Who is Your Website For?

Wildly Attractive Website in progress for
Kalli Halvorson, feminist astrologer

by Julia D. Stege, MFA
The Magical Marketer
Magical-Marketing.com

There is a lot of consensus in the marketing field that runs almost directly counter to my whole philosophy of Branding from the Heart and creating Wildly Attractive Websites. Here's the key difference, almost all of my marketing and branding coaches, mentors, colleagues and friends have been taught (or teach) that your website is about the clients you are attracting, not about you.

Even folks I know who agree to the importance of being authentic ultimately claim that the marketing is for the ones being attracted, almost leaving the business owner out of the picture. This is why I have felt it necessary to pursue a whole new paradigm for marketing.

It seems so obvious to me that as Soul-preneurs who have created businesses that forwards our purpose in the world, we would want marketing that matches our purpose. We would want it to feel like the results you create in the world.

I ask, how can your site do this when
you and your purpose are not considered important?

I also ask, how can we really know what will attract our ideal clients? Can we really read their minds and figure out their preferences? I say, no, not consistently anyway. Everyone has an opinion, right? And sometimes they change, daily. Traditional marketing has you target your audience, but your audience (the target) is constantly changing. Therefore you are targeting something that may not be there tomorrow.

So how can your site be truly effective
when it's about such a moving target?

When we create our marketing from the center of who we are, that is constant, that is unmoving, and that is wildly attractive to those who are seeking us right now. It is so attractive because they are like us, they are going where we are going. And they need our help to get there.

By consciously applying the Law of Attraction to our marketing, we recognize that "Like Attracts Like," and therefore, when we're authentic, true, and even vulnerable in our marketing, those who are like us, who really get and appreciate us, are naturally attracted to us.

It's with this in mind that I boldly declare (and sometimes frankly not so boldly, it's hard to contradict my own coaches...) a Wildly Attractive Website is all about you and your soul's purpose in the world.
More on how to create a Wildly Attractive Website in future articles.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with a unique combination of Intutive Branding, Soul SymbolsTM, Wildly Attractive WebsitesTM, and magical Internet marketing strategies. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com

George Harrison: Authentic Pioneer

Reflections on Seeing Scorsese’s Documentary “Living in the Material World”

By Julia D. Stege, MFA      

 “Blessed is he whose fame does not outshine his truth.”  ~ Rabindranath Tagore (One of George Harrison’s favorite poems, read by wife Olivia while accepting her husband’s induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame)

George Harrison was always my favorite Beatle, but he was more than a rock star to me. Looking back it’s difficult to measure the impact George had on my life. As a teenager, I listened endlessly to George’s musical poetry and contemplated the nature of humanity and God. He was the first to introduce me to spirituality. His songs helped me to see beyond the illusion of material reality and into the realm of the divine. 

While watching Martin Scorsese’s new HBO documentary on Harrison’s life called “Living in the Material World” I was reminded of George’s deep mysticism and the courage with which he brought his message to the world.

In the film there’s a clip where George says he thought a lot about whether or not to release his song My Sweet Lord which exposes Harrison’s yearning for oneness with God and extolls his belief that all religions are one.

“I thought a lot of people were going to really hate me because people fear the unknown. I felt like I was putting my neck out on the chopping block. But at the same time I thought ‘Nobody’s saying it …why should I be untrue to myself?’ I came to believe in the importance that if you feel something strong enough, then you should say it.”

Harrison’s courage was rewarded with a #1 single and the satisfaction that millions were being introduced to spirituality through his music. Conformity rarely comes with such rewards.

Harrison’s Example Can Inspire Spiritpreneurs

Many of my clients who are spiritually oriented entrepreneurs fear that marketing their businesses requires a degree of inauthenticity. They fear if they are ‘too honest” they might receive negative feedback by those not ready for their message.

Like George, many of us have worried that we’d get flack for being visionaries, for seeing the world differently, and for insisting on something more real than material accumulation for its own sake. George risked his rock-star status by staying true to his spiritual principles.

Many of us have feared we might lose our businesses if we follow our passion. But I believe the opposite is true. In a world where conscious entrepreneurship is on the rise, millions are seeking an alternative to unconscious materialism. Your unique offering could be the alternative those millions are seeking right now!

On the eve of the 10^th anniversary of his death, let’s be inspired by George Harrison’s pioneering spirit and share our true hearts authentically with the world. Our websites, ezines, blogs, social networks and community gatherings offer us a platform from which to share what is most important to us and to experience the bliss of attracting a following of like-minded, like-hearted fans. Let’s allow our passion to inspire ingenuity and transformation. The world desires, and deserves, nothing less.

