Shared Visions Unlimited

Help with Video, Marketing, Publishing, and Story Productions

Category: Marketing

Special Offer on Video Clips for Marketing, Online Courses, or Story Productions

March 5, 2024 /
Computer image and various idea icons

Video can be immensely effective for marketing and communicating almost anything.

I often help clients create video clips for many purposes, including:

  • Personal introductions.
  • Business introductions.
  • Product and service introductions.
  • Evergreen webinars.
  • Training videos for online courses, memberships, or to build authority,
  • Personal and family stories.
  • Special offers.
  • Landing page and thank you page videos.
  • Much much more.

My special offer is to create five videos with you for $188.

We can use StreamYard recordings, create videos with your phone, or edit existing videos and presentations together to help with your messaging.

A Holistic Approach to Selling Darn Near Anything!

February 29, 2024 /
Greg Dixon Holistic Marketing

Over the years people have asked me to help them sell a lot of different things, in concerts, theatre productions, products, services, books, courses, memberships, and events.

I have acquired many skills, strategies, and tools for promotions and sales and combine them for your benefit.

I will explore some of the many elements and strategies for success.

By the way, I am available to review where you at and make recommendations.

I can also help you implement everything suggested in this article.

Be Ready to Receive

What I mean by this is you need to offer something that people want in a way that makes it easy for you to purchase from you.

This could be an effective website, landing page, or ticket purchase page.

Without a great offer and a smooth sales system, your marketing strategies will not be as effective as they could be.

Comprehensive Marketing Framework

Whether you are a brick-and-mortar operation or sell products and services online, here are the fundamental components for your online effectiveness:

  • A fast, search engine-friendly (SEO) website focused on selling your products and services.
  • A blogging component to feature your services and create an online presence in searches.
  • Mailing List. A mailing list is by far your best marketing tool and a concerted effort to build and use your list will pay dividends.
  • Google and Apple business profiles for physical stores to appear on maps with features of your business.
  • A social media presence with LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TicToc, and others. Pick the ones where your ideal clients hang out.
  • Create a LinkedIn Newsletter.
  • YouTube Channel. Video is a great tool for building expertise and selling products. Videos are posted to your YouTube channel, blog posts, and social media channels.

Coherent Messaging

Things change. We evolve. Our business focus changes.

Clarify your messaging for what you are offering today and make sure that your website, social media platforms, blog posts, and YouTube channel all effectively communicate a consistent and coherent message.

Make sure all of your oars are rowing in the same direction.

Content Marketing

Now it is time to leverage your marketing framework.

Here is an approach that is very effective at establishing your authority and boosting your online presence for searches and people connected with you.

  1. Create a piece of content such as this blog post.
  2. Optimize for searches with an effective splash image, title, and meta description so that your post is compelling on search listings and when posted on social media.
  3. Submit the post for indexing to Google Search Console.
  4. Consider posting the entire article for your LinkedIn Newsletter.
  5. Use the splash image to post out a description and link to the post on your social media channels. Meet Edgar and Hootsuite are good for this.
  6. Create a video for your YouTube channel and social media platforms. StreamYard is fabulous for this.

Publicity and Networking

Book launches, course launches, product launches, and the like are all great for getting publicity.

Press releases to all local and appropriate media outlets can be a very cost-effective way of getting the word out.

I can help you write a press release and find places to send it. There are also soon good paid press release services if you have things for a wide audience.

Other places to spread the word are networking groups, podcasts, and speaking engagements.

Landing Page and Sales Funnels

This can be as simple as creating an effective landing page and driving traffic to the page with your content marketing.

Or it could involve webinars, a series of videos, an email sequence, and other sales strategies.

For some, it is booking an appointment for a sales call.

Books, Courses, and Memberships

If you are already an author or course creator, I would use the holistic approach above to sell your stuff with the Publishing Sales Machine.

If not, I suggest you consider publishing to increase you reach, build authority, and make sales.

We can take you from concept to publication.

My Comprehensive Services

In addition to creating a roadmap for your success, here is a list of comprehensive services I offer:

  • Optimize your website or create a new one for marketing.
  • Create landing pages, sales funnels, memberships, mailing campaigns, affiliate offers, surveys, and more with Kartra.
  • Create video content and stream to many platforms with StreamYard.
  • Repurpose or write content for comprehensive content marketing.
  • Write articles and press releases.
  • Create digital and print assets.
  • Help optimize your brick-and-mortar presence.
  • Help with podcasts and audiobooks.
  • Create, format, and publish books on Amazon, IngramSpark, flipbooks, and my own Digital Experience Editions.
  • Create professional videos.
  • Most things you think of asking for …

Want help with any or all of that?

