Part Time Photography

Yesterday I said I would show you how to use your hospital contacts
to generate publicity. Here’s one way…

One thing that hospitals ALWAYS need is money. It’s a given fact of
life. And, they are very open to hosting charity events.

Yesterday, I showed you a way to raise a few bucks for the local
children’s hospital by doing a photo shoot of kids in their Halloween costume -  for a dollar or two – and donating the ENTIRE AMOUNT to the local Children’s hospital.

So far, so good. You’ve hopefully written a press release to
announce the fact that you are doing this and it’s for a charity.

News media love this sort of thing, and if you write the release
correctly, you will have no problem getting it published.

You could potentially get quite a few new clients that way – and
since you are doing it for charity and for children your new
customers will be VERY disposed to liking you and your company.

After it is done, make a point of writing a check to the hospital
for the entire amount and physically take the check to the hospital.

Just walk up to the receptionist and ask to speak to the person in
charge of accepting charitable donations. Explain that you did some
charity work on their behalf, and want to give them a check.

Think they will see you? YOU BET THEY WILL!

Now here is the bad news…your check is likely to be for under $100. Maybe a lot less. It’s not going to move any mountains or cure any diseases, but
the whole point to this is to get an audience with and meet  the right person.

Once you are in front of them, give them the check and say that you
know it isn’t for very much, but you have an idea that could generate
thousands of dollars.

Here’s the idea…have the hospital sponsor and host a charity
auction. You offer to do most of the leg work in getting sponsors and donations to the event, plus you’ll do individual photos of all the winners of bids and will do general event photos.

Later, you will send all the bid winning photos to the press – for the society pages – and on the event photos, you’ll put them into a little album and give them to the hospital.

This COULD become a yearly event.

When you give the photos to the press,  nicely request a byline on all published shots. It isn’t vital, but the extra exposure is nice.

Ok, we’re pitching an auction…but what are they going to be auctioning off?

Celebrity goodies!

There is a website called: http://www.ContactAnyCelebrity.com where
they have the contact information of virtually every celebrity you
can think of – and quite a few you wouldn’t think of too!

They give you the contact information for their managers, agents,
lawyers and so on. They also tell you what charities the celebrity
is passionate about and lends support to. And all this stuff is cross referenced.

Many celebrities will donate items to be sold or auctioned off to
raise money for charities…anything from autographed photos to
scripts and so forth.

Basically, all you have to do is write a letter – explain what you are doing – and request donations. Send your letter  to a bunch of them – hundreds – and wait for the goodies to come rolling in.

They will, it’s good PR for the celebrity too!

Here’s a tip that will virtually guarantee that you get good stuff
to auction off…have the auction not only be for charity, but
have it be themed!

You’ll not only get the general list of celebrities to respond, but
the ones that actually fit into the theme are a shoe in. They will
not only respond, but will send the best items! If they are
anywhere close to you at the time, it’s possible they could even
show up to the event.

What do I mean by themed? There are hundreds of ways you could go
with this, but here’s one…

One of the major treatments for a lot of – if not all – cancers is
chemotherapy. A huge side effect of chemo is hair loss. Many people,
particularly kids feel extremely self conscious about their new
“bald” state.

How about having a theme auction centering around “Bald is
Beautiful!”?

Imagine, do you think a bald celebrity – like Howie Mandel – could
refuse to send something to be auctioned off? (Particularly since
he is famous for being a family man and a germophobe.)

Write a letter to every bald actor on the list – there are hundreds,
if not thousands.

Contact every famous bald person in your community too! If the Mayor
is bald, do you think he could justify missing the event? It would
be political suicide. Town councilmen?

Don’t forget to contact all the bald business people and get
donations – and arrange for them to sell tickets to the event!

By now you should have 100′s of ways to promote this thing flying
around in your head.

If you can’t get AT LEAST 20 press releases out of this – and that includes
newspapers, radio AND television – you aren’t even trying.

As the primary mover behind this, you will be mentioned in all of them!