Authentic Blogging Breakthrough for Conscious Entrepreneurs

by Julia D. Stege, MFA
The Magical Marketer

A lot of people ask me if blogging is really all that necessary for conscious entrepreneurs.  After all, it takes a lot of time (so they think) and energy to blog, and anyway, they don't really know what to write about, how often, or really WHY? 

Is blogging really worth all that effort?

I can relate. When you don't know how to do something, it can seem daunting.  You start to wonder, are people in your industry blogging regularly, and is it helping their business?

You know what I'm going to say, though, don't you? You know I'm going to say yes it's important to blog and yes it's totally worth it. 

But WHY is it so important to blog?

There are a lot of reasons a blog is important, but they all boil down to being found online.  People are looking online for solutions to their problems, and millions of them turn to blogs for answers. Also, people don't have to know about your blog to find it. Google gives blogs high ranking so it's easier for folks to find you when you have an active blog.

Statistically, blogging is becoming a central feature in any marketing campaign. Check out these numbers  to discover why:

• 80% of media find topics and talent through blogs
• Over 350 million people worldwide read blogs
• Wordpress and Blogger both report staggering growth in blogosphere
• 50% of web consumers are likely to recommend a brand they learned about on a blog

OK, so everyone's doing it and your customers want to get to know you and a blog is a great place to do that. 

I'm convinced, but what the BLEEP do I blog about?

Blogging is an activity that works better the more you do it. The challenge is to ongoingly create interesting and helpful blog posts that authentically reflect your heart-felt brand.

As a conscious entrepreneur, you want to be authentic in your blog so that not only can people find you, they will recognize you as well. When you share what you care about on your blog, you provide a window into your true self that helps your perfect customers feel more confident about hiring you.

I suggest you sit down and write out a list of topics of concern to you and your perfect customers. Think about the questions your customers ask you, the problems they typically face, and the various ways you know you can help. Since you will want to blog once or more weekly to keep your blog fresh, this list will come in handy.

Schedule a time every week to create your blog post, get out your list, and start writing. The beauty of blogs is that they don't have to be long, about 250 - 350 words is ample.

Complimentary Blogging Breakthrough Webinar on Wed. Sept. 28, 2011

If you want some inspiration on how to create compelling blog posts that forward your brand message consistently, you also may want to attend to my free webinar called "Authentic Blogging Breakthrough for Conscious Entrepreneurs" on Wednesday, September 28th at 1:30 pm.

I want to help you become blogging experts! You can learn more about the class and register at.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/275989914

See you then!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with authentic branding strategies and wildly attractive designs. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit athttp://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com 

Suffering from a Boring Brand? Here's Help

I've been overhauling my brand strategy, message and look lately, doing my best to ensure my brand truly reflects my purpose and my offerings while being wildly attractive to my perfect customers.

To ensure I'm on the right path with my brand, I've even invested in branding and marketing coaching and programs with other experts in my field.

Yes, sometimes these other coaches don't fully relate to me because by most traditional marketing standards, I'm WAY "out there." As Abraham-Hicks says, "There's never a crowd on the cutting edge."

But the advice of these experts has helped me to clarify what makes me different while teaching me some techniques that even an 'out there' new paradigm Magical Marketer like myself can benefit from.

As usual, I have already translated this knowledge into tips and strategies that conscious, sensitive, spiritual coaches, practitioners, creatives, mystics, and tree hugging entrepreneurs like you can use.

So if you are experiencing even a bit of brand shame, confusion over what to say to attract customers, or you just want a bit of inspiration to help you get your heart-felt message to the world, I'd love to invite you to my new, updated, cutting edge webinar, "Branding Basics for Conscious Entrepreneurs." It's a no-cost 90 minute webinar I'm gifting to you so that you can stop worrying about what to say and start sharing your beauty and magic with the world in a way that attracts your perfect customers.

I know you and I are on the same path, because "like attracts like," and I haven't been hiding what I'm all about. When I help you get your message to the world, I'm actually forwarding my life path in the process.

This is how I help you to transform your life and the world while you're at it.

TITLE: Branding Basics for Conscious Entrepreneurs
DATE: Friday, August 19th, 2011
TIME: 1:00 pm PT / 4 pm ET
DURATION: 90 Minutes
REGISTRATION:
http://www.graphicgirlz.com/brandingbasics.html


This webinar is for you if you are seeking:

• A Brand Message that Reflects Your Life Purpose
• Inspiration to Develop Compelling, Attractive Keywords, Taglines and Posts
• Instruction on How to Write Marketing Copy and Blogs that Truly Represents You and Attract the Exact Right People to You
• Clear Direction on How to Unify Your Offerings Under One Umbrella
• Get your branding questions answered LIVE during the Q&A portion of the webinar!