Think Different about Publishing, Marketing, and Story Productions

February 13, 2024 /

Consider how book publishing, course creation, stories, and marketing can all fit together holistically for you to share your stories and help people.

As humans, we tend to approach things in silos: write a book ~ create a course ~ sell a service ~ tell my story ~ do a broadcast ~ try marketing here ~ and write some stuff.

Me too.

Over the years I have tried a lot of boxes: writer ~ artist ~ musician ~ course creator ~ publisher ~ video creator ~ marketer ~ software engineer ~ driver ~ logger ~ fisher ~ minor ~ literature ~ philosophy ~ traveller …

Sometimes I think my most accurate job description is Chief Enabler to Do Stuff.

The list a variety of projects is vast and diverse!

Shared Visions Unlimited aims to integrate all of that to provide encouragement and services for Publishing, Course Creation, Story Production, and Marketing.

The essential idea is that we are all creative beings constantly exploring life and sharing things like stories, insights, products, and services to grow lives and businesses.

As Marie Forlio says, “The world needs that special gift that only you have.”

The main principle here is that there are many ways to get your message out into the world.

I will explore expanding and integrating media and strategies in the next sections.

Publish Your Book In Multiple Formats

I have helped people publish their books over the decades because they asked for my help. I recently recast Shared Visions Unlimited to include writing, publishing, and marketing services.

Betty Withrow and I have helped many authors complete their books and formatted and submitted the books to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark to get the printed and eBook versions out through the usual channels.

Here is an expanded list of where the content from your book could go:

We offer all of these versions.

  • Printed Book.
  • eBook (Kindle, Amazon Books, …)
  • Audio Books
  • Podcasts and Broadcasts (serial readings like Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others used to publish their books).
  • Print Publications
  • Video
  • Flipbooks
  • Print Magazines
  • Digital Magazines
  • Digital Experience Editions

Courses and Membership Programs

If you come to me with a book you want published, I will likely suggest that you consider creating a related course or membership program to leverage your content and benefit more people.

If you talk to me with a course in mind, I will suggest you consider creating and publishing companion books as well.

And a comprehensive plan to develop and market the books, courses, and related stuff all at the same time using my Publishing Sales Machine.

Digital Experience Editions

I use the Kartra Membership platform to create a multimedia repository for books, audio, video, downloadable resources, exercises, and more to create a rich digital version of your book and any related course creation elements.

I marry a course creation platform with multimedia publishing.

Here are some examples:

Marketing Differently 

We often say the time to start marketing your book course or product is when you have the main idea and a working title.

Further than that, you can develop the content as part of your marketing campaign.

Let’s say you have an outline for a course and book. You can present each topic on your outline in live sessions and posts, all leading back to a landing page with an opt-in for a mailing list and a membership that grows over time.

You can start selling access right away, build engagement, and get feedback on your content.

Here are some related articles:

What Is Your Dream Project?

I can help implement the many components to take your books, courses, and story productions from concept to launch.

I can also help you repurpose the golden nuggets in your existing books, courses, and content. You likely have more resources than you think.

Or simply help you market existing products and services.

Let’s chat!

My Golden Offer

Let’s take a look at your publishing and marketing project and find a way to create a win for everyone.

One possibility is a modest retainer plus profit sharing for your offer.

I create the framework and marketing campaigns for success.

The Four-Hour Power Launch For Your Golden Offer

January 25, 2024 /

I have had a lot of success selling things like concert and stage production tickets from simple landing pages. Also things like How to Coach Baseball to Kids and other programs and products that people wanted.

It is a lot easier to sell something that people know they want and are actively seeking. Then the mission is to let people know about your Golden Offer and send people to the landing page.

The Four-Hour Power Launch is all about getting people to your landing page to either buy something or sign up for something.

Examples include:

  • Concert
  • Stage Production
  • Book Launch
  • Course Launch
  • Webinar Registration
  • Product
  • Information that Change Lives
  • …

Everything I will describe for a Power Launch can be done without cost with channels and tools you likely already have.

