Book Marketing - Selling Your Work In An Internet Marketing Environment

If we can believe the numbers, somewhere around 800,000 self published books hit the market last year. Imagine this:

You walk into a library. The library contains over 300 million books.

'Show me everything you have in the way of children's books,' you say to the librarian.

The librarian hands you 38 million index cards.

'Oh, wait a moment,' you exclaim, 'I only have time to look at 20 or 30.'

Now the librarian, whose name happens to be Ms. Searchengine, decides which 20 or 30 of the 38,000,000 cards she believes to be important and hands them to you. The rest simply disappear from your vision. The other 37 million plus books become invisible to you.

This example seems extreme, but the numbers are close to being correct. There are over 300 million sites on the Internet. People, not knowing an author's name or title, will search using a generic phrase such as 'children's book'. Some search engines will return over 38 million hits for such a phrase. And most searchers will only look through the first 20 or 30 search engine results before stopping.

If you are the author of a children's book, this is very close to what you will face when attempting to get some notice for that new book you have slaved over. How does one overcome this mind-numbingly difficult situation?

Niche marketing.

Yes, I know - the very phrase 'niche marketing' has become a cliche. It's been overused. It has never been overdone.

In the past, marketing was primarily a game of numbers. As marketing professionals we came to expect about 1/2 of 1% rate of return. If we sent 1000 postcards bulk mail to a list, we could expect that about 5 people would respond to that mailing (assuming they had shown no prior interest in the subject of the mailing). If we instead used a targeted list (for which people had previously shown an interest in the product being presented), the numbers went up.

Many people panic when they first hear about a rate of return of just 1/2 of 1%. 'Oh,' they say, 'that means I will need to get 1000 visitors to my site to sell just five books! I only get about 20 or 30 visitors a day! It will take forever to be successful."

While on the surface this may seem to be a depressing situation, the inbound nature of Internet marketing actually makes it much easier to enjoy larger conversion percentages. Why is this so?

If an Internet surfer types 'children's book' into the search engine, what are they interested in?

Children's books.

If your site is optimized for that phrase, they will find you - maybe.

This actually means that not some, but rather every person who that author's site is interested in what that author is offering. All of them. Every single one.

However the real key in inbound marketing is to be found by those who are looking for you - to be one of the first 20 or 30 presented by the search engine for that very generic search phrase. They do not yet know the author's name. They do not yet know the title of your book. That is an extremely difficult task for some.

This is precisely why strategic search engine optimization is so important to anyone marketing anything on the Internet. This is especially true for marketing books. Try to imagine what might happen if 800,000 new hardware stores opened in the US every year. Year after year after year. Yet this is what is happening in the field of book marketing. And that is why you will want to get serious about SEO if you intend to market your book in an Internet marketing environment and this is also why you want to learn as much as possible about the search habits of your niche market.

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Internet Marketing and PR Strategies – Are You The Invisible Business?

Way back in the day, I had a client who owned a transmission shop in a city of 100,000 people. His transmission shop was named 'AAA Transmission'. He chose this name because this would be the first listing in the yellow pages when someone searched for 'transmission' (yellow page optimization was and is much simpler than search engine optimization). This placement in the yellow pages was responsible for bringing in nearly 90% of his new business.

One year, due to an oversight, the phone book company failed to place his ad in the yellow pages section. He lost 90% of his call-in business practically overnight. The phone stopped ringing. This simple oversight nearly destroyed his business. As a result, he was then forced to run large ads in the local newspaper week after week after week - a very expensive proposition.

As a business owner, you would likely find this story to be sad indeed. However, believe it or not, this is most likely your story if you have not taken the time to develop a laser sharp Internet search engine strategy for your business. The Internet has replaced the old phone book for a very high percentage of the population. In your case, however, you may be invisible to the entire world, not just a city of 100,000.

Imagine for a moment a directory containing nearly half a billion entries (this is close to the truth, assuming we count both websites and blogs). Your goal is to have your business appear on the first page of that directory under an appropriate heading such as ‘printer’ or ‘accountant’. How would you do that? That is what search engine optimization is all about.

Most businesses find this to be a very daunting, if not completely overwhelming task. Very few people will every type your business name directly into the search engine query box as most of the world population does not yet know you even exist. Instead, they will use a broader term, describing what they are looking for. They will use words like ‘printer’ or ‘accountant’ or 'transmission'. If your competition appears and you do not, this is the same as having no listing in the yellow pages. If nearly everyone is using that search engine to make decisions about where to place their business, you are in trouble indeed.

Take just a moment and do this. Type in that very broad term that relates to your business. Look at the total number of sites returned. That is the number of sites that make up your competition in this 500 million entry directory known as the search engine.

The search engine will always hold the final say regarding where you are placed in this directory. Again, for some, getting to that first or perhaps second or third page can be likened to finding the Holy Grail buried in your back yard. This is not likely to happen. And, for most, this seems to be a nearly impossible task.

