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PR Mama: Marketing to Go! June 2006
In This Issue PR Mama Perspective - Being busy can be a good thing! Bright Ideas Press - Maggie Hogan gives us a little history on Bright Ideas Press and shares a few marketing tips. Getting It Right: Why It Matters - Mary Jo Tate challenges all of us in the homeschool market to have the highest standards of quality and accuracy. Need More Referrals? Partner Up! - C.J. Hayden, MCC, shares how partnering up with others can help build your business! Marmee Dear's Mail Order Tips - Martha Greene knows how important happy customers are and lets you in on a few of her tips for keeping them that way!
PR Mama Perspective Henry David Thoreau once said, "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." and I imagine many of you all are staying plenty busy right now - homeschool conferences, preparing for the upcoming year, talking to media, and networking with others. I know we've been really busy at The Old Schoolhouse. In the past month of so, we have launched our US promo, our first ever international promo, and a cross promo with Answers in Genesis. We attended the FPEA conference, which was really successful, by the way! We've rebuilt our website and have been marketing our affiliate program and The Schoolhouse Store. And we've been getting our content in many locations and setting up various interviews. And while it's been hectic, it has been successful. We've seen some record-setting days for subscriptions, made a lot of great contacts, and been blessed to watch God at work in all of it. So whether you are staying busy with your company like Maggie Hogan, writing and editing like Mary Jo Tate, networking with others in your market, or staying busy filling orders like Martha Greene, take a break to enjoy this month's e-Newsletter. We pray that it blesses you and helps you along the road to success. Let's get down to business! Nancy Carter, Editor PR Mama: Marketing to Go! Bright Ideas Press - A Little History, a Few Laughs, and a Lesson or Two    By Maggie Hogan Don't you just love the way God works? Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. (Still do, he, he!) Although I had opportunities over the years to write articles in newspapers and magazines, it wasn't until I was a homeschooling mom that God really began opening doors for me to pursue my writing dreams. It was 1991 and I had just heard about homeschooling and my husband, Bob, and I were eager to try it. Our oldest son, JB, was then 8 and was very unhappy in the local school system. We quickly became heavily involved in the local homeschooling group (once we found one!) and by the end of the year I had committed to becoming the director the following year. Well, being director meant many-times-many phone calls. I am NOT a phone person. The phone became a living, breathing monster in our house. My best friend, Janice, was my assistant, and we quickly decided there had to be a better way to answer the same questions over and over. So we wrote our first book together - quite the bestseller! Perhaps you have one on your shelf? Although it is now out of print, The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling in Delaware was a great learning experience for me. And, I was hooked! The next year brought my first invitation to speak at a state conference, and the topic was geography. Janice helped me, and we worked hard on developing great handouts. Perhaps we spent too much time on them, because instead of a handout, we ended up with our next book, Hands-On Geography. (Since then it has been greatly revised.) Over the years, as my sons grew older, they helped in various aspects of our business. My husband, who works full-time for the federal government, also became more and more involved. (He is now just a few short years away from retiring from his civil job. He is looking forward to working with me full-time.) Our youngest, Tyler, is now a sophomore at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, and our oldest son, JB, has just this week returned home after spending the last 4 1/2 years in the Army (see more of his story at www.FromBasictoBaghdad.com). Our business is a ministry that the two of us enjoy doing together. We love traveling and meeting people. I love to speak, and Bob has such a servant's heart for helping moms and dads in our booth. He also takes care of the manual labor involved and works hard to protect me physically from overdoing it. And we have a wonderful time praying for all the people we meet and whom we are able to counsel, console, or commiserate with. It is a joy! In the past few years we have published a number of wonderful books, most recently The Mystery of History series by Linda Hobar The Christian Kids Explore series (by several authors) All American History, Volume I by Celeste Rakes From Basic to Baghdad by JB Hogan We've been blessed beyond measure. Often I simply stand back in wonder at all the Lord has done for us. It has certainly not been easy - often the