Hello Internet Marketing Monitor. While struggling to come up with a topic to write on for today I began to think about what it is that every business is after. Monetary profit was the easy answer, but beyond that it came to me that most businesses would like to go about their daily happenings with a sense of integrity intact as well (I would hope). And then it hit me. Over the course of my years I've seen numerous artists, musicians, writers and so forth struggling with the position that using their talents as a primary source of income has put them in. This is the exact position that I would hope numerous businesses find themselves in by simply attempting to stay honest with the customer. Some of the ideas I remembered don't exactly translate into business marketing, and they're by no means groundbreaking or new, but they are a slightly different slant on marketing that may be able to help one or two businesses out there.
 

Never Sell Your Product. Sell Your Image.
 

I honestly cannot name a single Elvis Presley song, but I know of the man. I have no idea what a Van Gogh painting looks like, but I know of the man. I've never read a single sentence written by Gertrude Stein, but I know of the woman. To get to the point, and paraphrase Kris Parker: your art will come and go, but your image will stay respected. Business is the same thing. The buzz of your actual product is very likely to change or fade away over time, but your image will stay engrained. 

In the business world, Rockstar Games is a shining example of this theory. Throughout its career Rockstar has established itself within the gaming community as a company that is thoroughly concerned with releasing titles of only the utmost technical quality, though most viewed their huge sales numbers as a result of mere shock value due to violent games such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt. However, Rockstar shattered these notions by successfully releasing and selling an ultra-realistic simulation of table tennis to the exact same market that was slopping up wanton gore just a year before, and proving that it is truly your image that will make you a mainstay. 
 

Find Other Means of Revenue
 

This one may sound tricky. As an artist, the best way to ensure that you never compromise your art is to not use your art as your primary source of income. In the business world it doesn't exactly make sense to set up shop with a particular service or good only to set it as secondary in terms of your overall revenue. And to be honest, this idea doesn't apply to every business, though that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to any business. What I'm getting at is once you've established yourself within your given market, place quality first for your initial product, and find other ways to bring in money and support the business. Of course, this can't be done without first selling your image.

This idea can be seen to varying degrees in a number of businesses, though movie theaters are probably the most widely known practitioners of this principle. You go to a movie theater to, well, see a movie. However, their chief source of income is from the concession stands. So through their image as a comfortable and convenient movie theater they will bring the customer in to experience their main good, the movie, and make their money by offering candy and snacks on the side.