How many great media contacts do you think you’ll be making?

How hard do you think it will be to get press releases published for
your future events and newsworthy items?

How many wealthy (able to buy big wall portraits) people in the
community to you think you are going to get to know?

How many local business people do you think you’ll get to know that
will be open to “helping you out” by distributing your photo  gift
certificates?

This one event could give you more high quality business and
contacts than 20 years worth of Yellow Pages and newspaper
advertising.

Get my press release book today so you will know how to construct
one that will get published.

Then get my FreelancePromo strategy so you will know how to create
gift certificates that will generate tons of new business – (they work EVEN BETTER to get referrals and extra business  from current and past clients.)

True – all of this requires a little thought, some legwork, and
a huge leap in your level of self confidence, but it can be done.

Not only can be, but IS being done in communities all over the
world. This is a PROVEN path to fame and the fortunes that follow.

It is truly scary to set out on an adventure like this, but think of
it like a balloon.

At first a balloon is small and difficult to blow up. But put in
just a little effort, and it can be done. Then, when you let out the
air, the balloon doesn’t go back to it’s original shape. Now it’s
stretched out a bit and is actually a lot easier to blow up the
next time you try it. Then even easier the next time and the next.

Your photo career is like that. These things seem scary the first
time, but after you do it once, it gets easier and easier.

You CAN do this.

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

Ok, we’ve been doing a back to school promotion, ending with
giving our list subscribers a bunch of tips on how their kids
can get better school photos…

Did you stop to realize that most parents – even after reading our
tips – won’t bother to follow our advice?

It happens. People KNOW they should be doing something, but inertia
sets in and they just stick with the status quo.

The good news for us is that they won’t like their kids school photo
this year either (does anyone EVER like a school photo?) and they
will call YOU to get a better portrait.

Grandmas, and Grandpas have to be sent SOMETHING! They will want a
nice photo rather than the school photo.

Why will they call you? They’ll select you for 2 reasons:

1. Because you are the photographer that immediately comes to mind.
We’ve been sending them a bunch of emails, how can we NOT be the
photographer that comes to mind? For many of them, we may be the
only photographer they know about.

2. We are the “EXPERT” in kid’s portraits. Why do they think that?
Because we’ve been sending them tips on how to get better ones! When
someone is teaching you something and giving you (obviously good)
advice, they immediately attain expert status in your mind.

How many other photographers have EVER tried to help them get better
school photos? – ZERO!

Inertia can be wonderful or it can be an ugly thing. If it is
sweeping us along in a positive helpful way, it’s a good thing. If
we are just sticking with our old – bad – ways…out of habit or
fear of change, it is hurtful and ugly.

For our clients…

They KNOW that by following our advice to begin with, they could
have gotten a good (or at least better) portrait from the school
photographer. But, by not following our advice, they end up paying
more to get a good photo. Out of inertia.

Or, here’s another example of inertia hurting us…warning this is
a blatant sales pitch:

You KNOW that you need more customers for your business. And, YOU
know that properly done, press releases can send you a TON of free
- targeted – first rate traffic to your business!

But writing a release and sending it out to the media is kinda
scary. It’s something we’ve never tried, and we aren’t exactly sure
of what to do and how to do it…OMG what if they don’t print it!

It’s easier to just stick with what we’ve always been doing. Paying
for advertising.

Paying for traffic that we could be getting for free. Just like
our email subscribers paying more for a photo that they could have
gotten by following our free advice.

Hows that old saying go? “The definition of insanity is to keep
doing the same things the same way and expecting different results!”

Are you 100% happy with the results you’ve been getting? Are you
making changes? Or are you just hoping the results will be different
this time?

I’ve put together a 68 page ebook showing you exactly how to write
a press release that the media will want to publish, yet many of you
haven’t seen fit to cough up a measly $17 – to get a bunch of  really good info.

(On the other hand, many of you HAVE gotten the information and I
applaud you!)

Let’s face it, even if the information is garbage, how much could
you lose? $17? If you aren’t willing to risk even that much, that’s
OK. ALL of my products have a money back guarantee!