price paid was higher than we anticipated. But we've tried to keep our eyes on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to follow His will for our family and our company. US Subscriptions: 19 FREE GIFTS Whether you are new to our magazine or a long-time subscriber, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has an incredible offer that you won't want to pass up! In the past, we couldn't offer the renewing subscribers the 19 free gifts - those were only for new customers. But for a limited time only, RENEWING subscribers get all 19 gifts (over $200 value), too! I'm a new subscriber…what do I get? With your paid two-year subscription to TOS you'll receive: •A 2-year/3-year subscription to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine •19 FREE gifts for you All this for ONLY $39 for 2 years and ONLY $59 for 3 years Click Here to Purchase Online Or, call 1-888-718-HOME Already a subscriber? Renew now and receive: • Two or Three more years of your favorite homeschool magazine and 19 FREE gifts (valued at over $200)! All this for ONLY $39 for 2 years and ONLY $59 for 3 years Click Here to Purchase! Or, call 1-888-718-HOME The first 3,000 two-year or three-year new subscriber or renewing your two or three year subscription, you will receive (by USPS mail) NINETEEN free homeschooling gifts. But you don't get four gifts - you get 19! And yes, even the shipping is paid for - and you are not required to buy anything again - EVER. Promotion will sell out fast! - TOS Staff (US Residents Only) Click Here to View the FREE Gifts Words of Advice - That I NEED to Hear! Marketing has, sadly, been too often neglected around here! I know how important it is and yet, when a time crunch is slapping me around, marketing tends to fall by the wayside. Here are ten points that perhaps someone will find useful. 1. My favorite marketing resources are:    A. Guerrilla Marketing series by Jay Levinson and Seth Godin. My favorite in that series, although it is somewhat outdated, is         The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook.    B. The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen is subtitled "How to Create Word-of-Mouth Marketing." Now, if I would just put my         mouth where my money is ...    C. PR Mama: Marketing to Go! Quick and useful tips that really work. 2. Hire Professionals In 1992 I could get away with a cheesy cover on my first book. (Although I did pay to have a professional editor and graphic layout artist.) I am appalled every time I see sub-standard homeschooling materials. I am not so much concerned about the "look," but I AM concerned about improper grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and so on. If our own books are riddled with errors, what does that say about the quality of our children's education? Yes, you can find errors in any book I've published. But far fewer errors have slipped by when we've used the highest quality editor we could find. (Using the "friend of our next-door-neighbor's cousin who was an English teacher" was always a mistake.) Professional help is both affordable and necessary when trying to reach a larger market. Sadly, the homeschool market has been inundated with slick resources that compete with our more traditional products. Parents today are overwhelmed with choices and if you want them to even SEE your resources, they must stand out in some way. 3. Pray Pray a lot. Pray often. Pray with a humble attitude and a contrite spirit. Pray for wisdom. Pray for willingness to be a servant. Pray for strength to do the right thing. Pray for protection for your family, especially your spouse. Pray for direction. Pray that you would be a good witness in every single one of your business transactions. 4. Stay in the Word. 5. Listen to the Holy Spirit. 6. Listen to your spouse. 7. Don't allow your homeschool or your business to become an     IDOL in your life! 8. Pray some more. 9. Remember to have fun with your family. 10. Did I mention pray? Dear ones, we are in a unique position to have a powerful influence on this generation of children and their families. I pray that God will use you in mighty ways to reach people for His glory! Amen. Blessings, Maggie Hogan www.BrightIdeasPress.com www.Homeschoolblogger.com/maggiehogan info@BrightIdeasPress.com Sign up for our E-zine: Sub@BrightIdeasPress.com Toll-Free 877.492.8081 PRAYER POTS™ GALORE - AND MUCH MORE! Visit www.spirituallyrestored.com to find hand-painted flowerpots, prayer journals, stationery items, jewelry and inspirational books. There’s more … sign up for weekly devotionals, register to win prizes and request a FREE catalog! So much to see and do; you won’t want to leave! Getting It Right: Why It Matters    By Mary Jo Tate People judge you by your writing. Whether you are publishing a traditional print book, an e-book, or a newsletter, you are putting your professional reputation and credibility on the line. If you publish something filled with misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, and grammar errors, you