Nothing will ever happen unless your book sells. And sales will only happen if your marketing works. To make your marketing work, you must understand the difference between marketing METHODS and marketing STRATEGIES.
A tool is a TOOL. A STRATEGY is HOW that tool is used. For example, an author page is a tool. How that page is used is the strategy.
While some people do experience success in regards to marketing their books, a much larger percentage of people fail. But all have access to the same tools. Why is this true? In nearly every case the difference lies in HOW those tools, available to everyone, are used.
The strategy is the blueprint. If you need to build a house, you would not just grab some lumber and start sawing away wildly on some boards, hoping they all fit together later. That would make no sense at all. Unfortunately this is how many people approach marketing.
To build a house, it would be wise to first have a plan – a blueprint. You would then refer to the blueprint to determine how much lumber you need, what type, how much, number of pieces, size of each individual piece and how those pieces will all fit together. The blueprint comes first. Without a blueprint, you will end up building a shack. Your dream house will become a casualty of poor planning.
People new to marketing sometimes have a tendency to jump in, grab some tools and start sawing away . They set up a facebook page, a twitter account, sign up on all the ebook sites, start blasting out sales messages to ‘get the word out’ and then wait for sales to roll in. Guess what?
It doesn’t work that way.
If it did, all of the hundreds of thousands of authors who wrote a book last year would be successful. Sadly, very few of them are. Why?
The lack of strategic planning.
Putting together a workable, valid marketing strategy (one that produces sales) involves a great deal of strategic planning. Every component of the marketing plan must be strategized BEFORE it is implemented. If this is not done, the book will almost certainly become a casualty of poor planning.
To make a simple example, we will use social media marketing.
Many people set up a Facebook or Twitter account and start sending out ‘Buy my book’ style messages. Nearly everybody does this at first. But they find out very quickly it simply does not work to create sales. Oh yes, we might get a few likes or retweets, but is that the goal? If it is, then perhaps social media will satisfy our needs in respect to vanity. But a like is not a sale. A retweet is not money in the bank.
To be successful you must create sales. That approach to social media will likely not produce sales, and that book into which you put your heart and soul and all that work will likely become a casualty of poor planning.
A recent study showed that over 79% of people ‘almost never’ click on an ad. Over 90% have not purchased even when they do click on an ad. A ‘buy my book’ style message IS an advertising message.
This is but one example, applied to a one component of a marketing strategy. There are many more components that must be incorporated into your marketing strategy. Every one of them must employ an effective, proven approach.
Social media can be an effective tool in regards to creating AWARENESS. How that is accomplished, the strategy, will depend on the book, the subject matter and the very specific needs of that slice of the audience known as your ‘target market’. Thus the strategy and the implementation of that social media strategy will be different for everyone.
Many variables come into play when developing a strategy for a particular book with a specific target market group. Only one thing can be said with certainty: Sending out ‘buy my book’ messages to everybody is not going to work. What will work is to clearly define the perceived needs of your book buying audience, Clearly communicate how your work meets those needs. Do this using the communications methods your target audience prefers. Have engagement systems in place – the list goes on and on.
Once the strategy is in place, only then should the tools be used to implement the strategy.
For more information, see our free webinar, ‘13 Ways To Improve Your Book Marketing Results Today‘.