June 2011 - Debra Russell | NJ Business Coach

Niche Marketing – How Thinking Small Can Payoff Big

2 Comments/in ArtistsMBA Track 4 - Promotion, Marketing & Sales, Sales and Marketing

What is a Niche, really? And why is everybody talking about Niche Marketing?

Many business owners are afraid to define their niche on the mistaken premise that they will lose business as a result.

The truth is just the opposite.

Designing your marketing around a Niche can enable you to have a major impact on a small budget. Since most business owners are working with a limited to non-existent marketing budget – Niche Marketing can give you a tremendous advantage over your competition.

In this class, you’ll learn:

What is a niche, really and how does it apply to my business?
How do I pick my niche?
OK – I’ve chosen my niche, now what?

Additional Resources for this Class:

Prerequisite Class:

How to Embrace Your Unique Voice as an Artist

Listen to the Class:

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Ready to get serious? Enroll in the Artists Marketing & Business Academy Professional Program to access these classes today!

Your Tuition ($79 per month) includes all Foundation level classes PLUS the Professional level classes PLUS the Time Management Mastery Course & App.

Read the Class Transcript

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Next Class:

How to Create a Fanbase From Scratch (Professional Program)

Ready to get serious? Enroll in the Artists Marketing & Business Academy Professional Program to access these classes today!

Your Tuition ($79 per month) includes all Foundation level classes PLUS the Professional level classes PLUS the Time Management Mastery Course & App.

Thank you for your interest. This content is visible to ArtistsMBA Foundation Program members only. Click here to login.

Music Licensing with Sarah Gavigan – An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Music Placed in Films, TV Shows and Ads

0 Comments/in ArtistsMBA Track 4 - Promotion, Marketing & Sales, Sales and Marketing

In these times of Music Industry upheaval and uncertainty, Music Licensing is one of the few areas of the industry that offers clear income potential to the entrepreneurial artist.

I’m thrilled to have Sarah Gavigan as a guest this month, to give us an insider’s look into the Music Licensing business.

In this class you’ll discover:

The range of opportunities in Music Licensing
The top 3 mistakes people make with when submitting music to a Music Supervisor
How to create a strategy allowing you to target the people who are looking for your music

Enroll in the Artists Marketing & Business Academy Mastery Lab to access the transcript of this class today

Thank you for your interest. This content is visible to ArtistsMBA Foundation, Professional Program members only. Click here to login.

Sarah Gavigan

Sarah Gavigan founded Ten Music in the winter of 2000; the first company of it’s kind to represent Indie Artists and Labels to Advertisers and Brands. 9 years, 45 labels and thousands of placements later, Gavigan is one of the foremost leaders in the field of music licensing.

In 2008 Gavigan developed and taught a course at UCLA entitled “How to get your music licensed in a Commercial.” Today Gavigan Music Supervises, and teaches Musicians and Music Industry professionals how to successfully license their music through her online education program GET YOUR MUSIC LICENSED.

Niche Marketing – How Thinking Small Can Payoff BIG!

1 Comment/in Articles, Sales and Marketing

What is a Niche, really? And why is everybody talking about Niche Marketing? According to About.com a Niche Market is a narrowly defined group of potential customers. Let me be really clear about this – Niche is not about you. It’s not about your product or your genre. It’s about them, your customers/clients/fans. It’s about the folks you want to draw into your circle of influence.

In today’s world, we have available to us literally thousands of marketing tools, marketing avenues and technologies that were not available to us 10 years ago (even 5 years ago). Just watch a rerun of the X-Files and you’ll realize how far we’ve come in the first decade of this century.

But these technologies are both a blessing AND a curse. They’re a blessing because you can market very effectively without a lot of money. They’re a curse, because everyone has access to them. So, you can build a website – but so can billions of other folks (including your competition). You can participate in social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – but so can everyone else. From your customer’s perspective – it’s like watching a raging river – no single drop of water stands out. How could it?