But just one idea, could change your life and get inertia working
FOR you! Instead of holding you back.

Enough said, back to our customers…

We’ve started to build our email list of people we can keep in
contact with over and over. This is important. Marketing studies
have shown that one of the biggest reasons people stop doing
business with a company (any company not just photography) is that
after the initial sale, they never hear from them again.

In other words, they don’t feel appreciated.

As we continue sending them emails that are really helpful, they
will gradually learn to trust us and our recommendations. This is
what web 2.0 marketing is all about, building relationships. We may
be the ONLY company out there that is actually trying to make their
lives better – not just make a sale.

When the time comes that they need photography, all your hard work
WILL be repaid.

After the back to school promo, do one on Halloween safety tips,
ending in a free photo of their kid in costume!

You probably won’t make any add-on sales from photos of kids in
costume, but you WILL get more people to know about you and you’ll
get even more people onto your email list.

Or, even better, charge a dollar or two and donate the entire
proceeds to the local children’s hospital. It has to be the ENTIRE
amount or it just comes off as a sales scam. Think you could get a
press release out of that? I do!

Think the movers and shakers at the hospital will say nice things
about you? I do.

This is getting pretty long so I’ll come back next time and show
you how to turn your hospital contacts into a HUGE amount of FREE
publicity!.

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

I’m constantly amazed at the things we as business people do to
sabotage ourselves…

We get started in our business and one of the first things we do is
place an ad in the “Yellow Pages”.

Ok, we need to get our names out there, but the Yellow Pages?
Really?

Even a tiny ad can cost hundreds of dollars – EVERY MONTH!

So, for all that money, what do we get? Listed in a section of
photographers – several pages long. Unless we get a huge half or
quarter page ad, what are the odds of our ad even being seen, much
less called.

And that’s giving the Yellow pages the benefit of the doubt and
pretending like they work!

They don’t.

It used to be that they did, but not anymore. Now, everyone goes
online. And no, they don’t go to the online Yellow Pages. They go
to Google and search for a local photographer.

Think, when was the last time YOU looked up anything in the Yellow
Pages? Can you even find your copy?

I can find mine, I keep it under the sink in my bathroom. The pages
are great for cleaning my mirrors! (The chemicals help keep them
from fogging up!)

Think of all the thousands, and even tens of thousands of
dollars the photographers in your area are wasting.

Press releases are FREE and you can not only send them to the local
newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, but you can send them
to hundreds or even thousands of online sites.

True, most of the online sites are global in nature and won’t help
in your local marketing, but that’s OK.  Here’s why… most of them
automatically post your release on their sites so that visiting
journalists can find them and use them if they want to.

The benefit to YOU, is that when all these news release sites post your
press release, they also are posting a link back to your site.

Google loves incoming links.

The more inbound links you have, the more valuable Google thinks
your site is and the higher you will be placed in the search
results!

In other words, you will get on page one of Google and when someone
is looking for a local photographer and they go to Google, YOU will
be waiting for them.

It won’t take many press releases before you will overtake all your
competition.

Not only will your site be listed, but often your releases will be posted
too! It’s possible that before long, you could be ALL TEN LISTINGS
on the first page!

Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about using press releases, but for now,
head over to:

http://www.PartTimePhotography.com/Leap.html

and learn the right way to construct and write your releases so they get
published.

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

This is by far the easiest and fastest way to get business! You could literally
get dozens or more calls literally in one day!

Yesterday I started discussing using press releases to build your
client email list. But they do a lot more than that!

They will immediately build you a good reputation in the community
and generate a lot of calls.

It’s sad but true that just the fact that you are mentioned in the
newspaper, a magazine, radio or television will pole vault you to
unimaginable status in the eyes of the readers, listeners or viewers.

Even if it’s a negative mention.

There’s an old publicity hack saying that “any publicity is good
publicity.”

I’d like to think the general public is more choosy than that, but
sadly they aren’t. As a society, we chase after and want -
desperately – to be associated with fame.

