Hope you are enjoying the Business of Belly Dance series, and feeling more excited about going professional with belly dancing.
If you are new here, here are the previous posts in the series:
Introduction to Business of Belly Dance
Make a Website in 4 Steps for Dancers
Like I said before, I love people who are doing what they love. And to make it sustainable, you have to work on the business details (or hire someone to take care of them).
So today, in this last post of the Business of Belly Dance series, I want to share with you 3 case studies of professional belly dancers and costumer that are doing great online marketing.
In my opinion, key to successful online marketing is that your online activities don’t appear like marketing. No one likes overly assertive sales-y people. But you develop good relationships with your current and potential customers.
So what do you do? Let’s see what these 3 talented women are doing.
3 Online Marketing Case Studies
Mahin (http://shes-got-hips.com/)
You may know her already. She’s got this great website where you can learn about her, of course, and so much about belly dancing. She’s got great articles on her blog about belly dance music, performance and business.
But to me, the best part of her website is her Mahin’s Bellydance Quickes. It’s a newsletter that you can sign up and she sends out great content a few times a week. She talks about everything belly dance related, like belly dance techniques, new styles, costuming tips and so on. You may have discovered Sparkly Belly through her newsletters, since she’s been so kind to share my content there. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you sign up for Mahin’s Bellydance Quickies!
Having been her subscriber, I’ve learned a lot from her and I feel connected with her and her community. It makes me want to support her work, and if she’s ever in town, I’d love to take her workshops. This, I think, is power of her newsletter, and it’s a great example of meaningful online marketing.
Princess Farhana (http://www.princessfarhana.com/)
She is not only an awesome belly dancer and performer but the belly dance queen of online marketing, in my opinion. If you are a belly dancer, you have probably heard her name before online and/or offline.
First, she’s got a blog where you can find lots of very useful information about belly dancing (Check it out here). As I mentioned in the first part of this Business of Belly Dance series, she writes about everything belly dance – make up, business, practice tips etc.
Now what amazes me is her online presence – she is everywhere! As far as I know, she is regularly posting and sharing photos and content on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.
There’s not a day I don’t see her on social media… and I enjoy it, because the stuff she shares on social media is interesting, educational, entertaining or all of the above.
It may be an interesting dance clip she found, or her own picture backstage, or photos from the past.
Through these updates, I feel I get to know her better, I like her not only as a dancer but as a person, and when she shares information about her upcoming products or workshops, I WANT to know! 🙂
If you are on social media and feel apologetic about sharing your class or product information etc, shift your focus to sharing other useful content for your audience as well as your business. I think it’s a more positive way to utilize social media for your marketing 🙂
Eshta Amar (https://www.facebook.com/eshta.amar)
Now I want to mention 1 belly dance costume designer, Eshta Amar. You’ve probably heard about her costumes. She creates beautiful custom costumes, and who doesn’t want to see how these costumes are made? 😉
She has a Facebook page where she shares photos of costumes she’s making and behind the scenes on a daily basis.
I think it’s wonderfully effective in marketing her service, because even when you’re not looking for a costume to buy, it is entertaining for any dancer to see the progress she’s making with her projects. Her photos get over 100 likes!
(And I just spent 15 minutes “liking” her photos as I write this post…!)
And you get to know her work, and next time you decide to invest in a quality costume, you’ll think about her 🙂
If you like costumes, check out her Facebook page 😉
Key to Successful Online Marketing for Belly Dancers
To me, key to successful online marketing is this:
Keep education and entertainment in mind.
All of the above people share so much online for free. It may be in forms of tutorials, blog posts, videos, photos…. anything. But they are either educational or entertaining (if not both!) to their audience, and their audience love them for what they share!
I know many dancers worry about sharing their work for free. It is true, it takes a lot of time to put together tutorials or even take pretty photos of yourself and share them online and think clever things to say about them.
But marketing yourself online is simply to tell people about your beautiful work. Compared to any conventional marketing – like flyers, magazine advertisement, online advertisement, sponsorship etc – it’s more meaningful when it’s educational and/or entertaining. It connects you to your audience. And of course, online marketing costs you way less (mostly free) than conventional marketing methods.
Okay, now you might be wondering where to start?
I know, the world of online marketing seems so deep and confusing. So I’ve put together a resource for you.
Introducing Belly Dancer in Business: Practical Tips on Online Marketing & Business for Artist Oriented Minds
Are you an aspiring professional dancer?
Or do you already teach classes and/or perform gigs?
But not sure how to approach online marketing?
After years of being both a belly dancer and an online entrepreneur, I’ve compiled what I learned over the years and explained online business specifically for belly dancers in this 1 eBook, Belly Dancer in Business.
It’s basically about how belly dancers can take advantage of online business tools and make your passion a sustainable career. It is explained step-by-step, in a very friendly language. 🙂
I love people who are doing what they love…and I want to help YOU to keep doing what you love – belly dancing.
Whether you want to teach or become a well-known belly dancer, equip yourself with online business skills with this book.
This eBook is going to go on sale on this page TOMORROW on Friday, March 11, 2016 PST. We’ll have a special promotion for the launch weekend, so stay tuned!
For now, go ahead and check out the above 3 women and prepare yourself for the successful belly dancing career that you’ve always dreamed of.
Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