How You Stand Out in the Crowd

Many business owners are afraid to define their niche on the mistaken premise that they will lose business as a result. The truth is just the opposite. There’s just no way that you, as a small business owner, with a limited marketing budget can effectively market to everyone.

Because what you can afford to do is just a drop in the bucket of all the information each one of us is exposed to on a daily basis. And so, in order to make an impact – you need to be exposed to your market multiple times, in order to even be noticed. The old marketing adage was the Rule of Seven – seven exposures to your product before they buy. But I believe the rule should be more like 15 because of the sheer quantity of marketing messages we are exposed to every minute of every day.

In Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility and Crush Your Competition, my friend Patrick Schwerdtfeger says, “go an inch wide and a mile deep.” What this means is to narrow your market down to a very specific group of people who are uniquely defined. And while you don’t want to define them by your product or service, you can define them by the problem (pain/need) your product or service solves. Designing your marketing around a Niche can enable you to have a major impact on a small budget. Since most business owners are working with a limited to non-existent marketing budget – Niche Marketing can give you a tremendous advantage over your competition.

Switching from Push to Pull

Once you’ve defined your niche, what their problems/needs/desires are and how you uniquely solve them, you can set about getting in front of them. And that’s a lot easier to do if you know specifically who they are and where they’re hanging out. Because then you are pretty much guaranteed that the people you’re getting in front of actually want and need what you provide. Instead of what most small business owners do – throw lots of spaghetti against the wall and hope some of it sticks.

And here’s where the magic comes in – if you design your message on their terms, in their language and in a way that gives them an experience of the benefits, then they will have the “Oh, that’s just what I need!” response. If your market recognizes you as exactly what they’re looking for, they will flock to you, easily and effortlessly. And isn’t that what you want?

Want to learn more about Niche Marketing and how to apply it to your unique business or career?

Listen to Niche Marketing

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Transform Your Belief – The Key To Success

2 Comments/in ArtistsMBA Track 2 – Success Skills, Creative, Emotional Intelligence

Just get into action, right? That’s the way to succeed.

Then why does it feel so hard all the time? Dig a little and I bet you’ll discover that you have beliefs that work against you, undermine you, and even stop you dead in your tracks. Those beliefs can be very strong and they can be very subtle.

I can’t say this strongly enough: your beliefs determine your level of success.

Just as strong muscles help you win a ball game, strong empowering beliefs boost your energy and confidence, create opportunities, attract powerful partners, clear obstacles from your path, and propel you effortlessly into action and results.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.
– Henry Ford

So how do you move forward, easily and joyously? Create beliefs that give you buoyancy, that clear the tangle of weeds from your path and that fuel your energy and excitement. And once you’ve created those beliefs, you have to strengthen and reinforce them.

In this Workshop you will discover:

How your beliefs are working for and against you
3 Steps to build beliefs that work for you
Actual practice building some new beliefs

In this call, you’ll learn tools to create and maintain beliefs that will give you any results you choose to believe in!

I was blown away by Debra Russell’s “Transform Your Beliefs – the Key to Success” workshop at the TAXI Road Rally. It set the stage for the rest of the conference and created a powerful focus for both me and my husband throughout the conference. Since the Rally, working privately with Debra and in the Artists Marketing & Business Academy has given me the confidence to follow through on my goals.”
Tina Claxton, Artist Manager, Barnville Music Productions

Despite a certain old, dark resistance, I caught Debra Russell’s “Transform Your Beliefs” seminar at the TAXI Road Rally. I remained a bit uncomfortable and squirmy throughout the talk, actually staying to the end because what she was saying seemed so true, clear and right. It helped that Debra is an exceptionally relaxed, focused, well-prepared speaker. I left feeling that a light had shone onto some areas that have plagued me for most of my forty years as a musician.
Bill Gordon, Pianist, Composer, Teacher