Consider Paris Hilton.

She became internationally famous – why? She didn’t do anything but
look good and go partying every night. There are literally millions
of young ladies who party just as hard and look just as good, or
better, than Paris Hilton.

She got famous because she was mentioned in the newspapers. Then
magazines, radio and TV. Each additional time she was mentioned, her fame grew.

It finally got to the point where she couldn’t stop the publicity even if she
wanted to!

Did BAD publicity hurt her? Nope…she went to jail and emerged
more famous than ever.

She has monetized her fame into several different avenues.

A multi-season TV show… Does anyone REALLY like that show? Why was
it continually renewed? Because she is famous and we are drawn
to fame  – no matter how inane the show might be.

She recorded a record album – even though everyone agrees she can’t
sing. How many truly brilliant musicians never get that chance?

She’s famous.

She’s got a designer clothing line…ok, she IS pretty fashionable,
but does that mean she is qualified to design clothing? What about
all the people who go to school years and years to learn clothing
design? They aren’t famous,  so most of them are destined for a life
of mediocrity.

I won’t even get into her clothing line for “DOGS!”

Ok, she’s hot so I’ll give her the modeling career. But, I once read
that in the U.S., statistically, a girl has a better chance of
becoming an astronaut, than a nationally recognized model.

Did her modeling career take off because she is so much better than
all the other budding models? Or was it just because she is famous.

Enough said…I really have nothing against Paris Hilton. In fact, I
have to admire the way she turned her desire to get drunk every
night into a multi-million dollar enterprise.

The point is, when you become famous – at any level – people and
money follow. FAST!

In your local area, the fastest way to get known (famous) in
your community is NOT by the brilliance of your photography. There
are tons of amazing photographers – even better than you and me -
who are NEVER able to become known outside their limited circle of
friends and family.

The fastest way to get known – and get all the benefits of being a local
celebrity – is through press releases.

They are easy to get published, and each time you get one published,
it becomes that much easier the next time. Before you know it, the
papers and other media in your community will start writing about
you even if you DIDN’T submit anything! (Like with Paris Hilton.)

To find out more and get started on YOUR road to fame check out:

http://www.PartTimePhotography.com/Leap.html

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

Here’s the best, easiest and fastest way to get massive amounts of
new subscribers to your email list – or just get them to go to your
website – or call you – or whatever you want them to do!

Use Press Releases!

A couple days ago I discussed how powerful it is to have advertising
that looks like a news story written about you…here’s how to
really HAVE a story written about you. Press releases.

Many small businesses never even try to get press coverage because
they think it is difficult to do or they have to be a big company to
make the press interested.

It couldn’t be further from the truth.

THE PRESS NEEDS YOU!

They have this huge paper to fill every day – and only a limited
number of reporters (and time) to do it with.

They need us – the local community members and business people
to send in items. There’s no way they could EVER know everything
that is happening in the community if we didn’t!

Far more stories come about as a result of a press release than
most of us will ever know.

It’s not just the XYZ Corporation announces a new product.

It’s about charities, business openings and closings, awards won,
banquets, human interest stories, helpful tips and hints and on
and on.

They need this “news” and actually WANT us to send them a release
when something is happening.

Press releases got this scary reputation because if you submit it
in the wrong way, it’s never going to be published.

The good news is, if you submit it correctly, it’s almost a shoe-in!

Find out everything you need to know to start submitting AND
PROFITING FROM press releases right here:

Press Release Info

Once you’ve got the information under your belt, come back tomorrow
and I’ll start giving you a ton of ideas for your own releases.

You could be in the papers – generating new customers – this week!

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no "typical" results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

Today is when we start to switch our email promotion from a general
back to school theme and start promoting photography.

We’ve identified our target market as parents with kids…we want to
get their business when the Christmas rush hits and to that end
we’ve started building our email following by providing helpful hints
they can use to make the “back to school” process easier.

And through our newly formed business contacts in the community, we
can even point them in the direction of special offers and savings.

