Marketing Tidbits : AddThis

December 2, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

Many of our readership is in the dark as to where the internet is headed, or even how to keep their website afloat in the upcoming ‘Web 2.0′ transition. A lot of it will count on its weight in the social media (MySpace, FaceBooks and more)… and one way you can ensure you take advantage of that is making your website as easily bookmarkable as possible, even on these social medias.

The Answer: http://www.AddThis.com

AddThis, based out of New Jersey, is a company founded back in 2006 and quickly grew amungst many websites across the internet. The AddThis button spreads your content across the Web by making it easier for your visitors to bookmark and share it with other people, again… and again… and again. This simple yet powerful button is very easy to install and provides valuable Analytics about the bookmarking and sharing activity of your users. AddThis helps your visitors create a buzz for your site and increase its popularity and ranking.

Written by Robert Starkey

Robert Starkey started his career in 1998. Serving his clients under his company named Beat To Beat Entertainment, he decided that his love for Weddings was his calling so he renamed his company Robert Starkey’s Wedding Entertainment - believing so strongly in his company as to include his own name.

In 2003 Robert started Outside The Box DJ Tools, a service which offers enhanced planning forms which plug directly into the web-based software DJ Intelligence. His offer has since grown to include products and services such as Audible Memories, Dollar Dance Plus, and Weekly Wedding/Mitzvah Tips. Towards the 4th quarter of 2005, Robert was invited to work directly for Intelligence, Inc. – the authors of the award winning software, DJ Intelligence and Event Intelligence.

Other advances in the DJ Industry include being a founding board member for the San Diego Chapter of the American Disc Jockey Association where he served faithfully as Chapter Secretary until relocating with his family to Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Where he now resides and serves. Robert also mentors other DJs worldwide, and even operates as group called ‘Outside The Box Inner Circle’ which consists of approximately 35 members on average and focuses as a support group for like-minded operators.

Robert became regular contributor to Mobile Beat Magazine and heads the ‘Marketing Tidbits’ column in the online edition. Robert has been invited to speaker at association chapters, and even a featured expert for Jay Conrad Levinson’s “Guerrilla Marketing Association” in 2008.See Authors Posts (25) · Filed Under Exclusive Online News and Content

Marketing Tidbits: Website Chat

October 28, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

Hi there! This month we’re going to be continuing our discussion on different ways to getting more sales, this time through making yourself more available to your customers in a more unique way – “Live Chat”.

How many times have you ever had a question and needed help? Maybe your internet was slow (like mine is) and you used it to communicate with your ISP, or your thinking about ordering flowers for your anniversary and you used their live representative to help answer questions…

What if you offered something your competition didn’t? You decided to take a gamble, make an investment and take Roberts’ advice to add a Live-Chat software to your website. Overwhelmed? DON’T BE ! I have done all the research for you, found a company that would take my advice and expound upon it to meet and exceed the current expectations of those using my existing Chat Software which was in Beta Mode as an Outside The Box project, being tested by recognizable DJ names like Scott Faver, David Hanscom, Jay Smith and a few others.

I told you I did the research… I even worked out a deal for you! My friends at ChatStat Technologies have agreed to continue advancing their software – so here’s the scoop of what I scored for us:

... these are the add-ons they and all other chat services make their money on...

Feature	Price per Month
Icon Editor	included ($5 value)
Popup Control	included ($5 value)
Logo & Conversation Window Control	included ($5 value)
Remote Screen Access	ADD ON – $20.00
Language Translation	ADD ON – $20.00
Web Statistics	included ($5 value)
Callback System with Skype	included ($5 value)
Auto Chat Invitations	included ($5 value)
Operator Seats (per operator)	BASE PLAN $20.00
Department Manager	included ($5 value)
Chat Transcript Preservation	included ($10 value)
Multiple Website Support (per site)	included ($10 value)
External Chat Link	included ($5 value)
Page Thumbnails	included ($5 value)

Only $20 per month… That’s a $75 Savings Per Month! Just because I worked out a special deal with Nick, the company’s owner and now good friend of mine, he has given me his personal word and guarantee that as a full-time company that values our business – they will continue working to improve the service based on our recommendations and feedback! Their goal is one industry at a time, my goal is to make us the first industry they hit hard and really see if they’re up for the challenge!

