Catching Up with a Small Business Success Story
You may remember the name John Tuggle of Learning Guitar Now. He was the subject of my small business success story on Search Engine Land back in April. His guitar teaching business wasn’t going anywhere until John decided to jump headfirst into what you’d call Web 2.0 Marketing: blogging, doing a podcast, putting videos on YouTube, offering guitar lessons via Skype, pushing his content on social media sites, and more. Here’s what I wrote in that April column:
“…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.”
Well, that’s not the end of the story. John checked in with me a few days ago with some more good news:
“I recently became the #1 video podcast in the US on iTunes, and the #2 podcast overall. This is pretty huge! itunes put me in the podcast spotlight in their email newsletter, and since then I’ve gone from 1,500 subscribers to 4,500 in 36 hours.”
How great is that? John took a couple screenshots to mark the occasion:
These were taken a little while back, and John’s rankings have dropped a little since then, but you can still see him being featured on Apple’s Podcast Spotlight.
This continues to prove the point that you can succeed with so-called “new marketing” even if you’re a one-man band. It also shows that sometimes success is like a snowball — once you get some momentum, watch out! That thing is just gonna get bigger and bigger as you go forward.
Hats off to you, John – and thanks for checking in with more great news.
John is just one of the best clients we’ve ever had. Truly, a web design/SEO firm’s dream client.
We get completely excited over ever new success he creates for himself…and that it one of the remarkable things about John: he creates his own success. What a smart guy!
I loved reading this, Matt.
Miriam
That is SOOO cool. It is really amazing to me the kinds of opportunities that the internet opens for people who work hard and know what they’re talking about. There is so much potential out there if people just take steps recommended by experts like you and Miriam.
Love hearing about success stories, reminds everyone what is possible.
Very cool! Congrats!
David Mihm, you nailed it.
Thx for the comments, gang. David — I certainly can’t take any credit for John’s success, but I appreciate the sentiment. 🙂 John and Miriam are obviously doing a great job growing his business.
Its good to hear that you guys and girls are doing well, I do hope that my marketing plan works out as well.
Well keep up the great work for John.