(By the way…stay tuned, I just acquired the rights to an entire
book of back to school tips and hints. I haven’t even had time to go
through it yet, but if it is any good, I’ll give it to you for free
so you can have more ammo to entice your target market to sign up
for your email newsletter.

Now that we have a crowd of eager people reading our emails…let’s
start to switch them over to thinking favorably on us as
photographers.

How many times have you heard “My kids school pictures are
HORRIBLE!” (Or something to that effect?)

Now let’s start sending out emails with tips on how their kids can -
possibly for the first time – get a great school photo!

Make up a list of 10 tips they can use and start sending them out -
one each day for the next ten days. Of course you’ll give a little
explanation of why each one is valuable.

They don’t have to be anything amazing, just simple tips that work.

For example…

Wear dark clothing to look slimmer, allow at least a week between
picture day and getting a haircut, contact the optometrist to see
about borrowing  a pair eyeglass frames without lenses to avoid glare,
restrict sweets for a week or so to minimize acne eruptions, remove
any temporary tattoos (kids love to get these but they always forget
they have one on), get plenty of sleep the night before, wear
clothing that won’t easily wrinkle and fits properly…

and so on. I’m sure you could come up with 50 tips that are even
better than these if you wanted. Make up a list today, we’ll have
more than one use for it.

This is going to make you look like AN EXPERT photographer AND it
will make you look like a person who really cares about his
customers. After all, you’ve just sent them about a month’s worth of
valuable, useful information…and you haven’t even asked for
anything in return!

Your clientele isn’t stupid, they know that you expect them to do
business with you, but which is better a photographer that is
constantly shouting me, me, me? Or a photographer (you) that is
constantly shouting you,you you.

By the time we’ve gone through this whole promotion…there is no
way these parents can, in good conscience, choose another
photographer for their Christmas portrait!

But, we aren’t done yet. Soon we will start sending out helpful
hints about how to have a safe Halloween! That’s when we start to
ask them for their portrait business. But it has to be done in a
certain way that I’ll cover soon.

But first – tomorrow I’m going to show you the number one best and
most effective way to build yourself a list of hungry buyers. The
press release. No business should pass up this amazing, free way to
get hordes of customers.

It’s free. It’s easy – once you know the right way to do it. And it
is repeatable. You can issue a press release as often as you want!

If you do it right, the local news paper, radio station and even the
television station will look forward to hearing from you and will
publish your press releases almost every time. (By the way, do you
think the list of ways to get a good school photo might interest the
newspaper’s readership?)

But, that’s tomorrow…

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

Yesterday my email had a teaser headline that said:

“This is borderline illegal – here’s how to safely do it!”

I was referring to an advertising technique that is so powerful, and
can generate so much traffic and business that it was actually made
ILLEGAL to advertise that way without some pretty stringent warnings
to the people seeing the ad.

Here it is – with a bit of background:

Getting articles written about YOU in the local newspaper or a
magazine – or being featured as a story on the local radio or
television news channel.

When that happens, you are getting all the reputation of the news
outlet – assigned to YOU!

Here’s the thing, people assume that if you are being interviewed,
or had a story written about you, you must be really good at what you do, you must be an EXPERT!

What have I said in my newsletters – many – times before?

It is the EXPERT that can write their own ticket.

They will get hired simply because they are an expert, people are more likely to think well of them (even when there is evidence to the contrary) and experts are able to charge more for their services. Plus, people will pay the increased rates without giving it a second thought.

Keep in mind – your goal is to be highly paid for your work – not
run around like crazy scrambling to make enough to pay the bills.

I’m not going to grind it into the ground, it is well established
that by being interviewed (or even just mentioned) in the paper or
local news, all of these benefits come to pass.

There’s even an entire industry (Public Relations) devoted to
nothing but getting their clients mentioned in the news.

Magic things can happen to your business, literally overnight.

A news story is SO powerful and has such an ability to sway the
opinions of the readers, that advertising folks quickly latched
onto the concept and started placing (paid) ads in newspapers and
magazines that looked like a news story rather than like an ad.