Ready to signup? To get started simply click here and create your FREE 30 DAY TRIAL <— Must use this link to receive this offer * THIS IS NOT AN AFFILIATE DEAL, ONLY FOR TRACKING THIS PROMOTION, YOU HAVE MY WORD! * and see how easy it is to get started.

W A R N I N G : This is only for those serious about their business, who don’t mind being available to potential and current customers while sitting in front of their computer anyways.

Upgraded tonight

* Logo & Conversation Window Control templates will now allow for the customization of searching for operator text, help text, question text required option, hide operator selection and hide department selections.

* ChatStat spell checking will be included allowing you to correct spelling errors as you type.

* IP blocking is now also added to the operator chat window to prevent malicious visitors from flooding your operators with chat requests.

Upcoming (est. 90 days till release)

* MOBILE VERSION IN ROUTE
* MAC VERSION IN ROUTE
* widget and apple iphone specific clients in route
* Program GUI will be written in 16 languages for world-wide use

Written by Robert Starkey

Audible-Memories.com includes Marketing Materials

October 20, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2008

Today, Outside The Box DJ Tools, announced the launch of their Audible Memories (http://www.audible-memories.com) “Marketing Toolkit”.

The “Members Marketing Toolkit”, which has been in the works for the past month, launches with 4 web icons, 11 banners, 6 print items rangin from flyers to business and post cards, as well as 11 audio samples with streaming player for your website, even CDs to provide samples on or provide to a previous client as a keepsake. Helping you to promote this fine service.

“We have worked hard and are thrilled to offer this new offering to our subscribers” said Robert Starkey, Owner & Founder of Outside The Box, developers of Audible Memories. He added, “For those DJs not yet using the Audible Memories service, we invite you to check out our offering and put it to the test with one of your upcoming events!”

Audible Memories, a service of Outside The Box for DJs which allows them to take in recordings via their own dedicated toll-free number assigned to them, fully edited and provided to them as a finished product in 128-bit MP3 quality via email either as pure vocals or with Royalty Free Audio as a montage. Recording Hotlines currently in use by our subscribers include our First Dance Hotline, Parent Dance Hotline, Friends & Family Hotline and our Testimonial Hotline. At only $12 monthly this solution is both unique and affordable. For further information, contact Robert Starkey at Robert@OutsideTheBox.biz or open a live-chat at http://www.Audible-Memories.com.

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Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: Garage Sales

October 4, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

This beautiful Saturday morning here in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. was spent with my mother-in-law, wife, daughter and son as we cruised around town hopping from garage sale to garage sale. Typically, this isn’t my gig, but when I recalled the business cards that were exchanged when my wife hosted a garage sale – that it only seemed appropriate to find common bond with these item-owners as I browse, ensuring that I learned about what they do and then exchanging business cards just prior to my exit.

So break some business cards out of the box, and bring them along. Make some great connections within the community while promoting your business and learning what they have to offer. Maybe, just maybe, even find a good deal on something that you might be able to use (an item they’re selling).

How many business cards are appropriate to hand-out? When promoting your business, it is best to only hand out no more than 5 business cards to someone at a time – unless you’ve preplanned with that person or organization. More than five seems desperate, while 5 gives them just enough to keep one and pass along four referrals.

Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: Calling all MySpace Users….

September 22, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

Well hello again! Thanks for following our series of Marketing Tidbits, of which tonight I give a heads up to those that are using MySpace – Tonight I received notification from Google that my wife and my photo album on MySpace containing family memories was indexed by their search engine. For those of you that have a page setup for your business, you are one up on the marketing avenue of using sociable media and you may not even have known it yet.. it’s true! All those photos that you upload should be spread out with links to pages of your website to ensure to help with page rank for each of your sub-pages rather than just your main index page.

