We wrote a while back about how you as an illustrator, can use Google+ but now the dust has settled and most people have had a chance to take a look around, get to grips with yet another tool and then decide whether it’s worth continuing with or not, I suspect many of you have decided not! Perhaps this will persuade you to take another look…
Alex Mathers of the Red Lemon Club has just released a new eCourse: The Freelancer’s Guide to Winning Incredible Clients Through Google+ Mastery. We were given a copy to review and here’s what we found…
What We Liked
If you’ve ever purchased anything from Alex Mathers or the Red Lemon Club previously, you’ll know that he delivers excellent value.
The eCourse is HUGE - it’s so big that it comes in 3 parts (3 separate PDF documents) and it covers much, much more than just Google+. Let me explain…
The course is designed to help you set your business up to get the most out of your G+ (and other social networking) efforts:
- So the first part is all about ensuring your business will benefit from your marketing activities on social media - it covers the basic sales cycle process, your marketing strategy, setting up your website /portfolio and how to set yourself up on the other big 3 social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook.
- The second part helps you get set up on Google Plus as well as how to set up G+ buttons on your website and elsewhere (such as your newsletter, your blog etc.) so that you can maximise your Google Plus activities.
- The third part is how to use Google Plus to win friends and influence people and of course, gain new clients.
It’s comprehensive, well-written, very detailed with screenshots and clear instructions throughout.
You also get a raft of bonuses which, when combined give you the know-how to really take on social media and use it as a powerful self-promotion tool.
The proof of the pudding is Alex Mathers himself who has shown mastery of all the social media tools and is clearly someone to learn from on this front.
Jonathan’s additional comment: The illustrations commissioned for the eCourse are fantastic - they’re by Dan Matutina. Here’s an example…
What We’d Change
I’m going to get nit-picky here because the eCourse is really very well produced and if you’re looking to get started on G+, you probably won’t find anything quite as comprehensive.
However, in my opinion it’s strength could also be a weakness. There’s a lot of material to go through and if you’re anything like me, you want to get under the hood of a shiny, new tool and start playing with it straight away.
It would be very easy for me to just ignore the first part, ignore the 2nd part (until I realised I hadn’t got it right and would then need to refer back to it!) and dive straight into the 3rd part…the actual using of G+. But perhaps that’s just me - and my speciality is business strategy so that’s probably why!
What would be great to see would be a “Quick Start” summary sheet or something similar - in fact, the last 2 parts could really benefit from some sort of summary sheet which lets you dive straight in to setting yourself up on G+ and could also serves as a reminder of how to use it once you’re there - the “rules”, if you will. The guide would then serve as an excellent manual as you get into the guts of the tool and using it.
Bottom Line: Would We Buy It?
In a word, yes…
At the current launch price ($29 which ends on February 10th, 2012) with the bonuses and unlimited updates (which is very generous since we all know how these tools are prone to change!) this is exceptionally good value and almost a no-brainer if you’re at all interested in how Google Plus could benefit your business.
Even if you ultimately decide not to use Google Plus as a marketing tool for your illustration business, the first part and bonuses alone are more than worth the launch price.
At the regular price of $87, this probably falls into the category of “quite expensive” for many illustrators on a budget or if you are already doing an ok job of marketing yourself and don’t have the bandwidth to take on another approach.
It is worth paying the full price however, if you DO need help with the basics of getting the right things in the right place, in order to market your business more effectively online - not just on Google+.
Full Disclosure: We were provided with a free review copy of the eCourse. The links used in this post are affiliate links.