It worked so well, that it caught the attention of the authorities.

They decided that the ads were misleading the public so they made
running the ads (ones that came across as regular news stories) illegal.

The only way the ad agencies could still run similar ads was if they
clearly marked the ad as an advertisement.

I’m sure you’ve seen them. It looks like a story but has the word
advertisement pasted along the top.

Ad execs panicked! They could see their cash cows drying up and
withering away! But a few brave souls tested the waters and ran the
ads with the disclaimer at the top – just to see what would happen.

Guess what…THEY STILL WORKED! True, they weren’t quite as
effective as when the disclaimer wasn’t there, but they were still
substantially better than a regular display ad!

That’s why you see so many ads, written to look like news stories.

Even with the word “advertisement” plastered across the top, they
still brought in tons of business.

So, I’ve just covered the type of advertising we want to do…being
interviewed or written about in the papers, radio, magazines and TV.

But, of course, we don’t want to have to PAY for it. Tomorrow, I’ll
show you how to get all the free advertising you need…

In the meantime, don’t let your email list wither away. Keep sending
them valuable info. A 5 minute search on Google can get you all the
back to school tips you need.

Get your email list set up at Aweber:

Then get out there and keep developing joint venture partners in the
local community. Use my Freelance Promo Strategy to further benefit from your new contacts… and tomorrow I’ll cover ways of writing a press
release that will actually get published.

If you do it right, it isn’t hard. If you do it incorrectly, you
will never in a million years get any free advertising.

Until tomorrow.

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

We are nearing the point where we are REALLY starting to get noticed by our subscribers. We’ve been helping them out – tremendously – with a lot of back to school tips and tactics.

Remember, earlier I explained how a message has to be seen 7 – 10 times by someone before they really start to pay attention?

Now we are in Day 5 of sending them back to school pointers. Soon, we are going to hit that sweet spot where people are paying attention and looking forward to our emails. That’s when we will switch from generic stuff to photography promotions.

They will be more likely to read our emails AND since we’ve been so selfless in our helpful emails…it will be well recieved.

Today, let’s start our shift from online tips, to real world financial savings!

All of the kids are going to be needing school supplies such as paper, notebooks, pens, pencils, computers and so on. They’ll also be needing clothing.

In your community, there are stores that provide all those things – right?

What’s more, most if not all those stores will be having back to school sales and special deals.

Here’s what you do, make a list of all the stores you can (FINALLY a use for the Yellow Pages!) and pay them a visit.

Start off with local – boutique, owner operated type stores. Then after you have some success, expand into the chain types.

What does EVERY business need? Traffic. A hungry crowd of buyers.

What are you building? A list of people who need and will soon HAVE TO BUY what they are selling!

Approach the store owner and offer to make a trade, you will send out an email to your list – telling them about the store and it’s special “back to school” offers. This is coming from you as a recommendation to check out the store and it’s wares.

In other words, you are advertising for the store, but it’s a bit better. Since you’ve been building the trust of your list, the recommendation is more like a referral from a friend than a regular advertisement.

Every store spends a substantial amount of their budget on advertising, so there is no reason why they shouldn’t want this. Plus as mentioned, it’s better than normal advertising and YOU ARE WILLING TO DO IT FOR FREE!

Free advertising should be a no brainer. If they balk, don’t even try to “sell” them. If they can’t immediately see the power in this, they will be out of business soon anyway. Just move on to the next one on your list.

So, here’s what YOU get – just like you are promoting them, you want them to promote YOU. Make up a nice promo piece (postcard size) and all they have to do is stick one of them in each bag when someone buys something from them.

Plus, set up a little display and place it next to the cash register so people can pick one up on their own (just in case the salesperson forgets to include one with each offer).

Even just a stack of the cards next to the register is enough. Have a bold headline that says something along the lines of :

“FREE Back to School Tips and Huge Savings!”

Put your website address on there and wait for them to start signing up.