But it is not difficult if you have done your homework. All that is required is a strategy that incorporates three key components

1. You must know how your potential client thinks and which words your client will use to find you – not the words you might use, but rather the words THEY will use. This keyword analysis is a vital first step in the process.

2. You must know and fully understand how search engines work. This will require some hours of serious study and research.

3. You must design a strategy that incorporates both of the above and simultaneously outshines the strategy of the millions of sites who are your competitors.

You have two options. You can take the time to learn what you need to know and to develop that strategy based on your particular situation or you must hire someone you trust to do this for your business. Failure to do either will certainly cause you to be nearly invisible to those who matter – your potential clients.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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Social Media Versus Paid Advertising - The Writing On The Wall

In the news yesterday I read about yet another local North Carolina magazine going out of business. 'Changes in the publishing business' was the reason given by the owners. These closings follow the track of larger magazines and newspapers across the country.

Magazines and newspapers are having a tough time these days it seems. Why is this occurring? Frankly it is because magazines and newspapers need ad revenue to survive and, for many, it is just not there at the levels required anymore.

Many blame the Internet for this turn of events. However, it is most likely not the Internet itself that has caused the problem. It is, rather, the fact that people have simply begun to say 'Enough is enough'. The mindset of the modern-day consumer is a far cry from that of the Silent Generation, the Veteran Generation and the Boomer Generation. These folks would sit still for those blatant, yell in the ear tactics. Not so today. Things have changed and they have changed permanently.

As a society, we have advertised ad nauseam. Though it used to work well, advertising no longer works like it used to. A recent study showed that a very high percentage of people who can skip advertising DO skip advertising. Advertising must produce results or it is money wasted. If nobody is listening or watching, it will not produce those results.

People simply do not like ads. Think about this. When you pick up a newspaper, do you prefer to read the ads or the stories? When you watch television, do you jump up to make a sandwich when the show comes on so that you can get back in time for the commercials? TIVO, spam blockers, popup blockers, paid radio - the list goes on and on. The success of commercial skipping technologies is a testament to the simple fact that people dislike advertising. As a marketer, the very last thing you want is to have people fast forwarding past your message. People do not like to read ads, but they do like to read about subjects they find to be interesting. This is why content is king and why publicity works.

This is also why social media marketing is quickly taking the front seat in regards to producing results for business in the Internet marketing environment. There is one form of message that people love more than any other form - hearing from their own friends. That message is read. That message is not ignored. That message can and will produce results.

Social media messages, sent via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any social media delivery system, from one person to another, represent the modern-day equivalent of referral marketing, generally considered to be the most effective form of delivery for any marketing message ever devised by mankind. It is always been the most effective, is still the most effective form today and will always be the most effective form of creating awareness for any business.

Magazines, radio, tv and newspapers will never disappear, but they will be forced to develop different operating models and the Internet takes more and more of the revenue share. Those who can manage to incorporate social media marketing into their revenue generation model will survive, while those who do not or cannot most likely will not survive.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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Social Media Marketing - How To Determine The ROI For Business

Many business owners have a hard time getting their heads around the real value of social media. Some refuse, some are afraid of it, some are confused by it, many ignore it completely and others jump in just to say they have jumped in.

“What is the ROI of social media?” is a question heard more and more these days. The mindset of the successful business owner demands a fair return on investment. This is common sense and is frankly most likely the reason why that individual is the owner. The owner invests money or manpower to attempt to create a profit of a certain percentage. A fair return on investment is one of the measures of success. If we cannot measure that return on a particular investment, how will we ever know if we are being successful and, if so, to what degree? This makes perfect sense. It is business.

Social media marketing does not easily lend itself to such cold calculations. So let's ask a few quick questions:

What is the ROI in regards to having lunch with a potential big client?
What is the ROI in regards to a playing a round of golf with a trusted advisor?
What is the ROI in regards to having a drink with the new hire?
What is the ROI in regards to attending a social affair as representative of the company?

ROI cannot be calculated in the above cases either. Yet these are almost universally accepted necessary practices of nearly all business owners. Most owners do not think in terms of ROI in regards to these practices. All of these fall instead under the heading of PR or building relationship.

That is precisely what participation in social media accomplishes. It is an electronic version of lunch with a client, golf with an advisor, drinks with a new employee or attending a social affair. It is the building and solidifying of relationships between organization and customer; between business and client. Every business owner knows that many of the longest lasting and most profitable relationships are not build in the boardroom. They are often built on the golf course, over lunch or while having drinks. Social media is the same game, but on a much larger scale

Can we determine the ROI of a positive impression? Can we coldly calculate the value of a warm conversation? Can we determine precisely the amount of awareness a billboard on a busy highway creates? No, no and no.

Likewise, we cannot determine the ROI of social media.

Of one thing every business owner can be certain. According to the hundreds of studies available out there, a huge percentage of the general population now participates in social media on a regular basis. If your company is not there, it may end up being virtually invisible to that huge percentage of your potential new clients.

Forget ROI in regards to social media. Look instead at what your company stands to lose by not being there.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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