Trying to be… a Marvelous Me

So I’ve been gone a bit… The holidays crept up on me. For New Years, the Princeling and I went out of town. I can’t even claim that I didn’t have my laptop, for I did. I was also, however, trying my best to make a deadline for an anthology I wanted into (Made it! More on it later!)

Also in that mix was doing the launch of a newsletter with a company I’m involved with. Not my day job, but still. I was on pins and needles, but not for the reason you might think. There is someone I deal with that does have a rather different view on marketing, and I end up doing revision after revision after revision. Not this time. Not only is it something I’m proud of, they seemed to like it at first go, too.

Whew!

Then this weekend I decided to finally make my Author Facebook Page. You can find me here. Hopefully, if I did the link right. If not, search under Wynelda Ann Deaver. There’s some photos up right now, but not a whole lot of content. Next Saturday, I’ll be going out with the Admin for my page (because I know I can’t do it on my own), and talk about where we want to go and what I see it as. One thing we’ve started is uploading images both under inspiration and Wayfarer Wanderings. We’ll be running contests, such as small gift randomly at 50 likes, a literary art gift at 100 likes, and then something super cool at 200 likes. I firmly believe that on the Author Facebook page, if I make it all about me… it will fail. I look at all the author FB pages I like, and they share a little bit about what they’re doing, of course…. but it’s not all “Buy my book”.

I could be wrong, but it’s the way I’m going.

Do you have an Author Face Book Page? How do you decide what to put on it? Do you enjoy it?

Writing

A few weeks ago, I was coming out of a local Togo’s and a kid stopped me and asked if I wanted to buy a CD, only 4 dollars. At first I thought it was boot legged… but no. It was his music, his beats. He believed so much in his music that he was out in that strip mall trying to get people to listen to his music. I gave him $4, and tried to walk away WITHOUT the CD.

Here, he called, you paid for it.

What kind of music is it? I asked.

“Rap, some R&B. ” You’ll like it.”

Not really kid, but thanks for trying.The whole thing was well worth the four dollars to get the lesson in self promotion. Or maybe self confidence. Here he was, seeking his audience, the only way available to him.

Very cool. I was jealous.

Writers don’t do that, I thought.

Then came the article on the internet. About the guy in San Fransisco, who started some really great magazine, retired, and is now going about the city and reading from his work (pertinent to where he is at the moment). Finding new audiences, sharing his world, his talent to whomever cares to listen. And they do! They listen! Otherwise, it would be a story about the old demented writer who went off his rocker.

I know poets go out and perform in public. Once in a while, writers will read from their work at a book signing. These guys took it to a different level, though. The whole thing got me thinking: what kind of confidence does that sort of radical self promotion take? Because they are absolutely sure that who ever is listening is going to love their work. That’s the only reason I can think of for it.

I want it so badly I can taste it. Even though I have no idea where I would go do my radical self promotion… by a lake? At a zoo? Perhaps a talent night at a local cafe, I can read something.

Or not.

Cuz I’m a scardey cat. Gonna take some time to get over that LOL. I can make it one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012. Do one public reading of an original work.

Hmmm….

Marketing Monday- Her Royal Highness Style

Dear Mr. Ewanick,

In my previous email, I suggested a blog approach. My husband noticed that Kia hit that approach starting last week. So, it was a good idea, but if we used it now it would just look like copy-cat. And Chevy, the American Dream Car, deserves so much more than that. Especially with Kia.

I also mentioned in my previous email that there were two models of current Chevrolet cars that I had never heard of. One of those was the HHR. My immediate thought was OOOHHH… This ain’t my daddy’s station wagon. The HHR looks like a rock n roll princess family car. A muscle car for those of us with car seats and creaky knees. I love it. And so will other people, just as soon as you get the name on their lips. And one of the best ways to do that is straight up relationship selling. On this one, we’re going to use a man, but it will still net you the female consumers.

The first thing I noticed when I saw the name of the car, HHR, was how close it is to HRH (Her Royal Highness). Could do the rock n roll princess as an adult, the girly muscle car, however that’s a little too eccentric for the first time out. We’ll capture more attention doing it this way instead:

SCENE: A little girl in glorious cacophony of dress up, twirling around and playing with a magic wand. You could even have her turning rocks into trolls, or frogs into princes.

VOICE OVER: “The only coach worth of Her Royal Highness, Fairy Princess Emily. The Chevrolet HHR.”

SCENE: A horn sounds, along with the “C’mon, lets go!” of her father who is standing with the rear door to an HHR open. The little girl runs over, hair flying.

VOICE OVER: “Chevrolet: Live the American Dream.”

I’ve got a bazillion ideas, bouncing around in my head. They’re relevant, but more importantly they will sell cars to women like me. Families like mine. My brain doesn’t work quite like other peoples: I like puzzles, pulling at things and shaping and reshaping them until an idea hits. The puzzle I’m fixated on right now is putting Chevrolet back in the front of the pack. All this creative horsepower, just waiting to be harnessed.

Let’s take a drive,

Marekting Monday— First Try

1. NOTE: SOME STRONG LANGUAGE

In Mr. Ewanick’s defense…. I’m not even sure he’s getting the emails. But here is the first try. Let me know what you think. As I said before, according to dear husband, Kia already beat us to the punch. But some good ideas none the less, I think.

This was emailed 2 or 3 weeks ago.

TTFN!