This is a good promotion for both you and the store so don’t be afraid to present this!

The more stores you do this at, the merrier.  (Think in terms of a hundred. Not one or two.)

You will be getting a lot of sign – ups and from time to time all you need to do is send out a little promo for each of your “sponsors”. Send out several, don’t be stingy.

So there you have it,  another FREE promotion you can do to generate a LOT of new subscribers.

If you REALLY want to crank this up and put it on steroids…

After the back to school promotions have run their course,  don’t let all these new joint venture partners go to waste.

I’ve developed a system that let’s both of you keep profiting from each other and it’s generated over $10,000 per month in October, November, and December each time I did this.  I’m trying to retire so the last few years I haven’t really pursued it very hard, but with just a tiny bit of effort, I could have done better than I did.

Check it out Click Here:  “Ultimate Christmas Promo!”

Until tomorrow.

Dan

FTC Mandated Disclaimer: No Amount
of money is or ever can be guaranteed with this or any other program, e-book or
course. There are no “typical” results. You could make a lot of money, break
even or even lose money. It all depends on you, your skills, abilities and your
marketing efforts.

Reading today’s message could change your business life – forever.

But first, lets add to our stockpile of back to school tips and
tactics.

Here is a snack that parents can make their kids for after school -
or to put in their lunch boxes. I’d be willing to bet that the kids will
not only love them, they will be the hit of the entire cafeteria!

Loony lips snack:

http://www.rd.com/home-garden/loony-lips-recipe/article12687.html

It’s a simple way to make your kid’s day. AND it should only take a
couple minutes at most.

Check it out…heck I may make some for myself!

Now for today’s method of getting additional traffic to your website
and subscribers to your email list.

It’s a funny thing…I had planned to tell all of you about this
today, and like magic, one of my subscribers wrote in to tell me
about the idea and how well it was working for them!

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I’ll just include his email and my response. This flat out WORKS!

************************************************************

Hey Dan,

I have been getting requests from customers to provide
them with digital copies of images for their Facebook
pages. Here is what I have been doing…

I talk to them at the end of the portrait viewing session,
(after they have ordered all their prints) and depending
on how much they order, I make them this offer…

I provide them with 4 or 5 re-sized pics that are small
enough, that I don’t need to worry about them making anything
but wallets and maybe 4×6 prints. But, since they already
placed their order, I feel I’m pretty safe. And what I do is
I tell them I will provide the portraits to them at no charge,
BUT, I must be allowed to place a “tag” at the bottom of
the picture with my logo and email address.

This way all of their friends see their portraits AND see
who did it! Its like I am having them endorse me to their
friends! I’ve gotten a few referrals this way.

Michael Valentine
www.michaelvalentinephoto.com

***************************************************************

Here’s my response:

Hi,

I think it is a good idea! In fact, I had to laugh when
I read your message, you’ll see why in a moment…

Let’s face it, most of our customers just use their
pictures on Facebook without even asking.

You may as well take advantage of that fact.

If you can get your name in front of their friends,
it’s well worth it.

It’s NOT just a random ad…it becomes a REFERRAL from
them! By far this is the strongest advertising you can do!

Just yesterday I learned that the average Facebook
customer has 147 friends listed on their page! So that
means that every time you do this, you are exposing your
services to another 147 people. Again, this is not just
a bunch of random people – you are getting referred to
their FRIENDS.

In fact, rather than just giving permission – and a CD
image with your byline and contact info – to the people
who ask you if they can put the photo on their Facebook
page, I’d actually suggest it in the ordering session for
ALL of my clients!

I’d even go so far as offering some sort of bonus to
everyone who DOES put the photo (with your info on it) on
their pages.

Giving away one free thumbnail photo to be REFERRED to
147 of their friends is darn good advertising in my opinion.

I have always had an offline/real world policy of giving
a free 11 x 14 to anyone who refers me to just 2 of their
friends!

To get referred to an average of 147 of their friends? It’s
a no brainer. It’s viral marketing at it’s best.