are sending a message to your readers that you don't care enough about them to take the time to get it right. Furthermore, poor writing can make you seem untrustworthy. If you let errors slip in, your readers begin to ask, "Does this author really know what she's talking about?" If you can't put an apostrophe in the right place or spell words correctly, they may wonder if your math facts or geography facts or history facts or science facts likewise contain errors. International Subscriptions: 19 FREE GIFTS Whether you view your subscription as a gift for yourself, a homeschool conference delivered to your door, a professional journal, or simply a wonderful opportunity to fellowship with other homeschool families around the world, subscribe now to insure that you are in the first 2,000 and receive this incredible International Subscription Homeschool Gift Pack! One-Year International Subscription: Receive four issues of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine delivered directly to your door and 19 FREE gifts from our generous sponsors. Subscribe now! Only $38! And we have an additional gift for two-year and three-year subscribers! Two-Year or Three-Year International Subscription: Receive eight issues of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, the 19 free gifts, AND our Secrets of Successful Homeschooling e-book! Subscribe now! Only $69 for 2 years and $83 for 3 years! These special offers will expire soon, though. Subscribe or renew today so you don't miss out on this opportunity! Three easy ways to subscribe! Subscribe online Call 1-888-718-HOME Mail your order to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC PO Box 10 White Pine, TN 37890 Promotion will sell out fast! - TOS Staff (International Residents Only) Click Here to View the FREE Gifts My family is completing our ninth year of homeschooling, and for years I've been eagerly anticipating using a particular high school curriculum. When I finally bought it, I was disappointed to find it riddled with misplaced apostrophes, errors in word usage, and poor grammar. I can't bring myself to give it to my son. The content is good, but it's a terrible model of writing, and I don't want to reinforce those errors in his brain. We'll be using another curriculum. A few years ago my children and I studied an astronomy lesson that mixed up the terms "rotate" and "revolve." I know the difference between rotating and revolving, so I caught the error and taught my children correctly. Perhaps it was merely a typo, but it undermined the author's credibility. What if there was another mistake that I didn't catch and I taught my children wrong? I never bought another book by that author. Readers who aren't professional editors may be a bit more forgiving, of course. But even when the reaction isn't conscious, errors still subtly implant the idea that the writer can't be trusted. Homeschoolers today have too many choices to settle for poorly written curriculum riddled with errors. And there are hundreds of things readers can do instead of reading your book, newsletter, or blog. Don't give them a reason to set your writing aside. Blogging is the newest form of publication. It is faster and cheaper than getting your words into physical print, and it has a broader potential audience (a large portion of the world!). If you are blogging for business or ministry and not just as an online diary, you must take this seriously. Your blog represents you. It is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. What kind of image do you want to present? A friend was distressed because a reader suggested that because of her spelling and grammar errors, people might not take her blog seriously. She wondered if she should pre-write and edit her blog entries before posting them. I didn't want to discourage her, but I told her she should. She needed to hear the truth. One of the most appealing aspects of blogs is that they are conversational, not stiff and formal, so you don't need to take the life and personality out of your writing. Intentional sentence fragments may be OK. Dashes or ellipses to represent the flow of your thought (stream of consciousness) are fine. You can even begin sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions. But it's important to avoid blatant errors in spelling, punctuation, and basic sentence structure (such as subject-verb agreement). Whether you're writing a book, a magazine article, or a blog entry, if your message is important (and if it's not, why are you bothering to write about it?), don't give readers an excuse not to take you seriously. So what's the solution? First, you should learn how to improve your own writing. One of my goals for the next year is to create tools to help you do that. The Comma Commando Newsletter mentioned below is just a start. Refining your own expertise as a writer is the most important strategy for improving your blogs, since (although I hate to admit it) professional editing is probably not a realistic option for most bloggers. Second, it's