I recently retired from my day job, and took up writing. Seriously. In that order. It’s not like I stood on a stage with hecklers shouting ‘keep your day job…” but some days it feels that way. Today is one of those days. Why? Because today I attended my first Writers Group meeting, and felt the angst of seasoned writers unable to get their writings to market.
That’s when I chose to read an excerpt from one of my previous pieces “Marketing, Pay for it or Play for it – either way it’s gonna cost you’, innocently raising the room temperature from mild frustration to annoyance, as an elephant entered the room.
So, then I thought, may as well bring the whole circus in! (The Circus concept is not mine, but I do like to play with the words.)
The Circus
If the circus was coming to town, and you went looking for a site to pitch the ‘Big Top’, that’s market research.
If you painted a sign before the circus came to town announcing, “Circus Coming to Town on Saturday!”, that’s advertising.
If you put your sign on the back of an elephant and marched it through town, that’s promotion.
If the elephant, still with the sign on his back, tramples through the mayor’s garden, and it makes the evening news, that’s publicity.
If you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations.
If you created, planned and managed all these activities, that’s MARKETING!
Marketing, Like it or leave it, you gonna need it.