My Golden Offer is to have a discussion with you about doing a Power Launch for you in return for a percentage of sales

Your Golden Offer

This strategy assumes that you have a Golden Offer, like The Golden Key To Eternal Satisfaction, ready to roll and the mission is to let them know about it and get them to buy.

Here I am making up a Golden Offer that I am fairly sure would interest millions of people, as we head toward Superbowl Sunday.

Hang Out With Taylor Swift For Superbowl Sunday and Support Your Favorite Charity!

This assumes that the Kansas City Chiefs get by the Baltimore Ravens in the Conference Final. That will be tough as the Baltimore Ravens have been the most consistently competitive team through the regular season and the playoffs.

The Chiefs will need some Patrick Mahones ~ Travis Kelce ~ Taylor Swift magic.

The offer would look something like this:

Want to Hang Out With Taylor Swift On Superbowl Sunday?


Enter here to win a day with Taylor Swift including all of the Superbowl Sunday activities she attends ~ Pregame Events, Watch the Game, and Postgame Events.

As a winner, we will donate all of the net proceeds of this contest to a charity of your choice. We anticipate that donation to be millions of dollars that can change lives.

Enter the contest for $1

Enter Now!

Important: This is a fictional contest as a hypothetical example.

The Power Launch Roadmap

Here is the strategy I use do a launch within a day for a Golden Offer, something that people will want and sign up with a single exposure.

  1. Have a compelling offer.
  2. Create a Splash image for the offer.
  3. Create a landing page that presents the offer in a way that converts. I use Kartra for sales pages.
  4. Send your mailing list that describes the offer with a link to the sales page.
  5. Post one or more blog posts that send people to the landing page.
  6. Prerecord or live stream a video introducing the offer and sending to the landing page. I set up a LinkedIn event, then use StreamYard to broadcast to many channels, including:
    • LinkedIn
    • YouTube
    • Facebook Profile, Pages, and Groups
    • Instagram
    • X (twitter)
    • …
  7. Use a social media tool like MeetEdgar to post to platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TicToc, Pinterest, …
  8. Publish as a podcast to Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Amazon, and others. I recently started using Buzzsprouts to push the podcasts out to the podcast platforms.

The main goal is to make sales, signups, and build a mailing list.

Most of the campaign is reusing the same marketing content across many platforms.

Since the whole process can be done in a few hours. you can repeat multiple times a week with variations of the posts.

I am available to do this with you or for you.

Paid Services to Consider

Everything described in the Power Launch Roadmap can be done with free or near-free websites and free video and social media accounts.

The following paid services can amplify the results, leverage your time, and integrate the marketing.

Paid Advertising

You can get your offer out to thousands of people in a targeted audience with Facebook ads and boosts for less than $40 a week.

This works very well for things like selling concert tickets and theater productions.

You may want to experiment with paid advertising with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others. Start small and add money to ads that make sales.

You may also want to try radio and print ads. Radio ads can be very cost-effective for local markets.

Press Releases

Press releases can be a fantastic way to get publicity for your projects. An interview with a newspaper, magazine, radio program, or television station can be priceless.

You can send your press releases yourself.

You could also use a service to get your press release out to thousands of outlets.

Here is a comprehensive review of many recommended services for press releases.

https://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-press-release-service/

Available to Help

I can help you plan and implement your Power Launch for Your Golden Offer.

I can also do it all for you with my tools and strategies.

Add a Digital Experience Edition to Your Journey ~ Make Sales!

November 29, 2023 /

A Digital Experience Edition is for you if ANY of these apply to you:

  • You plan to publish a print book.
  • Your current books could use a boost in attention and sales.
  • You have multimedia content that could be made into books.
  • A course or membership program would fit your content.
  • You have stories to share!

What is a Digital Experience Edition?

A Digital Experience Edition is a structured collection of multimedia elements made available in a content portal.

Access to different parts of the content can be restricted by access levels.

What are the Benefits of a Digital Experience Edition?

Here are some of the advantages over printed books alone:

  • You can test your content early in the process by giving trusted reviewers access.
  • Videos, audio readings, downloads, exercises, and other elements can create a great experience for the reader.
  • You can start selling and marketing the Digital Experience Edition early in the Book Journey process.

Examples of Digital Experience Editions

Here are video tours of different uses for the Digital Experience Edition.

Tales from the Turkey Table by Bill Allman

This is a full-on Publishing Journey including a Digital Experience Edition, Paperback, and Kindle version.

