Business Opportunities Weblog

April 10, 2008 by Nicholas | 2 Comments

SearchEngineLand:

A small business can have millions of dollars in revenue and dozens of employees … or it can be a one-man-band, turning passion into a living. This month’s small business marketing success story is about the latter.

Meet John W. Tuggle, a guitarist living in Athens, Georgia. John has been playing guitar for 17 years, and giving private lessons for 14 years. Like many music instructors, John put his knowledge into a “how to” book and built a web site to sell it. That was about two years ago. After 18 months of struggles (he thinks he sold five books), John was ready to give up teaching; he was going to play gigs and be a studio engineer.

Enter Web 2.0. John was already internet savvy, but after listening to some internet marketing podcasts, he realized there might be an audience for his book and guitar lessons. But he had to do what very few music instructors do: Market beyond his local area. He went online to search for a professional web developer, and found Miriam & Liam Ellis of Solas Web Design.

“When I first talked to this guy,” Miriam says, “I could hardly believe my ears. [He said,] ‘I’m going to have a blog, and a podcast, and YouTube videos and digital downloads and live Skype lessons.’” Those are ambitious plans for any small business owner, but in just a couple months they’ve already worked. Gibson Guitars found John on YouTube and added him as a recommended instructor on their web site. John teaches more than 40 students, including one in Portugal who’s learning via Skype videoconferencing, and has another 10 students on a waiting list. He’s the very definition of a small business online marketing success story.

Image via lakewoodconferences

In Ecommerce | 2 Comments