Don't waste time suffering over a boring brand!

I look forward to sharing this new paradigm for marketing that comes from the heart, promotes your life mission, and attracts your most perfect customers. See you on the 19th!

How to Know When It’s Time to Re-Brand

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

Our businesses are always evolving, but we don’t always rush to change our brand with every change in our business, because brand consistency is so important.  However, there comes a time for many of us that we realize we have outgrown our brand. That happened to me recently. In fact, this realization is long in the coming.

In 2006 my business changed radically. That year I became a certified Strategic Attraction CoachTM and began integrating the Attraction Consulting  into my design business. Through the deep inner work inspired by the Attraction Planning process, I saw more clearly what is most important to me. At that time I started calling myself The Magical Marketer, created the Branding from the Heart system, and began teaching conscious entrepreneurs how to attract their perfect customers with an authentic approach to marketing.

Clearly I had moved beyond “Graphic Girlz” into a whole new realm of marketing. However I kept my old brand because I already had a decade of marketing invested into it. Now, only after months of inquiry and frank critique by several coaches and colleagues, I’m clear that it’s time to put Graphic Girlz away and rebrand my business as Magical Marketing, and I’m working on a tagline now, something like, “Branding that Captures Your Essence and Attracts Ideal Clientele.”

I’ve designed a new logo that I’m happy with, and I’m well on my way to launching my new website (stay tuned for that coming early Fall) Standing here and looking back, I wonder why it took me so long.  

An even better question is how can I help others before they’ve been living with an outdated brand for too long?

So I have come up with 3 Sure Signs that Your Brand is Outdated. Check these signs against your brand to see if your brand has been outgrown by your business.

1) Your Brand is about a specific offering but you offer way more than that now. For instance, Graphic Girlz is clearly about Graphic Design but I offer Brand Strategy and Attraction Marketing Services. That’s a good sign the Brand needs to expand to cover all the offerings.

2) You have had a philosophic shift that your brand doesn’t reflect. For instance, I created Graphic Girlz as a graphics services partnership in 1995. In 1998 my partner left and I had a deep spiritual shift which led to involvement with Law of Attraction principles.

3) People express confusion about what you actually do.  I recently had someone I’ve been networking with for years say to me, “but you don’t do logos, do you?” When people who know you are confused about your offerings, it’s time to upgrade your brand message.

4) You are embarrassed to show your brand to anyone. Do you apologize when you hand your card out because your brand is not a great representation of your brilliance? This is a sure sign that it’s time to upgrade your branding. An embarrassing brand is not an attractive brand!

Are you ready for a brand that is a true reflection of your vision, your purpose, your personality and your attraction plan? Shining your light to the world is your destiny. Let me help your light be a beautiful, authentic and wildly attractive one.

Apply for your complimentary Magical Strategy Session at http://www.magicalstrategysession.com/ or call Julia at (707) 823-3316 to schedule your appointment.

4 Steps to Creating a Wildly Attractive Free Offer

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

I’ve been studying many Internet marketing gurus over the years,  and bar none they all say that including a lead capture system on your website is vital to successful online marketing.  Unfortunately, most reluctant marketers, ie spritual business owners, healers, and creatives, don’t have any kind of lead capture system, and those that do rely on the old fashioned, “join my newsletter list” forms that tend not to work any more.

Imagine a regular flow of folks who just LOVE your stuff and can’t wait to hear more from you. The way to attract folks like this is to tap deep within to your purpose and your offerings and develop an irresistible free offer to entice your perfect customers to engage with you. The key here is to make your offer totally authentic to the experience of you so your people will have a good sense of what it’s like to interact with you.  Here are my easy step s to do this.

Step 1: Consider Your Purpose and Gifts ~ The first thing you want to do is determine your purpose and create a mission statement for yourself (you can refine it for your website later if you want.) This will be simple and from the heart, your true raison d'être (reason for existence.)
For instance, mine is: “Discovering the beauty and magic in people and helping them share that with the world in ways that attract their perfect customers and transform the world.”
Relate this to your highest gift, your best offering. In my case, branding vision ie helping conscious entrepreneurs develop their authentic brand.  Notice how the thing you do best comes easiest to you and makes your heart sing while helping people in ways that are needed.

Step 2: Determine Your “First Steps”~ When a new person begins to work with you, what are the first steps you want them to take? Are there certain questions you ask them? Assessments you make? Things they must consider before getting started? These first steps can be the basis for your irresistible free offer, which will lead seamlessly into your fee-based offer. When they experience this first step, they gain benefit whether they work with you or not. And if they love the experience, they will naturally want to continue.

