing service is one way to begin that process.

So far, I really like the customer service and knowledge of the people who work at Constant Contact. They have customer support available from 6am to 6pm PDT Monday through Friday. They also have training webinars, and online training that can be taken advantage of as well. See if you like it and let me know! I'd love to hear your input on it. I will provide my comments as well as I check out this product and compare it to others.

I hope this article was helpful. Stay tuned for my next article in the series – OMM #2 – Marketing strategies for actors (taught to me by Dallas Travers). This, my acting friends, you’re gonna love! She opens up a whole new world of marketing ideas for us actors and I can’t wait to share them with you. Talk soon!

Ciao for now!

Victoria
http://victoriasworldonline.com
http://youtube.com/victoriadrake

Thursday, March 11, 2010

My new blog space




Wow, So I'm trying out Blogger.com now. Pretty cool in most respects. I got it up and running fairly quickly. But I notice there aren't too many templates to choose from, that is a bit disappointing. But overall, it was extremely easy to add Google Adsense, and a few other assorted Widgets to get my blog set up.

So here we go.

If you're like me, you're a researcher. A finder of information, trying to absorb, and grasp all there is to know about a particular subject. The particular subject here is understanding how to create a business *online*. And because I'm interested in several things, I am working to create a few businesses both online and offline, if that makes any sense.

My top priorities are my acting career - http://victoriasworldonline, http://youtube.com/victoriadrake, my Alkaline water business - http://ionways.com/drinkitup and my social media, internet marketing business, that I don't even have a website for yet.

I come from the Corporate world - and after many years, I was laid off last year. Like a lot of other people, I'm now figuring out my new career. I refuse to go back to Corporate life. I am so done with that. However, when Acting isn't paying me an income, I need to have a sustaining income that can provide me flexible, entertaining, creative, technical and enjoyable work in the mean time.

So I've moved into the Social Media, Internet Marketing world. Not an easy thing. I must provide valuable and ongoing quality content to keep people interested. I need to create videos, and ebooks and articles and blogs and and and and.....the list goes on.

My big question then becomes - so what can I offer to people that they can't get anywhere else? I'm still working on the answer to this question. It is intimidating and overwhelming if I think I need to provide THE ANSWERS for everything. I don't. Instead I think I can create my niche by providing people with tips, links, resources, mentors, ebook recommendations on everything from How to be a great Actor without Acting, to Google AdSense insider tips by Joel Comm. I can provide entertaining videos that talk about anything or everything from trying to figure out men, to how to market yourself as an actor. Who knows. And I realized while writing this that I really don't have to have the answers to everything right now. I just have to start. Let's just see how it goes.