This has been your Marketing Tidbit for the week. Stay tuned for more….

[ Robert Starkey is owner of Outside The Box DJ Tools located at http://www.OutsideTheBox.biz ]

Written by Robert Starkey

Website Marketing Tidbits: Social Networks (YouTube)

July 18, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

t’s 2:05 AM here in Lake Havasu City, AZ as I sit in my usually messy office. I just got done responding to a post from one of my Inner Circle Members (really – ask any of the 32 of them) on the topic of YouTube.com. One member, Mr. William “Bill” Nash, writes about how uploading your videos to YouTube lightens the load on your server and saves you bandwidth….

Here are the commonly overlooked advantages to using YouTube

Free Video Player
When you upload your video to YouTube, you then are provided the embed code that you simply copy and paste right into your site. This browser is compatible with almost all internet browsers, as well as operating systems and PCs. NOTE: If you use Google’s web accelerator on your system, you will not be able to watch YouTube videos, I found it to be a glitch in their system. That sucks.

Purchased by Google
If they purchased YouTube, then they must have been doing something right… once more though, Google is giving YouTube postings (yes, even the comments I’ve discovered) more weight as a link to your site, helping to increase your rankings in the search engines. This leads me into my next point —

Descriptions
When you upload a video, you are asked to give a description of the video. As I told Mr. Nash – be sincere with what you put into the description box. You want to entice the viewer to share with their friends and vote for the video.. but most importantly, tell them where to get more information. What does this mean? Use your URL This includes the http:// and the www. Make it flow in there like it was professionally written, because if it looks like an advertisement, it will get treated like an advertisement.

So go… get going! Go find a video of an event you recently did and upload it to you tube. Start unleashing the true potential behind YouTube. What? You don’t have a video to upload? Find a couple of video’s, and start posting comments on them – but remember, don’t make it look like an AD.

BoNuS TiP : If you don’t have a video – you should. In todays day-and-age of marketing, the more personal you can make your website the more consultations you’re going to make and the more money that is increased as the bottom line. Most Digital Cameras have a record movie feature built right into them. You can place it on the table in front of you and record a personalized welcome and introduction to your company from the privacy of your home or office, and then edit it for free within Window’s built in “MOVIE MAKER 2″, clipping out where you set the camera down and walked away to where you walked back and picked it up – all the garbage… deleted.
To your success!

Robert Starkey
Need New DJ Tools?

Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: A Marketing Plan

July 14, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

Jason Kay just wrote an awesome article on creating a business plan, but equally just as important but completely different is your Marketing Plan. While your business plan tells you the overall reason and focus of the business, the “Marketing Plan” helps you drill-down and focus on what tools you will be using, when you will be using them, and the success of each of those attempts. As you discover what works, you will continue to carry those over year to year, for those that do not score high on your Marketing Calendar rating can be tried again at a later time, but this way you’re focusing on what is already working for you and your business.

My company Outside The Box (DJ Forms for DJ Intelligence) has an inner-circle group in which I’ve put together a great start to your marketing plan. For further information, head on over to http://www.OutsideTheBox.biz and ask to see a sample of our business plan we’re working on as a group.

To start your Marketing Calendar, setup a page with a couple of columns. In Column A put the date of the launch of your promotion. In Column B place the end date of the promotion. In column C put the Promotion Name. In Column D list the methods you will use to advertise the promotion. In column E write in the results overall of the promotional campaign. Was it a success? Put it on the calendar for next year – same time. Did it fail? Try it again in another 6 months or so to see if maybe it would be more effective at a different time.

Test, Test, and Test some more!

To your business success!
Robert Starkey

P.S. For those following my Planning Forms, please checkout our new Quinceanera Planning Form available for your DJ Software – “DJ Intelligence” account.

Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: SEO Scan

July 1, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

Have you ran an SEO Scan Lately?

http://www.stompernet.net/jvp/aw.aspx?b=25&a=1362

In this video, my good friend Andy Jenkins will teach you how to optimize your pages in order to get double indented listing in the search engine pages in Google.

Topics Include:

Learning Cache Dates
How to use your XML Sitemap with Google Webmaster Tools
A page not indexed or ranking well? How to drive page rank.
Avoiding duplicate content

Also – here’s…

A program is called “Stomper SiteSeer” and is free to Mobile Beat readers. Thanks Andy!

To get started with “Stomper SiteSeer”, please visit http://www.stompernet.net/goingnatural3/vide3_site_seer_submit

Enjoy!

Robert Starkey

This post sponsored by Outside The Box, provider of plug-and-play planning forms, timelines and more for DJ Intelligence’s Event Planning Software. Product of the day as of this posting is our Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah Day of Itinerary.

Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: Keyword Metatag Not Indexed

June 29, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

In a recent post I threw something at you that would come from the view of an amature website owner/maintainer trying to make their site SEO ready – it was the “Keyword Metatag”. Search Engines (Yahoo & WebCrawler) use to use the keywords tag on the page to providing information as to page content. Google came out and said right from the start that they would be gathering data on a site based on site content topic, inbound links, and more. The other search engines then said, “oh – ok… us too”.

Why am I telling you this?

I want you to know what your sites’ keywords should be because it is important in finding out what other search terms people in your area are using. It’s equally important for you to know your keywords so that you can build content around them. But do not waste your time with the Keywords Meta Tag on your page(s).

Researching Google on the topic “Death of the Keywords Metatag” will provide reference materials on this topic.

Written by Robert Starkey

Marketing Tidbits: SPECIAL SERIES -> Consultations

June 28, 2008

Written by Robert Starkey

The following is an excerpt from http://start.prodj.com, originally addressed in response to member, “BB”. I felt it was worth sharing with those reading “Marketing Tidbits” here on Mobile Beat.

The Sales Consultation

I’ve guided several DJs to conduct their consultations – and works with approximately a 90-95% booking rate. Before I begin, let me state that by the time they reach the consultation they’re already sold anyways and price is no longer a factor.

When at the consultation, remember that this is yet another opportunity to build the relationship. What you’re speaking of when “you go in for the kill” is called a “Hard Sale” in sales terms. My approach is soft. Remember that they have a story to tell, and their story is much more important that your story when they’re the ones paying.

Think of meeting with your Bride & Groom almost as a “First Date”. Ask more questions, do more listening, and less talking. Ask about them as people, learn them as people, and more importantly open up and let them know you as a person. Sales these days are build on personal relationships – we as DJs are no different.

Next – remember that it is our skill that sets us apart of an iPod. So much talk these days about iPod weddings and DJs fearing if it might be their last event – I won’t have it in my town. You will not find one iPod Wedding here in Lake Havasu City, AZ and that’s because our residents are taken care of. Trust me – if there was, I’d hear about it.

As I shared on my business inspirational blog the other day…

Sell with Confidence
Sell with Emotion
Sell with Honesty

Under Promise, Over Deliver.

Your clients want someone who is going to care about them as a person, and truly care about their event. That’s why I recommend to the DJs I mentor that it is important to tell them that you want to care about their event like their friends and their family care about their event <– That always catches them off-guard.

Interested in joining my one-on-one private coaching program? My door is open. Contact me at Robert@OutsideTheBox.biz.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The above is my view points and opinion, not that necessarily of Mobile Beat Magazine or ProDJ Publishing.

FURTHER EDUCATION: To learn about “The Art of the Soft Sell” please contact my good friend Mr. Ken Day. Ken be reached via email – Ken <at> movin-tunes.com

Written by Robert Starkey