For instance, I always have my clients create their Attraction Plan first to determine their true heart’s desire. When folks do their Attraction Plans they can often begin attracting perfect customers in a couple of days. So this is the most beneficial and worth while first step I can offer folks to get to know me. It begins to solve their problem (needing to attract customers) while introducing them to the multitude of ways I can help them further.

Another approach to this works for authors. You can give away the first chapter or so of your book and then have an invitation for them to buy the book if they love those chapters.

Step 3: Create Your Free Offer ~ Now that you have the irresistible idea, it’s time to make the actual offer. This can be done in a number of ways. I often offer free webinars and teleclasses and record them as free offers. My Magical Marketing Toolkit is a report with two short videos. I will be changing this soon however to be the complete Class 1 of Branding from the Heart including video and audio replay of my live class and the handouts. While still introducing them to the Attraction Plan, this free offer leads my perfect customers seamlessly into my signature program.

Step 4: Promote Your Offer ~ You will need to put a lead-capture form on your website and create a sales page to promote it.  See mine at www.MagicalMarketingToolkit.com. Then you will want to let folks know about it. Put a little promo in your email signature, so all your emails let folks know, passively, about your offer. Mine is

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Julia Stege
www.graphicgirlz.com
What you seek is seeking you!
707-823-3316

Get your free Magical Marketing
Toolkit and start attracting perfect
customers now. Claim it at
www.MagicalMarketingToolkit.com
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Also, regularly let your folks know about your free offer through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and YouTube.

Let me know if you have any questions about creating and promoting free offers. I would be happy to answer them in future articles. Also, for those who have been capturing leads successfully on your site, let us know what has worked for you and your free offer may be featured in an upcoming post in this blog.

Your Ultimate Niche (Not in the Traditional Sense Of Course!)

Have you have ever attended a marketing seminar and heard about the importance of discovering your "niche" market? Did you then go about trying to figure out what your niche is and having a hard time about it? Maybe you feel you don't even understand what a niche is?

niche (nch) n.
1.A cranny, hollow, or crevice, as in rock.
2.A very specific form of target marketing.

So a niche is either a tight space in a rock or a specific way to target an audience in marketing. Doesn't that leave you feeling that if you chose your niche you would be stuck between a rock and a hard place?

Many of you who have attended my live webinars know that I am not keen on target marketing in the traditional sense. To me targeting people sounds like you want to shoot them. And in fact many traditional marketers do actually find some innocent people and shoot them all sorts of messages designed to brainwash them away from their intuition. A lot of marketers don't care how they make their audience feel, I've noticed.

Standard niches would be something like a specific age, specific sex, specific locale or specific income bracket. But for folks who have a range of offerings that help a lot of different kind of people, this niche thing is just confusing and maybe even gets you angry. (If you're like me a lot of what traditional marketers say makes you feel helpless and inadequate! That is their intention by the way!)

So for a number of years I've been avoiding this conversation about niche marketing. People would come to my classes saying "Do I have to find my niche in this class?" and I'd say NO because with my style of marketing we ATTRACT rather than TARGET. But now I have discovered the Ultimate Niche and this time you're going to love it.

Ultimate Niche (uhl-tuh-mit nch) n.
1. Your favorite people
2. People who are on the same life path as you are

With my system Branding from the HeartTM, I have been teaching that sharing your purpose authentically will attract exactly the right people to you, people who are on the same path as you are. They are inextricably drawn to you, they love everything you do, and their inner voice is telling them to hire you! Remember "Like Attracts Like" and your most perfect customers are like you in the ways that are most important.


The only way your perfect peeps are going to find you and recognize you is if you share yourself truly authentically in your marketing. Then you will find yourself surrounded by folks who really 'grok' you deeply, and you also 'grok' them. You are in a unique position to help them go further on their path because you've been on that same path and have discovered ways to succeed. This is your tribe, your Ultimate Niche.

My Ultimate Niche are out-of-the-box entrepreneurs,
thought leaders and visionaries who have a big message to share about uplifting people
and transforming the world. What's your Ultimate Niche?

If you know you need help with the process of discovering, attracting and serving your Ultimate Niche, check out my new Branding from the Heart Intensive and discount packages for consulting and design at http://www.brandingfromtheheart.com/

Silly Rabbit, Twitter Isn't Just For Kids [Twitter Update]

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

Hardly anyone I know understands Twitter. I have been teaching (or trying to teach) folks how to use Twitter to attract their perfect customers for over 3 years and I'd guess about 1% of my students are following my advice. Apparently my success at attracting thousands of followers, most of whom are aligned with me in some important way, has not inspired my less computerly-inclined to follow in my footsteps.