Here’s why your email made me laugh…

It appears that great minds think alike.

I don’t know if you are reading my series on the “back to
school” promotion, but I had scheduled THIS EXACT FACEBOOK
IDEA to be in today’s newsletter as a terrific way to
generate new business and new subscribers to our newsletters.

I’ll use your example as proof that it works!

Dan

**********************************************************

Tomorrow I’ll have some more ideas you can use to get free
traffic to your website and email list.

Stay tuned!

Dan

P.S. I can open the door, but you have to walk through.

So far in our promotion, we have sent our list subscribers
links to videos on how to make book covers (several different
types), how to make a blue jeans book bag, how to make a magnetic
pencil holder for their lockers and how to make a nice wire bookmark.

I’ve provided the links to all these videos so that you can get
started on this promotion right away with minimal effort.

I shouldn’t have to say this, but ideally you should watch
the videos, learn the techniques and make YOUR OWN videos teaching
the same things. That would REALLY put this promo on steroids.

Don’t just copy the videos I’ve sent. Put a little spin on them
to make them your own. We don’t want to run into any plagiarism
issues.

When you DO make your own…In the background have a large sign of
some sort that mentions your business.

i.e. “Brought to you by xyz photography.”

This is another subliminal, neural linguistic programming (NLP)
message making them think of you both favorably (your sending them a
useful and valuable tip) AND as a photographer.

Get enough NLP messages out there linking a favorable impression and
photography, and before long, they will be programmed to think of
you favorably as a photographer – even though (so far) we really
haven’t even mentioned photography!

Don’t worry, pretty soon we are going to start to transform our
general “back to school” emails into photography emails. After all,
the whole point here is to monetize this and make some money.

First, here are a couple more useful tidbits you can send them…

How to make a cork bulletin board:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071217130437AAhm8tH

This is not a video, it’s written out step by step instructions.
(This would be IDEAL for making your own video!)

Here are several quick and useful tips for getting your child ready
to go back to school!

http://www.kleenex.com/backtoschool/tips.html

Now that we have something to send to our mailing list, we need to
get started actually getting a list!

There are a LOT of ways to beef up your list and I’ll be sending
you several over the next few days.

First up – Free classified ads.

By placing a classified ad in the various free classified ad
directories, it is possible to generate a pretty big list, fast.

By pretty big, keep in mind that I’m talking about a LOCAL list of
people – who are all in your TARGET market. You won’t actually need
many names to make this the best and most profitable Christmas -
Kwanzaa, Chanukah season EVER!

Place your ad in whatever section would best fit your promotion’s
theme. Right now our theme is “Back To School”. You can and should
run similar type promotions all year ’round. There is SOMETHING
happening every month.

At this point we are looking for parenting type categories. Try to
avoid any photography for sale types. Keep in mind, we are using a
side door approach.

Here are some Classified ad sites to get you started…

Craig’slist.com
Backpage.com
Ebayclassifieds.com (Kijiji)
Odle.com
USFreeads.com
Adpost.com
classifiedsforfree.com

Some of these are only available in the U.S., that’s where I am, so
those are the ones I know about.

That doesn’t mean you can’t do this promo in other countries. It
just means that you will need to take an additional step.

If you are in other countries, just go to Google and search for
“international free classified ad sites” (without the quotes). I
just did it and got 118 MILLION results!

Start placing ads. You’ll start getting subscribers to your list.
But this is nothing, over the next several days I’m going to
show you A LOT OF WAYS to get email subscribers.

For those who don’t know, with an email management system in place,
you write your emails once…upload them to the service (I use
AWEBER) and then start marketing.

Your list subscription – and sending out your entire series of
emails on whatever schedule you choose – is all done automatically.

You could have 1000′s of subscribers and never have to do any
additional work beyond the initial set up.

It is ESSENTIAL to your business that you have an email list!

This message is – again – getting too long so I’ll end it here. I’ll
come back tomorrow with some more ways to get subscribers on your list.

Dan

P.S. Take action…I can open the door, but you have to walk
through!