The Rocket Norton Vault

This is a collection of most of musician and writer Rocket Norton‘s lifetime creative output, including books, recordings, videos, photos, and courses,

The Digital Experience Edition with Marketing Success Playbook

This package is for you if you have books, courses or other content that would go well in a Digital Experience Edition.

Includes:

  • Organizing your content into a Digitial Experience Edition.
  • Sales Landing Page.
  • Marketing Success Roadmap.
  • Launch Marketing.
  • Ongoing Content Expansion and Marketing Support.

$488 for the first month, plus $188 per month for ongoing hosting and marketing support.

We meet weekly to prioritize actions.

Limited Packages Available

If you want the Complete Book Journey with the Digital Experience Edition, published books, and comprehensive marketing, the Publishing Sales Machine may be for you.

What is the Publishing Sales Machine?

We combine the content collected during the book development process to create a Digital Experience Edition, Marketing Assets, and Sales on the journey to publishing the print editions.

This makes the Book Journey fun and profitable early in the process.

Is the Publishing Sales Machine Right for You?

Let’s chat.

How To Sell Books Published Through IngramSpark and Amazon KDP

November 13, 2023 /

Most authors who self-publish themselves or through a book consultant make few or no sales.

Part of the problem is that they upload the formatted files and covers to IngramSpark or Amazon KDP and expect sales to roll in without fully understanding how the books get sold.

IngramSpark

IngramSpark is a great choice for many authors because it puts your book into a very large distribution channel including most book retailers, libraries, Apple Books and Amazon.

So. How do you sell your book through IngramSpark?

IngramSpark does not provide a way for your fans to buy your book directly through them.

You sell by doing one or all of the following:

  1. Buy print copies yourself and sell them.
  2. Take payments yourself and order the books from your author link to IngramSpark to be printed and delivered to the client by IngramSpark.
  3. Convince book retailers to order through IngramSpark and promote your books.
  4. Send them to Apple Books and Amazon to buy them.

The bottom line is:

No One Will Buy Your Books If You Don’t Market Them

And selling the books yourself may required and recommended. We can help with that.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Understanding how your books sell on Amazon is easier to understand.

  1. Upload your book.
  2. Send people to Amazon to buy printed books or Kindle books.
  3. Order copies to give away or sell in person.

Since IngramSpark submits to Amazon KDP, IngramSpark is a good way to get on Amazon and also have a wider distribution through the IngramSpark distribution network.

Our Book Journey Marketing Plan

Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon offer a Complete Book Journey service that takes a book through development, writing, editing, formatting, and publishing through IngramSpark, Amazon KDP, or a book publishing company if you can secure a publishing deal.

Our marketing plan includes:

  • Sales Landing Page.
  • Blog Posts.
  • Social Media Posts.
  • YouTube Support.
  • Book Brigade.
  • Publicity Strategy.

We can also help with the sales and drop-ship model that works well with IngramSpark.

They can also help with direct sales of a digital version of your book Greg Dixon calls a Digital Experience Edition.

The Digital Experience Edition

Greg Dixon creates a multimedia version of your book that includes the text as well as images, audio and video components that enrich the reader experience.

We can create a Digital Experience Edition of your book and make digital sales as soon as the final editing is completed and while the book is being formatted and submitted for publishing.

Generate sales AND create a buzz for the printed book

Let’s talk about what would work for your book ready to be published.

And a Digital Experience Edition may create some life and cash flow to books you have already published that are getting little or no sales.

Let’s talk about your books.

Your Book Journey With Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon

October 3, 2023 /
View on LinkeIn

Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon talk about what they mean by a Book Journey and how it could look for Your Book Journey.

Betty and Greg can help you with your book from idea to publishing and marketing by either teaching you the steps or by working with you.

Typical Book Journey

  • You decide you want to write a book.
  • Brainstorm topics and themes for a book.
  • Brainstorm titles and descriptions.
  • Collect ideas for the book content.
  • Create an outline.
  • Expand the outline.
  • Developmental Editing
  • Copy Editing
  • Proofreading.
  • Formatting.
  • Final reviews and edits.
  • Submit for publishing
  • Marketing (which we will encourage you to start at the beginning of the book journey).

Your book journey may look a little different, though these are the main steps.

Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon can help you with your book journey from where you are in the process now.

Maybe you are at step one or you could be ready for editing and formatting,

Let’s discuss.

Book Journey Offers

Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon can help you in various ways, including a retainer to take the journey with you.