Thing is, my Twitter following has ballooned to over 22,000 (up by 10,000 over the last 6 months) and I want to spread the word. Maybe a part of me realizes that as Twitter gains popularity and as my Twitter following endlessly expands, more and more people will begin to understand the incredible and unique power of twitter and they can come check out my Twitter posts and learn some simple steps.

Imagine for a moment that you have the power to send a link out to 20,000 people. Imagine if only 1% of those people click your link... that's still 200 people! Now can you can begin to grok the power of Twitter? Maybe you just don't know how to work it.  I have boiled it down to the bare essentials that I use right here:

1) Make a list of your favorite, most resonant words... words you'd like to be found by and find others by. These will be your keywords.

2) Just create a Twitter account already: The first step is to get an account set up. Use your keywords in your name or just use your full name if it's available. Go to http://www.twitter.com and do it now. While you're there, you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/magicalmarketer

3) Get Tweet Adder [you can use my affiliate link HERE] This program will help you build a following by keyword, unfollow folks who aren't following you, and tweet day and night, all automatically (once you set it up) For more deets on Tweet Adder see my article on Tweet Adder at http://magicalmarketing.blogspot.com/search/label/tweet%20adder

4) Create a .txt file of 100+ quotes or tweets under 120 characters. Use your keywords, quotes by folks you resonate with, and your own tips and links to your offerings. Make sure you market your links about 20% of the time and no more. The rest of the time be uplifting and inspiring.  Fill your Tweets section on Tweet Adder with your quotes (these can be uploaded automatically and saved and downloaded at your discretion.)
5) Tweet 24 times per day or more to build your following fast. Keep adding to your Tweet List till you have about 1000 or more tweets.  Make sure you keep your tweets in your queue so they rotate. Nobody will notice and even if they did, when your tweets are really good, people won't mind seeing them more than once.

6) Automatically follow between 200 and 300 people per day.  Use your keywords to follow folks of like mind and heart.  Set your unfollow to unfollow any who aren't following you after 3 days. The combination of tweeting often and following lots of people will grow your following faster.


7) Report back to me here. Please leave your comments below to share your progress!

Go forth and attract!

The Umbrella Brand: How to Cohesively Brand Your Different Offerings

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

"Umbrella Brand" is an industry term for an overarching brand used across multiple related products. Giant companies like Heintz, Levi Strauss, and Sony use Umbrella Branding to promote a whole range of products cohesively. For instance, Heintz recently launched a $8.3 million campaign to brand their slogan, "It has to be Heintz" which automatically promotes a whole line of products.

Many industry experts say that Umbrella Branding only works when the company has a line of very similar products. However, I have been successfully using the concept of Umbrella Branding when helping my customers create one brand for a variety of seemingly disparate offerings.

Many of my clients have developed a range of techniques, products, and resources to solve the variety of challenges their customers face. They are often confused about the best ways to market these offerings cohesively, and find themselves explaining their modalities to a confused audience.  Umbrella Branding helps them deliver a cohesive and potent message.

Branded Banner by Julia Stege for http://www.raisemyvibes.com/

The key to my method of Umbrella Branding is
tapping deeply in to your core life purpose.  When you clarify "What makes you tick," and develop that into a mission statement,  you are on the way to creating an Umbrella Brand that will work for your chosen focus,
even when it changes, for years to come.

I created my own Umbrella Brand about 12 years ago called Life is Magic. I have a website at that URL http://www.lifeismagic.com/.  It's sorely outdated I'm afraid, however I use it as my main email address (julia @lifeismagic.com).  When I created the URL, I considered my passion for magic and how I have loved everything magical ever since early childhood. I thought about all my offerings, from graphic design to websites, to Law of Attraction consulting, branding, marketing consulting, social networking, and the wildcrafted herbs and juices I love to promote, and how they are all an expression of my love for magic. I even thought about the historical fantasy novel I'm writing which includes much from the shamanic realms. My umbrella brand will even work for that! .So Life is Magic is a perfect Umbrella Brand for me.

To start creating your Umbrella Brand, answer this question:

"What Makes Me and My Perfect Customers Tick?"

(It's the second question from the BEE-ing Attraction PlanTM which you can find at http://www.MagicalMarketingToolkit.com)  

• Drop deep within your heart to discover what is most important to you and start writing down the words that describe it. 
• Think about how you expressed that when you were a child, a teen, a young adult, and now. 
• see if you can discover the unifying principles from all areas of your life. When you discover this, you will be well on your way to creating your own unique Umbrella Brand.

