Kathye Quick- Can We Talk?

Promotion and Marketing

A Cliff Notes Course in Getting Notice

by Kathye Quick
Copyright ©2007

Marketing 101 - Websites

Not only do you need a presence on the internet, you should be actively marketing on the internet.

And there is no internet marketing without a website. In building your website, there is a lot more to consider besides just making it esthetically pleasing.

Websites should:

Outbound activities:

Build awareness
Conveys knowledge of your books
Increases interest
Encourages to purchase by promotion

Inbound Activities:

Gather information
Gets feedback
Interacts with readers

Marketing 102 - Blogs

In addition to websites, it is almost as important to have a blog these days.

Blogs are informal communications among you, your readers and anyone else who might stop by and take an interest in your books. They are opportunities to encourage word-of-mouth sales and to develop relationships with readers on a personal level.

Blogs can:

A successful blog is actually one that is not heavily control. While this may sound a bit scary, it is the lack of total control that makes the blog have an greater impact on the readers and potential readers

Blogs need to be

Marketing 103 – Internet Marketing

Not only do you need a presence on the net, you should be actively marketing your books there as well. Whether you want to use the internet to simply provide information to you readers or go far beyond that to actually sell your books, you need to have a strategy in place. Direct marketing that works on other media, may not work on the internet. You cannot simply take your brochures and excerpts and stick them on the internet hoping to be effective.

An internet marketing strategy should consist of four major components:

In an internet marketing strategy there are many routes to consider. But before even taking one, you have to think of all the attributes you can use in marketing. You do this by using Identifiers.

Identifies stimulate a reader to think of all the attributes of your work. They are anything that can be associated with you, your genre or your book They include your name or pen name, tag lines, logos, color schemes, symbols or anything that is unique to your work. Identifies can link one book with another other, if that’s what you want to do, or it can link a specific genre with your name, if that’s the direction in which you want to go. It all starts with what you hope to accomplish.

You need a strategy for your identifiers to make sure they communicate what you want your target readers to know about you and your work.

There are four main components to an Identifier Strategy:

Objective – the role of your identifier in your marketing campaign. This established awareness and knowledge in the minds of your target readers
Message – the attributes of your book with which your identifiers are associated. This should consistent convey your theme, genre or series. For instance, if you write books with a consistent medieval theme, your message should be medieval, not historical.
Media – made your identifier visible. This consists of advertising, uniqueness, genre, symbols, and hand outs. Everything needs to relate back to your theme. Consistency is important to success.
Effort – amount of time and/or money you will spend on your identifiers

Your identifier helps you in the first stage of communication with your readers. They establish awareness in the mind of the reader. For instance if you book is a historical and you want it to stand out, you must find something unique that identifies you and sets you apart from the pack. Perhaps your book revolves around a specific era in history – medieval, regency, medieval magic, civil war, etc. Choose something that will make the reader remember your book and continue the imagery through your series – a magic sword, a knight’s banner, a flag, something that will extend through your stories and tie them together and to you.

Your identifier strategy should be strong and consistent with you’re the stories or series you are trying to promote. The communication of your message should be consistent with your goal. That communication is more powerful if all your identifiers are coordinated to give the same message.

You can also use Banner ads. Banner ads need to be sticky and viral.

Sticky means that people will want to read them and check out the links. Whatever you put in your ad needs to be valuable – discounts, special offers, inside information.

Viral means the readers want to send the links or tell other readers about your ad. It must be seen as worthwhile – perhaps announcing a contest or short-term promo offer.

Don’t take out a banner ad without first knowing what hat you want to achieve by using one, Banner ads are normally a short, tern investment, so make the most of them by making sure your message is precise and targeted.

Internet marketing can involve advertising, identifiers (name, logo, tags, style, and genre), sales promotions, selling and public relations – all communication approaches.

There are four major components to internet marketing:

Internet objectives – the impact you want to make on your target readers
Your message – what make your book unique,
Your method – how you plan on getting your message out

Your effort – how much time and/or money do you plan to spend

Marketing 104 – Promotion and Public Relations

Promotion

In a world where readers have the choice of thousands of books, promotion tools can effectively prompt the readers to choose yours. The challenge of using promotion is to get new readers and turn them into long-term fans.

As with anything, your Promotion Strategy has many components:

Reader Oriented promotions –

- discounts

- contests

- loyalty promotions

- build the identity – tee shirts, luggage tags, use a color scheme if you can

Trade Oriented Promotions

- co-op advertising of similar books

-expand into new markets – bundle similar promotions

- create excitement – use themes or twists in displays and fishing letters

© Effort - the amount spent depends on the estimated effects over time especially when trying to acquire new readers – Objective and task approach – estimate how many new readers make it worth your while to engage a certain promotion campaign. If your objective is to get your name out, decide how much you want to spend on the promotional campaign.

Promotions can be very effective in acquiring new readers. Once you have built a base, it is important to keep the attention of your readers so that they continue to buy your books. Keep your message consistent but fresh.

Public Relations

While it may be difficult to measure the exact effect of public relations, many professionals consider it a cost-effective means of communication. Having your books featured in a press release or on a local news show is valuable exposure. When information about you or your book appears in the media, it usually appears to have more credibility than if the same information appeared in a paid advertisement.

PR Objectives:

Build excitement – get readers to talk about your books
Create News -
Generate interest – target interesting twists and events in your book to persuade the reader to buy it
Develop a relationship with readers – e-newsletters maintain contact with readers
Build your name – your message should be consistent with what you write
Provide value – your newsletter or blog can list interesting facts or events associated with your book.

Public relations is an important way to communicate not only with your readers and potential readers, but also members of other audiences that can affect your marketing performance. But a PR approach must be integrated into an overall marketing strategy and provide a consistent message to work.

Marketing 105 - Guerrilla Marketing

We all do not have the marketing budgets and resources of Nora Roberts or Sherrilyn Kenyon, but we do have a way to make inroads. Guerrilla marketing is about promoting without a big budget.

But Guerrilla marketing does not work unless you concentrate your efforts on a specific message. Without a clear understanding of the readers you want to attract, you will spread your resources too thin. Instead of focusing on a specific reader base, you will get the occasional purchase instead of building reader loyalty.

Your guerrilla marketing strategy must coordinate all your efforts to support positioning your book to a specific reader base. Without this clear objective, it is difficult to tell the readers why they should buy your book instead of all the others out there. The temptation is to tell the readers everything good about your book instead of picking out something interesting or distinctive and generating a buzz about it.

Your guerrilla marketing strategy should look something like this:

Guerrilla promotions

Guerrilla PR

Guerrilla Internet

Marketing does not have to be expensive to he effective, but it foes have to he targeted, Know your readers and know the reason they buy your books. Target the uniqueness of your genre, series or storyline.

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