Publishing Sales Machine

A great path for you could be their Publishing Sales Machine where they combine creating a book, a continuity program, and sales during the development process.

The main idea is that the content that would go into a book can also go into an online course or program as well as be used for marketing to boost your authority and attract clients and sales.

Betty and Greg offer a low-cost workshop program as well as a personal retainer.

Publishing, Marketing, and Membership Sales Machine ~ Great for Authors!

September 24, 2023 /

When clients ask us to help them write and publish a book, we suggest also creating a course and starting the marketing early on the journey.

If clients start with creating an online course or membership, we ask if they have considered writing a book.

And of course, we suggest starting the marketing right away!

We often suggest to clients who want pure marketing services that they consider writing a book and creating a course.

Leveraging Content Immediately

In most cases, the content that goes into a non-fiction book can also be used for an online course and in marketing campaigns to create buzz.

Group Workshops and Presentations ~ More Appealing than AI Content and Marketing

Your content can also be used for workshops and presentations, both to create interest and as part of a paid membership program.

We think it is important to do live presentations and workshops with time for group discussion and questions to stand out from the rising flood of AI content and marketing.

People will pay to engage with you.

Your Membership Continuity Program

There are many advantages to creating a monthly membership program rather than an online course:

  • A great way to test if there is interest in your subject matter.
    If people do not try the membership for something like $1 for the first month, there may not be an interest in the book or course as presented. Back to planning.
  • You can test the content and get valuable feedback. Weekly group training sessions are fabulous for this.
  • You can start generating revenue early to fund the development of the book and online.
  • The content presented weekly can be used for marketing.
  • More people will subscribe to a low-cost subscription than a higher-priced course. You can create stand-alone courses out of the membership content later.
  • Ongoing subscription revenue can grow considerably.
    $20 a month starts looking quite substantial when you grow to have thousands of subscribers. And your only subscription could be higher.
    $97 is quite common.

The Publishing, Marketing, and Membership Sales Machine

Here it is in a nutshell:

  • Create an outline for your content
  • Create a title, description, and first sections
  • Create a landing page for people to sign up for a mailing list.
  • Establish a membership area using a platform such as Kartra (we can provide those components).
  • Plan to create content for a section in your outline each week.
  • Present that content in an online workshop each week. You can offer the workshop for free, with supporting resources and recordings going into the paid membership area.
  • Offer the monthly subscription at a low trial rate for the first month.
  • Continue until the book and program are completed and published.
  • Start the next book and program.

Our Publishing Sales Machine Retainer

We also offer a monthly retainer to help you implement all the steps of your Publishing, Marketing, and Membership Sales Machine.

Our goal is to generate revenues as early as possible to pay for the retainer.

$540 per month until cancelled

Meanwhile, book an appointment with us to learn more.

Our Publishing Sales Machine Membership Program

Walking our talk, we will offer a membership and workshop series to teach you how to implement the Publishing, Marketing, and Membership Sales Machine yourself.

Copywriting and Multimedia Marketing for Your Creative Abundance

September 20, 2023 /

Both Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon have done a lot of writing for an amazing range of projects. Whatever is needed to get the job done.

Betty’s niche of choice is helping writers create their books and longer-form writing projects.

Greg has a lot of experience with various kinds of copywriting for training and marketing.

Betty Withrow often says that the time to start marketing your book is when you decide to start writing it.

The same is true of courses, memberships, and other creations.

Copywriting

While almost everything humans create and communicate involves words (writing), the kinds of copywriting we do include:

  • Blog Posts
  • Emails
  • Newsletters
  • Social Media Posts
  • Presentations
  • Networking Introductions
  • Training
  • Demonstrations
  • Product Descriptions
  • Landing Pages
  • Video Scripts
  • Chat Scripts
  • Songs
  • Audio Books
  • …

Multimedia Components

With the exception of text-only emails, virtually all writing for marketing is combined with media such as an image, video, or audio.

Text and media work together for the greatest impact.

Even blog posts like this use an image to display when shared on social media.

Integrated Marketing

Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon include copywriting and multimedia with the projects we do for clients.

Greg Dixon offers two comprehensive retainers.

One is a monthly retainer to do whatever is needed for your success until cancelled. That could include the Golden Publishing Sales Machine.


The other is a one-and-done deal to implement something like the Publishing Cash Machine one time.

Publishing, Marketing, and Memberhip Cash Machine for Authors.

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