Learn More about Branding from the Heart at http://www.brandingfromtheheart.com/

Don't Do What I Did and Why It Took Me So Long to Figure This Out

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

@magicalmarketer

Sometimes the most obvious things are just not so obvious to me. I know I'm not alone in this. Looking back, it seems that my brain was on hold for the last several years while this obvious thing was escaping me. Now that I'm clear on my direction, the lack of clarity I had decided was OK for me and my business feels unbearable and unfathomable.

What happened was simply that all the while I have been talking about authentic marketing, I had resisted standing fully behind what I REALLY loved about my business and instead responded to what I speculated would be more successful. I prioritized my activities and my passion often came second. You could catch me talking about it now and again, what my true love is, what my real forte is, what my favorite conversation in the world is. To hear me talk about it you'd wonder at my willingness to do anything else, anything that was not centered solely on the passion of my life.

Can you guess what I'm talking about? Those of you who have taken my classes before can likely guess. I'm talking about Branding from the HeartTM : How to share yourself authentically in a way that promotes everything that you're up to. I have created a process around the funny little question from the BEE-ing Attraction PlanTM, "What makes me and my perfect customers tick?" and combined it with what I call Magical Keywords to help anyone brand anything completely authentically. My not-so-secret desire is to discover the beauty and magic in women entrepreneurs and progressive thought leaders and help them get the message out in a way that uplifts inspires millions of people to transform the world. On a practical level, I help people promote themselves consistently by sharing what's most important to them in a way that attracts their perfect customers.

And though I call myself an "intutive branding artist," and I have talked about Branding from the HeartTM and held classes on it and offered small consulting packages, I have emphasized teaching social networking because people knew they needed that, and they didn't understand branding (or so I thought). I have taught Social Networking classes for 4 years now, and though I have focused several classes on Branding from the HeartTM , I have never gotten around to creating a well-documented system, a home study course or a signature program for my this unique process.

And the reason it took me so long to
figure out that this that I was using my mind, and sometimes (especially in my case) the mind is a scary place to be.

You see, my poor brain is full of so many ideas of how to market, what to market, social networking, websites, blogs, and webinars, and on and on, I got confused about what I need to teach, and so I switched it up quite frequently and offered a huge array of services. I did well and increased my income in a down economy, but I was afraid that the thing I love the most, the thing I am a natural at and which I truly feel can transform the world, would not sell. I was listening to inner gremlins telling me, 'not now' 'people won't get it' and 'you're not ready.' This left me constantly responding to the needs of others without really working out what I wanted to focus on, my unique gift for the world.

So now that I've seen the light (and listened to my own inner guidance) I am creating a new signature Branding from the HeartTM System this year, and kicking it off with an Authentic Branding Summit starting in a few months. I feel as if all my energy jets are on full tilt and I'm blasting forward in the way I'm meant to be. And I'd like to invite you to help me get started with this.

I need your input to make
this system really great.

On Thursday, March 31st at 11 am PT I am sponsoring a no-cost webinar called, "Julia Answers All Your Branding Questions" where I'll be doing just that.  I want to hear from you the biggest questions you have about branding, about getting the message out, about your visual and verbal identity, about how to share what you do with incredibly clarity of purpose. I want to know where you struggle the most, what keeps eluding you, and what would make the biggest difference in helping you share your message with the world.

So here's the deal: I'll answer all your branding questions in exchange for some information from you. The registration form for the webinar includes several required question fields that I need you to answer to the best of your ability. I know it will take a bit of extra time on your part, and to express my appreciation for your heart-felt answers, I'm offering you free all-access pass to my Branding from the Heart Tele-Summit this summer including unlimited download of all 13 session recordings that I will be charging $197 for during the promotional launch in May.

I'll also be compiling answers to your questions for my presentation on the March 31st, and I'll be selecting a couple of folks from our audience to coach live during the webinar. So let me know what you're struggling with and I'll do what I can to help you move through that into the kind of clarity I am experiencing now.

HERE'S WHERE TO REGISTER FOR THE NO-COST WEBINAR 'JULIA ANSWERS ALL YOUR BRANDING QUESTIONS' ON THURS. MARCH 31ST 2011 AT 11 AM

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/680729106

Let me help you skip the years of avoiding the obvious that I have suffered, and let's together create your authentic heart-felt brand.

Go forth and attract!

Are you ready for a brand that is a true reflection of your vision, your purpose, your personality and your attraction plan? Shining your light to the world is your destiny. Let me help your light be a beautiful, authentic and wildly attractive one.

Apply for your complimentary Magical Strategy Session at http://www.magicalstrategysession.com/ or call Julia at (707) 823-3316 to schedule your appointment.

Is Your Website Welcoming?