essential to have other people edit your work before you publish it. No matter how much you polish your skills, it's very hard to catch all the mistakes in your own writing. Something tricky happens in your brain: You don't notice some mistakes because your eyes "see" what your brain remembers you meant to write ... even though it may not be what actually came out on paper or on screen. Asking friends and family to critique your work in progress is a good place to start. A trusted friend usually looks over my magazine articles before I submit them for publication. Too many writers stop with amateur editing, however. If you're writing and publishing professionally, you need to go a step further and pay for professional editing. An experienced editor can quickly spot a dangling modifier, misplaced apostrophe, or incorrect or inconsistent spelling. She knows the intricacies of publishing style, and her trained eye can even catch an extra space between words or a tiny change in font. Even though I've been a professional editor for twenty years, I recently hired another professional to edit the new material I had written for an expanded version of my book about F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although there weren't many errors, she did find a few. I would have caught the mistakes in anybody else's writing, but I had read my own words too many times to notice them in mine. I considered her work a worthwhile investment in the quality of my own. Writing for and by homeschoolers carries an extra level of responsibility. We must be sure that our published work meets the highest standards of quality and accuracy. Just as a driver who runs a red light in a vehicle with a Christian bumper sticker dishonors the name of Christ, an error-filled homeschool publication offers a poor testimony to our standards. The world is looking for excuses to regulate, control, and even outlaw homeschooling. Don't provide ammunition. Get it right. It matters. During her twenty years as a professional editor, Mary Jo Tate has kept track of the most common mistakes in writing. She shares her solutions in The Comma Commando Newsletter: A Hit List of Writing Disasters and Strategies for Defeating Them. You can subscribe to the newsletter on her blog: http://www.WritingHints.com. Need More Referrals? PARTNER UP!    By C.J. Hayden, MCC Did you know that prospective clients who are referred to you are much more likely to become your customers than those who find you in any other way? The endorsement of a referral carries so much weight that referred prospects are less likely to shop for the lowest price, ask fewer questions about your expertise, and typically come to a decision much more quickly. While some of the best referrals come from past clients, there are many other possible referral sources for any business. You can build your referral base exponentially by seeking out referral partners. A referral partner can be any person, group, or institution that is willing to refer potential clients to you. Here are some examples of who might be a good partner: Other prospects - People you have connected with who aren't ready to buy from you now will still refer you to others, if you remember to keep in touch with them. Colleagues - Others in your field can be excellent referral sources. If you offer non-competitive services, you may even approach prospective clients together. Competitors - Don't rule out competitors as referral partners. You may have an area of specialty that they don't. They may also have times when they can't handle all the business they get, or can't take a particular client due to a conflict of interest. Others who serve your market - Anyone who is in regular contact with your target market is a potential referral partner, regardless of his or her field. A computer network installer could easily collect referrals from the owner of a moving company, a commercial property manager, or a security systems salesperson - all people who might know about an upcoming office relocation. Salespeople - Regardless of what they sell, professional salespeople are used to the process of giving and receiving referrals. If you make friends with someone who sells for a living, they will naturally be on the lookout for possible leads for you. Start with the salespeople who sell to YOU. Centers of influence - These are the people who everyone seems to know. You see them at networking events, read their name in the trade press, and hear their name mentioned everywhere. People like this get asked for referrals all the time, so you want your name to be in their address book. Organizations - When a prestigious nonprofit or educational institution refers you, it is an implied endorsement and makes you very attractive to prospective customers. Building relationships with organizations like this typically requires volunteering your professional services or teaching. To begin identifying potential referral partners, develop a list of categories representing the type of people or groups that might