0160; I hope you see the parallel between this and marketing/selling your art. ------------------------ So maybe a year or so ago, I went to a Chicago White Sox baseball game.  0160; Instead I just set in on a table and promptly forgot about it. Time for a story.  0160; I bought the tickets online.

Except when I stopped by the Apple store after X-Mas, it was packed and not a damn thing was on sale. In this tough economy, people are holding on to their dollars and not spending them on art/entertainment. Except over the holiday's the Chicago production of Wicked sold more tickets during a particular week  then any show in Chicago Theatre History. Every retailer is discounting . . . In life there are rules and there are exceptions.

Kelly Cottrell of TREW Marketing was recently interviewed by the Austin Entrepreneur Network blog .  This This interview was part of a series where presenters of the upcoming Austin Entrepreneur Business Training Class  share their experience and expertise.  We attended Northern Illinois University and then started working full time at Hewlett Packard. We will share more on the class as times draws near, but in the meantime, here is Kelly’s interview: What university did you go to? 

Like Jack Skellington  my cause marketing team lives in Halloween Town twelve months a year. No sooner is Halloween over and just like in the movie the Mayor of Halloween Town (aka Joanna MacDonald ) is hustling through my door, arms full, with plans for next year’s “big event.”  But unlike Jack I haven’t grown tired of the same old routine year in and year out. It’s 8221;  This year is no different.

Diva Marketing Talks is a live, internet radio (BlogTalkRadio) show.  1-topic about social media marketing. Today's Diva Marketing Talks explores a "new" demographic that is joining the social media conversation. Des Walsh - Des Walsh dot Com, Barbara Rozgonyi -Wired PR Works and Carlos Hernandez - iRM Consulting, join me to talk about will the Woodstock generation be as open to naked conversations 30-minutes. 2-guests.

Direct mail maven Denny Hatch recently wrote "They Forgot the Importance of ‘YOU’", a column in which he took the Obamas to task for their losing performances in trying to sell Chicago to the International Olympic Committee. Whatever you think of his analysis, Denny reminds us of two key points to keep in mind when writing direct sales or fundraising copy … First … effective copy is all about the reader (donor) and what’s important to them. Thus, says Denny, the copy should be replete with the word "you" … as opposed

Over at his blog, Chad Bauman did an excellent post on how Marketing Directors kill new work .  Here an excerpt: "Marketing directors are like anyone else; we are creatures of habit. If we have been in the job for awhile, we start to develop systems for marketing products. 0160; He's talking about the theatre world, but I think his observations could apply to any art form. We know how to market musicals, new plays, African-American work, political satire, etc.

With the rapid increase of digital conversations the importance of not only listening to consumer generated content (CGC) but the analysis of this new data set is finally taking its place at the marketing research table. Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer - ARF, and I had an extensive email conversation about some of the issues facing the industry ranging from the validity and trust worthiness of the information and content creators to where and how "social media research" fits into a marketing research initiative. However, the industry is still at the early stages of determining how social media research (my term), which is based on the raw talk of our customers, can be used as a credible decision making tool that complements traditional research methodologies.