Advertising -- ABC's of Marketing

Badge art by Ada Z from Collagepodge.com

       Advertising is an integral part of promotion.  Typically advertising is  paid for or at least requires some sort of investment in materials.  The purpose of advertising is to create awareness of what I will refer to as product throughout this series.   The advertising also provides knowledge, branding, intrigue, and hype.

       For the A to Z Challenge I started a blog devoted to the event and gave the event a name that was easy to remember.   In November I enlisted the creative skills of artist Ada Z to develop a logo that we could use as a badge to be used on the A to Z Blog and for participants to use on their own blogs to identify them as part of the A to Z community.   This event has been being advertised on the A to Z Blog, the blogs of the Challenge co-hosts, and many of the blogs of participants.  All advertising in our case has been free.

        If you are an author or a creator of some unique product you will need to resort to various forms of advertising in order to get your name out in the public eye.  This is likewise true if you are a business owner or even involved in an organization such as a church or social service provider.

         Free advertising is nice but not always easy to get.  In order to get your product before more people you will need to decide on an advertising budget.  Start small and choose your advertising platforms wisely.  Do as much research as you can before making a decision so you don't squander your budget in useless places.

My Letter A honoree is Ada Z.   

         Ada Zdanowicz is an multi-media artist in New Jersey.  Her specialties are collage and video.   She can be found at her website collagepodge.com.  Thank you Ada for the A to Z logo, promo video, and other additional help you have given to the A to Z Challenge.

A also stands for Alliterative Allomorph:

At her blog Alliterative Allomorph Jessica Bell will be having a drawing every two days during April.  She will be pulling lucky winners from the comments on her posts.  Be sure to stop by her blog and also visit her music website.

Related articles

• Going into Advertising (tugbaski.wordpress.com)
• Small enterprise Blog site Advertising and marketing: Precisely what does This Include? (evilmasterreport.com)
• Wonderful Television Advertising Promotions From The 21st Century (technologyofcomputer.wordpress.com)
• A number of Techniques to generate From Your Web site Employing Advertising (boldstate.com)
• Facebook advertising - Test if you Like it. Test if you don't! (marketing.yell.com)
• Reblogged: Blogging Tops Advertising as Highest ROI for Online Marketing (zemanta.com)

Where Everyone Is a Winner: A to Z Video Challenge

          If you haven't heard who was the winner of the A to Z Video Challenge yet, I am proud to announce that the winner by popular vote was Rachel Morgan of Rachel Morgan Writes.   Here is the winning video for anyone who has not seen it yet or would like to see it again:



          Rachel's video is indeed a winner as you can see when you watch it.  As her prize she will be featured on various A to Z co-host blogs, which conveniently coincides with the release of her new book Guardian (Creepy Hollow #1).  You will be hearing from Rachel on Tossing It Out this coming Friday.  I'm looking forward to what surprises she will have in store as I asked her more questions than she could answer in one post.   Which ones will she choose to address?   We'll have to find out on Friday when our Video Challenge winner stops by.


         The winning video was chosen by those of you who were kind enough to vote and you are winners as well.   The votes were well distributed among the entrants making the contest a close race.  I want to put out a big thank you to everyone who voted, who tweeted, who posted videos on their sites, and who supported the Video Challenge in some way.  


         And you can continue to support us by posting these videos on your sites, marking them as favorites on YouTube and leaving comments, emailing them to friends, and sending them out on social media outlets.   These videos are commercials for the A to Z Challenge.   With one last week to push the A to Z event let's do it up big and make a media blitz.  You'll be helping the cause of the Challenge and also helping get the talents of the video makers out in the eyes of the world.   You'll be doing something special that will be greatly appreciated.


         Though Rachel is the winner of the contest, in this post I want to recognize the fabulous efforts of the other participants:


            Ron Easton of  Dads Unlimited was the inspiration for the Video Challenge.  He posted a video recap of his 2011 Challenge Reflections back in December that set off an idea alarm in my head.  When I mentioned my thoughts to him about having a contest for people to send in A to Z promo videos he immediately came up with his entry to start the ball rolling.