be good candidates. For example, an executive recruiter specializing in startups and rapidly growing small companies might choose the categories of attorneys specializing in stock offerings, investment bankers, and venture capitalists. Then look through your existing contacts to see who you already know that fit. Call those people up and say, "I think we may be able to help each other get more clients. Can we get together and talk about it?" After you have contacted the people you already know, you can add to your circle of referral partners by additional networking within your chosen categories. The best partnerships are reciprocal. If the two of you share the same target market, the possibility of two-way referrals is high. But even if you can't imagine how you could refer business to a potential partner, don't let that stop you. Savvy business people are always looking for qualified professionals to refer business to, because it helps them take good care of their own clients. When you meet with a potential partner, find out as much about his or her business as you share about your own. Exchange marketing literature and several business cards. Ask who would be a good referral for your partner, and describe what type of client you are looking for. End your conversation by asking, "Is there anything else you need to feel confident in referring people to me?" Be sure to thank your partners for every referral, whether it turns into business for you or not. Prompt thanks will generate more referrals. Keep in touch with your partners over time, just as you do with prospective and former clients. And remember to be on the lookout for referrals you can give to your partners. That's the best way possible to stay in touch with them. Yours in partnership, C.J. Hayden, MCC Copyright 2002, C.J. Hayden. All rights reserved. Articles from the Get Clients Now! E-Letter may be distributed or reproduced as long as the copyright and URL are included. Please forward a copy to your friends and associates! To subscribe to the E-Letter, read back issues, or buy the Get Clients Now! book, visit www.getclientsnow.com or coachcj@getclientsnow.com. Wings Business Coaching, LLC P.O. Box 225008 * San Francisco, CA 94122 Phone/Fax (415) 981-8845 * Toll Free (877) 946-4722 MarmeeDear's Mail Order Tips  Keep the Customers Happy and Coming Back    By Martha Greene Mail out each and every order with care. Pack it so it will arrive in good condition. Make your package look like a gift. I do this by lining my boxes with lovely tissue papers, tucking in little free gifts. (You can get a variety of things very inexpensively, but your customer will love you for it!) I tie bows around my books and add all sorts of little *pretties* that make the customer feel like a special friend. Add postcard special offers (this is a preprinted postcard with a special sale offer that they can return for the discounted item - it generates sales and they usually buy something else along with it). Postcards cost only pennies to print ... you can get 4 to a page and they are a great marketing tool. Always keep good records of what day the package was sent and use some sort of tracking number. You will get many requests wanting to know this information. Respond to every mail order to let the customer know their order has been received and what date it will ship out. It can be a short form note, but personalize it and make it friendly and courteous. If you should get a damage report or an unhappy customer, always bend over backwards to right the situation. The few times this happens and you respond graciously will go a long way in keeping your business reputation. One unhappy customer can tell a lot of friends about you ... so keep them HAPPY at all cost! Martha has been the helpmeet to Roger for 28 years. They have been blessed with 11 children and now are enjoying being grandparents. They make their home on 130 wild acres in rural South Carolina. They chose homeschooling as a way of life in the mid '80s. Martha owns and operates MarmeeDear & Co. from her home - Offering All Things Precious & Pleasant for the Home Circle. You are welcome to visit her anytime at www.MarmeeDear.com. Remember to email me at PRMama@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com with your suggestions for upcoming issues or to have your company highlighted. We hope that we've helped to equip and encourage you. Be sure to visit us online at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/PR Mama, and we'll see you in your inbox next month! Have you enjoyed this issue of the newsletter? If so, you'll want to take a look at all of the free e-Newsletters TOS offers to guide and encourage you during your homeschooling journey. Be sure to stop in to see which ones are best for you and your family! Click here for more information: www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com/devotional_door/subscribe.php You may forward this e-Newsletter to your friends in its entirety.

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