A welcoming website is key to successful online marketing, yet sometimes what makes a site welcoming seems elusive. We know when a site isn’t working, it’s boring, or too busy, or you cannot find what you’re looking for, or it’s just plain confusing. But how do you make a site wildly attractive to your visitors and inspire them to take the right actions?
There are a lot of elements to a successful website, and different considerations depending on your business, but I have narrowed it down to four steps that are vital to any kind of business.

1) Clarify Your Message and Address Your Visitors’ Needs: The first step to creating a welcoming website is to clarify your unique attributes, what’s most important to you (ie your soul purpose) and how you help your clientele, and share this in your site copy. Start with your Welcome Message for your Home Page and make sure that it:

1. Addresses Your Visitors Problems and Needs
2. Illuminates Your Purpose and How You Can Help Them
3. Outlines What’s on the Site and How to Find It
4. Directs Visitors to Take a Specific Action (sign up for free download, call you for a complimentary consultation, invite them to a free class.

Now take the same approach to each of your following pages, making sure to speak from the heart about your history, your offerings, your resources and how to contact you. You don’t need to write a lot, just be clear in your message, how you can help them, and what you want them to do.

2) Make Your Site an Online Oasis: One of the most overlooked aspect to a welcoming website is the look and feel. Many marketing gurus tell you not to worry about pretty graphics, just use red headlines, arrows and opt in boxes to drive action. However, these techniques are over used and do not take in to consideration how the page makes your visitors feel. Another tendency these days is to use a pre-designed theme that many other businesses have used as well. Though the site may be beautiful, it is not unique. To ensure that your site is visually appealing, unique, and reflective of your purpose, make sure to:

a. Consider your message and purpose and what symbols represent you. Take a look around your office and living areas to see if there are common images that you tend to collect. Take note of what imagery makes your heart sing, what colors light you up, what fonts feel like you.

b. Go online and find images, or go through a stack of magazines while considering your purpose and personality and download or tear out images that appeal to you. You can use a paint program to arrange images on a vision board, of if you have magazines, a scissors and glue will do. Make your own special visual arrangement that can either be scanned and used on your site, or given to a designer as inspiration for an original design.

c. Incorporate your symbology, color scheme, and font choices in your website graphics. If you are using a pre-designed theme, select unique photos or if you are feeling creative, create montages with several images you love to create a unique site banner. Otherwise hire a designer to create custom site graphics for you, and make sure she sees your chosen pics.

d. When you love the look and feel of your site, it will look and feel great to your perfect customers, and they will get you on a more visceral level.

3) Integrate a Blog Into Your Site: Maintaining a welcoming site means keeping the content fresh and pertinent to your customers. When you have an integrated blog on your site, it boosts the value of your site to visitors, and Google loves fresh content. Your site will come up better on searches when you blog frequently. Many of my clients opt for a custom designed Wordpress site with integrated blog for consistency of look and ease of use. Once programmed, these Blog Sites are easy to maintain yourself.

4) Promote Your Site to the World: Once your site is a true reflection of your purpose, you will want to direct people to your site from various popular sites online, such as

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Wordpress
• LinkedIn
• Squidoo
• HubPages

When you network online authentically and share your purpose, people become interested in you. When you link back to your site from your social networks and blogs, it helps to boost visitorship, interest, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

I look forward to seeing your welcoming sites. Feel free to post your sites below and let us know if you are having any challenges in creating an online oasis for your business.

Are you ready for a website that is a true reflection of your vision, your purpose, your personality and your attraction plan? Shining your light to the world is your destiny. Let me help your light be a beautiful, authentic and wildly attractive one.


Apply for your complimentary Magical Strategy Session at http://www.magicalstrategysession.com/ or call Julia at (707) 823-3316 to schedule your appointment.

What a Little Kindness Can Do For Your Marketing

by Julia D. Stege

When we're thinking about marketing ourselves, we often think about practical matters, like how to reach our target audience and inspire them to buy something from us.  After all, marketing is about promotions, right?

Well, yes and no.  Marketing in the traditional sense used to be about targeting a niche and urging people to buy (sometimes scaring them in the process.)

But marketing can be about so much more than inspiring sales. Marketing can be about uplifting people.

I realize how strange this can sound to folks who fast forward over TV ads and spend way too much time deleting spam from their email inbox.  The fact is not enough people see marketing as a way to uplift people.

But you can I can be different. We can take an industry that has gone astray and make it our own.  And while we're at it, lets see if we can start a real trend.

What we can do is use the various mediums for marketing (like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Ezines, and our own Websites) and use them to uplift and empower people.

We can promote other people, for starters. Retweet their Tweets, Share and Like their Facebook posts, or write kind words of praise on their Wall.

We can spread uplifting ideas that foster self-love, encourage transformation, and give people a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Whatever we do with the intention of spreading love and kindness has got to be a good thing.

