VaShawn is not slowing down and continues to be at the top of his game. His first single “Nobody Greater,” has sparked a movement with worship leaders and choirs globally and has been at the top of both Gospel and Urban Adult Contemporary charts for weeks. His latest single “Chasing After You” is currently new & active at Gospel radio.

Mitchell is still going strong from his year packed full of high profile television and radio appearances from BET’s Celebration of Gospel, the Mo’ Nique Show, and Sunday Best, to Steve Harvey and Tom Joyner. The 2x Grammy nominee delivers at every turn with timeless and classic songs fans the world over continue to enjoy. VaShawn’s heart for God, music and ministry have allowed him to chart a course of new territory and a sound that continues to touch the hearts of listeners

This is the first year that Martha Munizzi has earned a slot in Worship Leader’s “Best of the Best” directory of worship resources. The annual October collection of the top recommended worship essentials has become an indispensable tool for pastors, worship leaders, media teams, worship teams and the sound tech, saving both time and money as they process and make key decisions about resource allocation. “With the abundance of worship-related products now available, knowing how to make the best choices for your church, based on size, budget and church orientation can leave those ‘in charge’ overwhelmed,” explains Jeremy Armstrong, Worship Leader’s managing editor. Detailing the issue’s history, he says, “It has evolved from a general buyer’s guide and bonus issue to one of the year’s central issues for Worship Leader and most back-ordered.” Daniele Kimes, VP of Sales and Marketing, adds, “It is always my goal to connect our readers with the resources and tools that best equip them to do their job and serve their congregation. The Best of the Best issue provides them with a comprehensive overview of those tools and has become an issue they continue to rely on to make key purchase decisions.”
 

Martha Munizzi burst on the gospel music scene in 2002 with the CD, Say The Name.  Since then, she’s earned GRAMMY nominations and Dove and Stellar Award wins.  In 2004, she was named as one of the top five Gospel artists by Billboard Magazine.  In 2006, Munizzi dropped No Limits Live which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums Chart and stayed there for 6 weeks.  She was featured on the big screen in the movie The Gospel and at BET’s Celebration of Gospel.  In 2008, she released “Change The World”, which debuted at #4 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums Chart, and received her first GMA Dove Award for “Contemporary Gospel Album Of The Year.”  Her latest release, Make It Loud!, not only has received 6 final round nominations for the 2012 Stellar Awards, but the CD peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums Chart with the lead single from the project remaining in the Billboard Top Gospel Songs Chart since the project’s spring 2011 release.

Gospel music superstar Kirk Franklin is preparing to hit the road with his ground-breaking nationwide Fearless Tour beginning November 1, 2011. Franklin is scheduled to visit fifteen states in four weeks.

The tour will feature special guests Isaac Carree, BET Sunday Best 2011 winner Amber Bullock and Verity Recording artists Deon Kipping and Jason Nelson.  Franklin will be touring in support of his 12th and latest CD masterpiece, Hello Fear – featuring the chart-topping gospel song “I Smile.”

Through dynamic performances and show-stopping moments, the Fearless Tour will give fans a chance to hear Kirk Franklin’s music as they never have before, yet still experience the creativity and high-energy that fans have come to expect from his powerful performances.

“I have learned so much. I want to take those lessons as well as my own experiences as a man who grew up with one foot in the church and one foot in the streets, and use that to connect with this generation.”-Kirk Franklin

Kirk Franklin Fearless Tour Dates (all dates are subject to change):
Nov. 1, 2011-Little Rock, AR*
TBA

Nov. 3, 2011-Tulsa, OK*
Mabee Center

Nov. 4, 2011-Houston, TX*
Arena Theatre

Nov. 5, 2011-San Antonio, TX*
NCCF

Nov. 6, 2011-Oklahoma, OK*
TBA

Nov. 9, 2011-Birmingham, AL
Bill Harris Arena

Nov. 10, 2011-Montgomery, AL
TBA

Nov. 11, 2011-
Atlanta, GA
Fox Theater

Nov. 12, 2011-Greensboro, NC
War Memorial Auditorium

Nov. 13, 2011-Columbia, SC
TBA

Nov. 15, 2011-Akron, OH
Civic Theatre

Nov. 17, 2011-St. Louis, MO*
Fox Theatre

Nov. 18, 2011-Chicago, IL*
House of Hope

Nov. 19, 2011-Indianapolis, IN
The Venue

Nov. 20, 2011-Pittsburgh, PA
Soldier Memorial Hall

Nov. 23, 2011-Detroit, MI
Greater Grace

Nov. 25, 2011-Philadelphia, PA
Keswick Theatre

Nov. 26, 2011-Baltimore, MD
Lyric Theatre

Nov. 27, 2011-
New York, NY
Best Buy Theatre

*American Heart Association sponsored tour dates

For additional information about the Fearless Tour, Hello Fear and Kirk Franklin, please visit www.kirkfranklin.com.

Kirk Franklin is once again partnering with the American Heart Association’s “Power to End Stroke” campaign to increase awareness and to educate the African American community about their risk of stroke — the third leading cause of death of all Americans and a leading cause of long-term disability among African Americans.

Franklin will use his voice to help his fans understand that stroke is largely preventable by watching your diet, getting regular exercise and not smoking.  He also will share the importance of knowing your individual risk factors, such as family history, high blood pressure or diabetes, as well as working with health care providers to manage risk.