            Ada Zdanowicz is someone I'll be talking about more in later posts.   She is the designer of the official A to Z logo.  Since I knew that she was also involved in video making, I contacted Ada about making a second video entry and she jumped right on it with her slick creative presentation.  Ada doesn't have a blog but she can be found at her website CollagePodge.com .   


           Nicole Ayers is someone you have seen often on my blogs.  Nicole is a talented writer to whom I have frequently turned for guest posts.   Not only did she assist me in putting together the Video Challenge and offering suggestions about it, she also submitted 3 videos of her own.  A big Bravo! to Nicole who can be found at The Madlab Post.  


         Also I want to thank these others who submitted their wonderfully creative and entertaining videos:






  Marta Szemik                      Marta Szemik's Blog
 Kathleen Medina                  Living 2012
 Dale Smurthwaite                 Smurfin' the Web
 Tracy Jo Blowers                Brand New Day  
 Reka Sang                           A Chronicle of Dreams
  Jocelyn Rish                        Jocelyn Rish
       I am so appreciative of all of the efforts of these bloggers and talented artists.  I hope that my readers will stop by all of their blogs to say hello and follow if you aren't already.   And don't forget to watch their videos if you haven't already.
          After all, the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is all about us--you and me and everyone one else who will be putting forth the April effort and who has already been putting forth the effort to make the April Challenge a big success.  The Challenge is many things and many people and I extend a thanks to all of you.
                 Have you included any of the A to Z videos in your blog posts?  Have you visited the videos directly on YouTube to "Like" them and add your comment?   Have you tweeted or Facebooked any of these videos?    What are some other ways you can suggest to share the videos?

Things To Come

         Halloween is coming-- of course we know that.  Can you believe that as I write this Halloween is only two short weeks away.  Then we know for the most part what comes after that.  Holiday seasons!  Thanksgiving has always been a favorite for me.  Then there are so many things to like about the Christmas season.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  I'll be writing about those things later, but first we need to finish with Halloween. But not today.  Instead I would like to look ahead at some other things you can expect to see on this site and make my most recent big announcement.

          Saturdays just don't seem to be conducive toward in depth writing.  There's alway too much going on it seems.  Go here, go there, and this and that.  So here are some quickies.

         I want to thank my good friend Sebastian Sidi for becoming a follower of this site.  In November I plan on doing a interview with Sebastian because if you don't know him yet I think you ought to meet him now. I think you are eventually going to hear about Sebastian anyway so you might as well perk up your ears and find out why more and more people keep on adding themselves to Sebastian's list of fans. If you want to get a preview of Sebastian Sidi and hear some of his music then check out his website -- I think you might be impressed.  Be following this blog for more about Sebastian Sidi.

        Another musician of note is Forrest Smith of Phoenix, AZ.  I've known Forrest for--well, I won't say for how long, just that it's been a long time.  He is a very fine songwriter, singer, and musician.  I can't say enough good things about Forrest so you can bet I'll have plenty to say in my feature about Forrest.

         Collagepodge  is an interesting business created by up and coming artist Ada Jackson of New Jersey.  Using her creative talents and artistic eye, Ada can take anything and turn it into something wonderful.  Her works of art are often commissioned as gifts or keepsakes. I'm sure that Ada will have some interesting ideas about art as heirlooms as well as other views about the world of art.

          Whether you are interested in photography or not, you may be interested in what Juan Velez has to say about the topic.  Juan has been making quite an impression in the world of sports photography and his pictures have appeared in many places. Maybe Juan can give us some pointers on how to take better photos when we get together for holiday events or just take better pictures anytime.  It's always good to hear from a pro.

         Finally, that "big" announcement that I mentioned in my teasing opening paragraph.  I made the plunge and signed up for NaNoWriMO.   "What!" you say?   In an earlier blog I wrote briefly about this.  It stands for National Novel Writing Month and you can check my earlier post for my comments about this or follow the link to the NaNo website if you want to get more details.  I will be writing more about this challenge you can be sure.  Between my upcoming novel and this blog and everything else I write, I hope I don't drown in a sea of words and phrases.  If any of you readers are participating in NaNo, then for the record my NaNo name is wordleeness.  Let me know if you are out there and good luck!  So the juggler of words and phrases has tossed it out to you-- got anything for me?