I agree with a few others... Rather than study "magic marketing gurus" I have studied what I believe to be the best minds in marketing, period! Most of the "magic marketing guys" are simply students of people like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham.

For my money Dan Kennedy has no equal. His CD's are VERY high priced however you can buy his books in any big box bookstore and just about everything he sells on the high priced CD's is in there... the only problem is you actually have to read them!!!

As I mentioned on another post... We are magicians playing the part of marketers!!!

I do believe we should work on our marketing skills almost as much as we do our magic skills... maybe more. that's if you actually want to work in the business.

Good Luck!

As I glance over at my collection of marketing and business materials I've purchased over the years, I see material from Dan Kennedy, Alexandria Brown, James Malinchak, Jay Abraham, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Chris Widener, Michael Port, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Timothy Ferris, Perry Belcher, Denis Waitlley, Zig Ziglar, & Brian Tracy. And this is just the material that is within arms length.

I have another bookshelf full of books and marketing courses that would take up a page to write. None of these marketing "gurus" have anything to do with the magic business, yet they they have everything to do with the magic business.

I also have marketing courses from magician marketers like Jim Snack, Steve Hart, and Joel Bauer. I can't say any one course or book is better than the other. I've benefited immensely from all of them, and I continue to learn, experiment, and adapt the information so it benefits my magic business.

So for me, they are all the best.

With that in mind, if you're on a budget, the best would be books on marketing from your local library or bookstore. If you've got some extra cash on hand, then learn from the people that are already doing what you want to do. Emulate the actions of the people that have already achieved the success you seek, and achieve similar results. The learning curve will be much shorter.

Respectfully,

Lou Serrano

Just curious...is that book easily applied to any market? for instance: In the birthday party business....you not only need to run an ad...you need to place it in front of the appropriate readers(parents magazines)

Also, what kind of financial investment are you looking at in order to put the steps into action?

Sincerely,
Charles Watson

Good question Curt!

Great posts and shares guys!

I don’t know about anyone else, but regardless of the market each may, or may not serve, all I want is REAL, Road-Tested RESULTS “BOTH” inside and outside of magic or speaking or running a business… etc

Sure there are a TON of killer books & tools out her both inside and outside of ANY niche and each have their far share of awesome truths as well as dying-dawgs each… so for me the question is less about (to me...) “inside or outside” of any particular niche "to the exclusion of one or the other", I look to BOTH inside and outside of each niche FOR REAL, Profit Producing RESULTS!

If a ‘niche’ expert can help me, bring it on!
If a generalist can help, I’m all for that as well!

A long look at my own library (thousands of books, tools, systems, resources from all over the place) show that there is value in proven results regardless of their so-called niche or not…

SURE someone inside a niche that is working IS of real value IF they really are getting real results and are further along the road towards where I want to be, I LOVE learning from strong winners like that as well…

I don’t think that it is “one to the exclusion of another”. I think it is more about what will help me (each of us) get the real RESULTS we are looking for based on REAL EXPERIENCE and THEN evaluate each from there…

Just one more experience to share…

I am at your service and in HIS Service,
Dean
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I just finished my MBA in marketing and during my studies I was always trying to apply what I was learning to the magic industry. Gene Urban brought up a key point about branding yourself and what you do. It's difficult to brand your magic outside of a promotions industry specific approach that does the hard work for you.

One big issue with websites is the text and search engine optimization (SEO). The copy on the website can use words that will generate higher ratings on a search engine without paying high fees for someone else to do it. The trick with SEO is using phrases that your target audience may type into the search function. A large city has so many magicians with the same phrases on their websites that when the search list comes up it is inundated with substandard (unprofessional) websites that the customer has to wade through until they find one that looks legitimate to them. A couple of years ago Myspace was a great way to market your magic brand because everything was essentially free of charge but now, that site has bad marketing karma written all over it and marketers and advertisers are leaving in droves and users are migrating to sites like Facebook.

My advice would be to look at a mix of older techniques such as guerilla marketing and new approaches like twitter and linkedin. Our industry is so specialized that tried and true methods that work for corporations and the mass marketing ideal have to be pared down to basics so that we can see what may work for us out of the multitude of techniques and use those to our best business advantage.