Going For It - New Years Book Marketing Resolutions.

Depending on the source you believe, somewhere around 500,000 new books hit the shelves this year.

What does this mean?

* If each book were but an inch thick, and all the books were placed on a single shelf, that shelf would be over 7.8 MILES long. You book is but one of them. This does not take into consideration all the books out there already. That's just this past year.

If you walked into a bookstore and asked for your own title and the clerk pointed and said '7.8 miles down, on the left,' how would you feel?

* Walk outside tonight. Count every star you can see in the sky. Write down the total number of stars you can see, then take that number times a factor of 200,000. The resulting number is the number of sites competing for your potential buyer's attention. This number varies widely depending on the source and nobody knows for certain, but it's somewhere around 400,000,000 sites. That's 400 million. (again there is a lot of argument on this point)

* We must remember that many of the competing books out there have big money and big marketing and publicity machines backing them up, while many of the competing sites have SEO experts at the helm with huge budgets and years of education, knowledge and experience. Such is your competition.

Sadly, authors who initially hoped they would become more famous are more likely simply becoming more invisible.

This year, if you are serious about your book, you should perhaps get really serious about marketing.

Putting up a nice website, writing a blog, twittering and facebooking, doing a book trailer or a press release and the like, while commendable, are not really going to set you apart, as nearly every single one of those 500,000 authors and companies and 400 million owners of those sites are doing this also. Everybody is doing this. So, what will work?

Developing a laser sharp marketing strategy and marketing plan that will set you apart and create real awareness for you and your book will work. If you are but playing at marketing, you must begin to really work at marketing your book. It is perhaps not necessary to work harder. It is always advisable to work smarter.

What does developing a real book marketing strategic plan involve?

* Developing tightly focused buyer profiles
* Formulating laser sharp branding strategies
* Developing traditional and non-traditional publicity strategies
* Writing keyword optimized, profile specific marketing copy
* Developing an effective media strategy
* Developing a keyword strategy specific to your niche profiles
* Implementing a website optimization strategy for the visitor
* Search engine optimization for the search engines
* Developing effective targeted optimized blogging strategies
* Developing effective social media marketing strategies
* Learning to develop inbound marketing strategies with outbound strategies

Some of these are Internet strategies. Over 70% of your potential buyers now consider the Internet to be not just A choice, but THE FIRST choice when making purchasing decisions. And the points above are but starting points. The strategy must be implemented and you must work that strategy every day. You will need to adjust that strategy as market conditions change, new opportunities are presented and ideas once good become not so good.

Nobody writes a book to become a marketer. People write books because they want to be an author.

However, the term 'author' now encompasses the term 'marketer'. If you do not get serious about marketing, you will be an unknown author. Free articles and ebooks regarding marketing are available at the Free Publicity Focus Group article section here. Free video training is also available here. A free, no obligation consultation is available here.

It is the year 2010. The marketing methods used in the past decade will not work well in this environment.

The market is not a thing - the market is an event and it is an event that changes and morphs and moves and becomes something different every single day. You must not only keep up with these changes, you must stay ahead of them or be left in the dust. Owning a business and saying 'I hate marketing,' is like owning a car and saying 'I hate buying gasoline'. People do not actually hate marketing. People actually hate selling. But selling is just a subset, a component of the marketing model.

Are you ready to go for it? Make a resolution in 2010 to get really serious about marketing.

Feel free to contact me at don@freepublicitygroup.com

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The Single Key That Leads To Internet Marketing Success Or Failure

There is a single factor, unrecognized by many, that can mean the difference between success and failure in Internet marketing. Even if everything is done right, this factor can singlehandedly destroy any business. Conversely, even if everything else is lacking, this factor can still cause a business to succeed.

Surprisingly, as important as this factor may be, it is so basic that most businesses simply fail take it into consideration at all. The failure to consider this when presenting a business to the world could be said to be the very base upon which all success rests. What is this all important component of a successful Internet marketing strategy?

Trust.

People will only buy from a business if they really trust that business.

If people do not trust you, they will never buy anything, regardless of the price asked or the quality of the product. If they do really trust you, they will do business with you even if everything else is not up to par.

Trust is formed as the result of many seemingly unconnected factors. Building trust is an intuitive and perhaps a subconscious process. We often cannot verbalize why we trust a particular business or individual. We cannot say why we do - we only somehow know that we do, or we do not. We know it the minute we walk through the door. On the Internet, we know it the second the web site flashes on to the screen. We never actually decide to trust or not to trust. We instead feel trust.

As buyers we can begin to experience trust as the result of a handshake, in the eye contact – in hundreds of ways. We sense feelings of mistrust in the same way. However, as business owners in an Internet marketing environment, we are not given the opportunity to develop that trust through a firm handshake or a steady gaze. We must instead build trust through words, images, initial impressions and site design.

Intuitive processes are quite hard to define. While our fathers may have trusted banks and presidents, many of us today do not. Is this due to a greater awareness, better communication or media influence? Or is it the result of something else now present that was not present in years past?

The subject of building trust could span an entire book, or perhaps many books. It cannot be given a full treatment in a single article and so I shall attempt to cover the subject over a number of concurrent articles.

That being said, here is one easy takeaway idea. Understand that there are basically two broad categories of businesses. There are takers and there are givers.

Takers take. They take your money. They take your name. They take your email address.

Givers give. They give free advice. Free articles. Free gifts.

If a business is a ‘taker’, people will most likely not trust that business.

If a business is a ‘giver’, people will often trust that business, even if everything else is messed up completely.

If a business is a ‘giver’ but has strings attached to the gift, people will know that business is just a taker trying to appear to be a giver. Don't do this. This old-school tactic is number one on the list of things that can immediately destroy trust.