Dear Mr. Ewanick,

My first love was a 1976 Camaro. It was red with a white vinyl hard top. It wasn’t just the speed and power that led to devotion. It was the confidence and freedom that it conferred on me by default. In the Camaro, I was an Amazon Princess.  During the days before self help & Dr. Phil, the only “therapy” I needed was a full tank of gas and the open road.  My best friend and I used to hop in the car and just drive for hours. No destination, the drive itself  the point. I can still remember driving it through the Sunol Pass, windows down, blasting AC/DC’s Highway to Hell– “Hey Momma, Look at me, I’m on my way to the promised land.”

20 years later, and I still miss that car. I miss that feeling, which has never been re-captured. When it became apparent that I had no talent for working on cars, let alone a muscle car, and my dad (elderly) couldn’t, The Amazonian Princess’ chariot was passed down to the next generation (my nephew). He still has it, BTW, along with several others. We’re a loyal bunch.

If I would do anything to re-capture that kind of freedom,  where every time I got in my car I was escaping INTO my real life… I can only imagine that GM & Chevrolet would love to reclaim the devotion of consumers. To that end, I have a plan.

First off, the current marketing  strategy (or lack there of) is not working. The only thing I can remember from a GM commercial is an accessory: On Star. Not the car, not the brand, just On Star. I finally saw a Chevrolet commercial last night, and I still couldn’t tell you what car it was selling. There were no people, just pictures of cars and numbers and a voice over. There was nothing for me to connect to.

When I went through your website, I noticed that you are advertising the 2011 Blaze as having been globally tested. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we don’t really care about what people in England, or France or Kalamazoo think about a car. During the recession, the American People (regular people) have become more insular. We have a belief that no one else can possibly know what we’re going through, or what our lives are like.  Do they have to pinch pennies until they bleed copper tears? How much stuff do they have to fit into the trunk? Do they have to travel 60, 100 miles a day just to get to and from work?

GM, and Chevrolet, needs to connect to American consumer again. Especially the female consumer. The men are going to come to the Camaro and Corvette regardless. Of course, you have the best advertising ever in the Transformer’s franchise. My four year old son can pick Bumblebee out of a swarm of yellow cars. (Although it took me MONTHS to figure out that ALL the Autobots are Chevy’s… Except maybe Optimus. And that ain’t right.)

But us women, we’re different. We like to know weird things about a car. Will my head (pony tail, hair) hit the roof? How many groceries can I fit in the trunk? Christmas gifts? How easy is it to get the infant/car/booster seat in and out of the back seat? How safe is the car? Does it make me look like the princess I am, with out needing Paris Hilton’s allowance for upkeep? How reliable is it? Does it have enough giddy-up and go so that I can escape into my real life in it?

What I propose is that you get real word of mouth going. Get some company cars into the hands of bloggers (preferably mine). We write about the cars, our adventures, even our complaints and submit them to you. You then run the blogs, cull them for advertising vignettes, and also gain invaluable data. It will also give you credibility (the voice of the blogs is going to be important) and relevancy. Plus, you can run a “Blog your Way into a Chevrolet” contest at the same time, which will generate even more interest.

You need to get the word out. When I went through your website for the current models, there are 2 car models I thought had been discontinued and three I had never heard of under Cars alone. That’s just not good enough for the Chevy I remember. The Chevy I remember allowed a girl plagued with self doubt to kick ass.

Lets go kick some ass together.

Julie and Julia: The Word Project

So I finally watched the movie Julie & Julia last night. Loved it. Made my heart just a wee bit happier for rooting for Julie. And Julia. But it made me start thinking…

Which, as we all know,  can be a dangerous thing with me. Heh.

Lately my brain has been spinning, trying to find a way to climb out of the pit of nastiness & depression that can try and seep in and steal the joy. One of the ways that I’ve been trying to do that is to petition GM, Joel Ewanick to be exact, for a new car. Or a job where I can afford a new car.

To that end, I’ve been sending him a marketing plan about one a week or every two weeks maybe. I’ve only sent in two so far. The first one, well, it was good but Kia beat poor GM to the punch. The second one rocks. Really.

So I have all these ideas for marketing a brand that it seems like everyone has given up on.A guy in Australia was telling me he thought Chevrolet had gone out of business. Seriously. I’ve been emailing Mr. Ewanick, but apparently he doesn’t like the ideas. So should I just give up?

C’MON. It wouldn’t be the American Dream if Washington had just given up.

Besides, quitting will just get me what I’ve always gotten. Lets face it, what I’ve got isn’t enough. If it was, I wouldn’t be using titles like “American Dream vs. American Nightmare.”

What’s new? Well, lets see… Apparently my creative spark is leaning towards marketing right now. Which would be great, if I knew how to extrapolate money from those ideas. I have the beginnings… I’ve been trying. So now I’m going to take the next step.

I’m going to start posting my ideas. And here is where my quandary lies. I’ve written a wide range of things on this blog, but it’s been intensely personal. Should I keep just the one blog, or go ahead and create a whole new one for just this?

Of course, the name of the blog is Wyn Words. MY WORDS. All of my words… Or only some of them? I’m currently leaning towards all of my words, get the full experience J  I rarely, if ever, post anything that I’m ashamed of or wouldn’t want someone in particular to read.

What do you think? I’ll post my first letter to Mr. Ewanick shortly, either here or somewhere else. Because someone, somewhere, is going to read my words and think “Hot Dawg! Lets get this girl writing for us!”