Mark Stiving, pricing expert and author of Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits (Entrepreneur Press), believes forgiveness is unlikely. He explains, “Netflix broke severe pricing rules including one golden rule—not putting themselves in their customers’ shoes.”

Stiving urges businesses to learn from Netflix’s mistakes and offers these pricing lessons:

Avoid price increases to existing customers

“Customers HATE price increases.  When Netflix raised prices by up to 60 percent, they showed a disregard for their customers,” states Stiving.  ”Read some customer comments on blogs about Netflix.  This is a great example that price increases, executed poorly, cause visceral reactions.”

Some of the customers Netflix lost are upset with the company, but others are logical consumers who decided Netflix was no longer worth it.  The lesson is:  price increases cause customers to revisit what used to be automatic decisions.  Most Netflix customers likely paid their bill monthly without thinking about it.  The price increase motivated customers to revisit that decision.

Don’t Destroy Value

According to Stiving, since the negative backlash of their price increase, Netflix has made their product worse.  ”They make it so every customer who used to go to one web site for streaming and DVDs now has to go to two websites to manage their preferences.”

Netflix customers used to go to the Netflix site and see how their movie of choice was available.  Now customers have to start at the streaming site and then go to the DVD site if streaming doesn’t have it.

“Almost everything a company does should be intended to create value for the customer.  Price simply captures whatever value the company creates.  When companies destroy value, price has a hard time making up the difference,” says Stiving.  ”It’s likely that Netflix will see another wave of customers unsubscribe.”

Mark Stiving, Ph.D., www.MarkStiving.com, is a pricing expert with 15 years of experience speaking, writing, coaching and consulting to help firms increase profits through value-based pricing.  He is the author of Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits. Read more from Stiving at www.pragmaticpricing.com.

SOURCE Entrepreneur Press

 Maybe you put up a Facebook page a year ago, posted some status messages, and got a few hundred or even a thousand likes. “Now what?” you ask.

“Facebook has been working to make your ‘likes’ more valuable,” explains Perry Marshall and Thomas Meloche, authors of Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising (Entrepreneur Press). “They have created an entirely new class of advertising—’TOCAS, Targeted Opt-In Customer Ads.’ ‘TOCAS’ display only to customers who have ‘liked’ your page and only you, the creator of the page, can specifically target them.”

Marshall and Meloche offer these steps to unleashing TOCAS power into your business.

Step #1: Build a Facebook Page

You can send Facebook clicks to any landing page that meets Facebook’s guidelines. However, Marshall and Meloche recommend sending your clicks to a Facebook page.

“If you send your clicks to a Facebook page, the visitors land in comfortable surroundings,” Marshall explains. “Their defenses are much lower, and they are likely to engage more frequently with your content.”

Step #2: Acquire Fans

“Facebook provides the ultimate ‘soft opt-in’—the ‘like,’” says Meloche.  ”If you get visitors to like your page, Facebook provides you with methods to reach out to these fans again—both free and paid.”

Additionally, fans provide social credibility. If you are considering buying a new product, do you think it influences your decision if you know five friends bought and liked a particular brand? If you visit a business and see the pictures of ten thousand others who liked that business does it make you more comfortable? Of course it does. This is social credibility.

Step #3: Advertise to Your Fans

You have the ability to deliver low cost ads to your fans at any time.

A local shop with 5,000 Facebook fans can place an ad in front of them for as little as $1. Got a special event this weekend? Most of your customers will know, if you advertise on Facebook.

Perry Marshall, the most-quoted consultant on pay-per-click advertising, is the founder of Perry S. Marshall & Associates, a company that consults on maximizing advertising results. Thomas Meloche is the president of Procuit Inc., an agile software company that creates educational products and systems using the Facebook platform. They are the co-authors of Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising.

SOURCE Entrepreneur Press

“Business owners are spending countless hours online but wiping out. They aren’t reaping the benefits of their online outreach,” says Starr Hall, social media strategist and author of The Social Wave: Why Your Business is Wiping Out with Social Media and How to Fix It (Entrepreneur Press). “If you fall into this category, it’s time to change your social media approach.”

Hall offers three can’t-miss tips to get started.

1. Create a Call to Action

Make sure that your website visitors are asked to do something once they arrive at your site. If you can only get them to do one thing, what would it be?  Give you their email address and name? Or, view a video? Whatever it is, try to have no more than two calls to action and always ask visitors for their contact info in a subtle but powerful way.

Starr advises, “Make sure to clearly communicate what you will be doing with visitor information. This can include how many emails you will send every month and what you’ll be sending.”

2. Engage More

“It is not just about posting online, you need to take time every day whether it is 15 minutes or two hours and talk with people online. Be social. It isn’t called anti-social media,” says Hall.

Like face-to-face encounters, talk with and not at people to build relationships and ultimately build relationships that have the potential to turn into referrals and revenue.

3. Power-up Your Profiles

Make sure that every social profile you have is rich with keywords for your industry and company, and that every single section and box is filled out completely. This not only helps with search engine optimization, it also puts you in a high level networking position—the more people know about you, the more likely they are to connect.

Starr Hall,an international publicist and authority in social media marketing, is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com, the author of The Social Wave: Why Your Business is Wiping Out and How to Fix It , and the co-author of Get Connected: The Social Networking Toolkit