In the next article I will continue with the subject of trust and how to begin to build it.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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Creating Awareness In A Global Marketing Environment

In the 'old days', creating awareness of a product or service in the marketplace required a simple and very straightforward approach. Most of us just advertised in the media available at the time. These outlets included newspaper, radio, television and magazines. Frankly, it was a no-brainer. We decided on an ad budget, determined the appropriate percentage of the budget to be allocated to a particular vehicle, created and placed the advertising and tracked the results.

All of that has changed.

In this environment, an effective marketing strategy must be concentrated in four distinct, key areas:

Search Engine Presence and Optimization

A very large percentage of the buying public now looks at the Internet as not just a choice, but rather as the first choice when making purchasing decisions.

Traditional Outlets (Newspaper, radio, TV, magazines, etc)

These are still important if the product or service is offered locally versus globally. However, many people will choose the Internet first even when making local purchasing decisions.

Social Sites

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social sites are also being used by a very large percentage of the buying public. If a business is not there, it runs the risk of being invisible to a large segment of its potential new client base.

The 'Blogosphere'

Bloggers are fast becoming the new media. It is urgent that any business create awareness of products or services here or risk losing those who look to blog reviews and opinions when making purchasing decisions.

It is a much bigger game, and tracking ROI has become very difficult.

In addition business owners must be aware of the shift that has occurred from outbound strategies to inbound strategies. In years past, creating awareness was primarily an outbound strategy. We found potential customers and clients and delivered a message using the tools of the times. This outbound strategy was a 'yell in the client's ear' approach that was based primarily on advertising in the vehicles available at the time. Commercials, billboards, direct mail and like vehicles formed the basis of the marketing toolkit.

In today’s environment, businesses must marry that outbound strategy with a laser sharp inbound strategy. The inbound strategy allows the potential client to easily find the product or service they seek. Search engine optimization and Internet publicity strategies are the primary components of this inbound strategy.

It is a much bigger game and the learning curve is very long. However, though there is much more that must be dealt with in this environment, the ability to take the little mom and pop corner store to the global marketplace brings something to the table that was perhaps not there before.

It is really fun.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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Getting The Attention Of The Media

Excerpted From McCauley's Marketing Manifesto
http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/marketing_manifesto.html

There has been a great deal of talk lately regarding whether it even makes sense to approach traditional journalists anymore when attempting to create publicity for you, your product or your service. The answer to that question is found in the client profiles you create. That being said, if you find that you must necessarily pursue this as part of your marketing strategy, I offer the following from McCauley's Marketing Manifesto, Section H, Media - Traditional Journalists:

MEDIA – TRADITIONAL JOURNALISTS

1. The media does not care about your product or your service

a. This is because the media is interested in news

2. The media really has no reason to care about your product or your service

a. This is because the people in the media are paid to report news. A sales pitch does not qualify as news.

3. The media WILL begin to care about you, your product or your service ONLY if you present something that has real news value

a. Real news value can mean many things at different times. Even if your message has real news value, it is always up to THEM to decide how this will be judged and how important it might be to their slice of the mind of the public. It is not up to you. Don’t bug them. Feed them quality information instead and be patient. Demonstrate that you know your subject and that you are a real professional. Don't call us, we'll call you is a good rule to keep in mind.

b. You will be forced to jump through their particular hoops if you hope to get coverage. Every one of these will have a different set of hoops. However, media people are accustomed to getting ‘pitches’ so, learn how to pitch effectively.

c. That being said, a 'pitch' to a journalist is NOT the same as a 'sales pitch'. They are two completely different things. This too is an art form with a huge learning curve. If you do not know the difference, don't even attempt it. I will say it again - traditional journalists are not paid to listen to sales pitches; they are paid to report news that is important to the public.

4. Traditional journalists, though still important, are not AS important as they once were.

a. If your potential buying profiles are still watching TV, listening to radio or reading newspapers and magazines, then you will need to learn to pitch well as you will necessarily need to get coverage in tv, radio, newspapers and magazines. If your potential buyer is using the Internet exclusively, concentrate your efforts there instead. Due to the move by journalists to the Internet, (and if placed properly), your message will be picked up by default. Remember that it is always best to create relationships with the media and not to be perceived as a huckster. (See 'The End Of An Era' located in the articles section of this site"

b. 'THE MEDIA' is not a thing. The media is a group that is comprised of real, live human beings. Remember that always. Treat them with courtesy, dignity and respect as you would anyone else. They are busy people and you must respect their time.

5. A media release is a one time, very directed news communication tool with a time limit

a. Never use a cookie cutter release. Never use someone else's release as a model. You will be seen to be like that guy in the bar - you know the one - the guy that goes from table to table saying exactly the same thing to every girl in the place, hoping to get lucky with someone - anyone. Using someone else's release as a model is like asking someone if you can read a letter they wrote to their girlfriend, copying it and then sending it to YOUR girlfriend. The results will be pretty much the same.

b. A media release may or may not directly create sales. Usually not. The purpose of the media release is to help create the 'buzz'. The buzz creates the sales. The media release is a vital component of the strategy and should be treated as such. If anyone tells you anything different, run away, run away.

6. The Internet is fast replacing traditional media (duhh)

a. There are two types of improvement models:

Constructive: This is where a new idea improves upon an existing model in some way, leaving the existing model in place

Destructive: This is where a new idea completely replaces the old model, rendering it obsolete.

The Internet could be said to be a destructive form when applied to traditional media. Though this will not happen immediately, the Internet will eventually most likely completely replace tradtional media. Newspapers are really feeling the heat now. Radio is not far behind.

For now, depending upon your target profiles, you may need to use both the Internet and traditional media. Don't ignore either. It is your specific profiles that will determine which should be used and in what ratios.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group

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