And pssssst, guess what? You're bound to attract a perfect customer or two while you're at it.

Go forth and be kind, my friends. And please share in the comments below about how you're uplifting others online.

Marketing: for Love, or Money?

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

When you think about marketing, if you're like most people, money will dominate your view. It's understandable. Marketing costs money, marketing gets you to spend money, and hopefully marketing will help you earn money. 

But have you noticed that when you're too focused on the money, it's harder to attract perfect customers? There's an air of desperation about you perhaps, or just a tinge of something cheesy or inauthentic.

Most success coaches, especially those with a spiritual perspective, say that if you're too focused on the money, you're less likely to experience true fulfillment. Marsha Sinetar wrote, "Do what you love and the money will follow," and Joseph Campbell famously said, "Follow your bliss, and doors will open." 

If only we would all remember these words when we are marketing! Even those of us with a business that is an expression of our purpose often see marketing as a necessary evil and do it exclusively when we need more money. 

But what if we thought of marketing as a way to share our passion with the world?  And what if we marketed when we were excited about our passion and our offerings and the myriad ways we can help people? 

Can you imagine the people you would be attracting
if you marketed for Love?

This is my piece of advice for the week: Market for Love. Share what you love most about your business, even if it's not the part of your business that brings you the most money.  Write a blog post about your life purpose and don't worry about producing an immediate result. Focus on how you can serve others from the heart and write something inspiring to them.

Here is the entire Campbell quote. Remember this as you are sharing your purpose with the world.

"Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else." Joseph Campbell

Julia Stege is called The Magical Marketer because she helps conscious entrepreneurs to attract their most perfect customers with a unique combination of intuitive branding, wildly attractive websites, law of attraction principles and social networking strategies. Download Julia's free Attraction report and instructional videos at http:://www.MagicalMarketingToolkit.com.

Time for a New Attraction Plan

by Julia D. Stege, MFA

It' the new year and everyone is talking about clarifying what you want in your business and in your life. Most coaches will encourage you to make a list of your goals for the year at this time.

To create a client attraction breakthrough, instead of just a list of goals, I like to create a new Strategic Attraction PlanTM. My plan focuses on the most important relationship to my business (in my case, customers) and includes all the qualities of my perfect customers, my purpose and theirs, and what I want including goals, boundaries, and ways of being. It is by far the most powerful tool I have found for getting what I want quickly.

To create your attraction plan, you will write the answers to four questions. I suggest creating a new page for each question and allowing space to revise and add to your plan every day this month. Keep a diary of what you have attracted (Signs of Land) and review the effectiveness of this activity at the end of the month. If you notice great results, I recommend creating a new plan every month and revising it daily.

Here are the four questions and the explanation for how to answer them.

1) What are the qualities, characteristics and attributes of my perfect customers? This is a long list of what I like about my perfect customers, what they're like, their personalities, how they treat me, the resources they have, how they find me, what is important to them, how they act, and so on. I can think of folks I've loved to work with in the past and what I liked about them, or I can think of client situations gone awry and what I would prefer. What kinds of people have you always wanted to work with? Describe them here.

2) What makes me and my perfect customers tick? Another way to put this is, "what is my true life purpose?" When you clarify this and begin sharing it with others you will realize that your perfect customers have a mission that is quite aligned with yours if not exactly the same. It is our soul fire that is the source of our attracting power. When our perfect customers get what makes us tick, they recognize us and choose us.

3) What do I want my perfect customers to expect from me? If you have ever felt at the mercy of other people's expectations, this is your chance to be proactive and determine what you want others to expect from you. Write down the offerings you want to deliver, how you want to be perceived, what you want to acheive, and what you want your days to look like.

4) Who do I get to be to attract what I want? For each item under number 3 that you have not yet 100% attracted, write it down here again. Then ask yourself, "who would I have to be to attract this?" What word or phrase describes the way you would be if you attracted this? Write it down next to the item you want to attract. Now go forth and be that quality and watch as what you desire is drawn to you.

Signs of Land

It is important to take note of what we are attracting on a regular basis. When a sailor approaches land from sea, there are signs of land long before actual land is sighted, like certain weather patterns, or particular birds, sea mammals, and plant life. Similarly when we set course for what we desire in life and business, there are signs along the way that what we asked for is coming. Perhaps you asked for clients who are fun and someone calls from a game company, or you have asked for a more spiritual experience of business and you attract an inspiring teacher as a client. Taking note of these "signs of land" will help you to acknowledge your progress and flow toward the realization of your dreams.

Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with a unique combination of Law of Attraction, Wildly Attractive WebsitesTM, Branding from the HeartTM, and smart Social Networking strategies. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com . WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the entire article including this bio at the end.