Marketing a Book: Know Your Audience FIRST

When marketing a book, it is crucial to know who your audience is or who you are writing for. It is therefore important that you adjust your writing style, from what you are used to, to adapt to your audience specifics. In finding success in marketing a book, make sure you have a great sales pitch to increase book sales and reach a wider audience.

Before you place one single finger on the keys you MUST know your audience. Who are you writing for and how do they listen? When you are marketing a book, (for now we’ll focus on self-help books), it's important that you have geared your words directly for the audience receiving you. That's if you want open arms to fall into.

I know I've mentioned in other articles about sticking with your writing style. That still holds true but you also need to have an open mind and some bend-ability to adapt somewhat depending on the audience specifics. For instance you may be writing in general about the harmful cancers found in Grade A beef on the grocery shelf. When you are writing for a general information audience you want to tone down a little on the technical and make sure your writing is colorful and alive. Make sure you've got a great sales pitch and are able to entertain as well as educate while your fingers are massaging the keys. If on the other hand you've landed a technical gig where you have an audience in front of you that's only interested in the statistical data of cancers in meat, then you've got to take some of the creativity out of your writing style and flatten your voice a bit before delivering.

Here are a few pointers to help you along creating success with your self-help books. 

RESEARCH

By reading about your intended audience you will learn and grow. The more you know the better you will be able to bridge the gap between your knowledge and their need to learn.

TEST DRIVE

You may not know who your audience is off the hop and that's perfectly kosher. Experiment a little and measure what sort of response you get from different audiences. Often you will find your devoted audiences in the weirdest places. When you are marketing a book look behind your pre-set boarders.

ASK THEM

Reach out and touch your audience directly. Ask them what they specifically would like you to write about. Everyone love and wants to be involved. By initializing this attachment you've already got a base eager for your words before you've even begin writing your first of many amazing self-help books.

EXPERIMENT

When you get comfortable as a writer it's time to get uncomfortable. Lift your walls and see what else is out there. Many times writers feel trapped in writing for a specific audience only to discover that there are zillions of other people that want to read, learn, and grow from what you have to say.

Finding success in marketing a book means you've got to want it, and if you want it then you will find a way to know your audience.   As a result, you will have a solid platform in place of devoted followers that are pre-ordering your massive collection of incredible self-help books. Open your mind to the possibility, get real, set your goals, and never look back! Promise you WILL get there.

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เศรษฐกิจแห่งความว่างเปล่า

      ความลุ่มๆดอนๆ ของเศรษฐกิจโลก ดูจะเป็นเรื่องคุ้นเคยในรอบหลายปีทที่ผ่านมา นับตั้งแต่วิกฤตการณ์แฮมเบอร์เกอร์ที่สั้นคลอนสหรัฐอเมริกาเมื่อปี 2008 การตัดสินใจของสหราชอาณาจักรที่จะอยู่หรือไปกับกลุ่มสหภาพยุโรป ค่าเงินรูเบิลที่ตกกระหน่ำ จนถึงวิกฤตภาระหนี้ของกรีซที่สร้างความกังวลจนตลาดหุ้นสหรัฐ ต้องปิดแดนลบ

      ดังนั้น โลกจึงเฝ้ามองนโยบายและมาตรการทางเสรษฐกิจที่สหรัฐ สหภาพยุโรป จนถึงฝั่งเอเชีย ทั้งญี่ปุ่นและจีน ได้ทยอยออกมาสร้างความเชื่อมั่นละกระตุ้นเศษฐกิจด้วยมาตรการการเงินและการคลัง โดยเฉพาะนโยบายการเพิ่มปริมาณเงิน หรือ มาตรการ QE (Quantitative Easing) ที่ยุโรปและณี่ปุ่นต่างดำเนินการในรูปแบบเดียวกัน เพื่อหวังผลว่า เมื่อเพิ่ปรอมาณการเงินเข้ามาในระบบมากขึ้น ดอกเบี้ยจะลดลง และส่งผลให้ค่าเงินดอลล่าร์สหรัฐ เงินยูโร และเงินเยนอ่อนตัวลง ซึ่งทฤษฏีตามตำราก็ย่อมเป็นประโยชน์ต่อการส่งออก ลดการขาดดุลจากการนำเข้า รวมถึงทำให้เกิดการจ้างงานเติบโต เมื่อคิดคร่าวๆนะครับ ก็จะเห็นแต่ความน่ายินดีของเศรษฐกิจที่ส่องสว่าง ไม่นับรวมการลงทุนของภาครัฐ และราคาน้ำมันที่ลดลงจากการที่สหรัฐสามารถหาแหล่งพลังงานทดแทนได้อีกด้วย

       แต่ชีวิตก็มักไม่เป็นดังเช่นที่หวังไว้ เศรษฐกิจโลกยังคงทอดอาลัย โดยเฉพาะยุโรป ญี่ปุ่น หรือแม้แต่จีน ที่อัตราการเติบโตทางเศรษฐกิจไม่ได้ร้อนแรงเช่นเดิมเสียแล้ว ทางฝั่งยุโรป อัตราการว่างงานสูงถึงร้อยละ 11 และอยู่ในสภาพเช่นนี้มานานจนคล้ายกับคนเซื่องซึม ขณะที่เศรษฐกิจสหรัฐ ที่ว่าผ่านจุดต่ำสุดมาแล้วดูจะหายใจคล่องขึ้น เมื่ออัตราการว่างงานของคนอเมริกันลดลงมาาอยู่ที่ร้อยละ 5.6 เมื่อปลายปี 2014 ซึ่งลดลงกว่าในช่วงเวลาเดียวกันของปีก่อนร้อยละ 1.1 ส่วนอัตราการขยายตัวทางเศรษฐกิจก็เพิ่มขึ้นร้อยละ 3.5

       ซึ่งเป็นผลมาจากการที่จีนแผ่นดินใหญ่เร่งเข้ามาลงทุนในสหรัฐมากขึ้้น ทำให้มาอัตราการจ้างงานที่สูงขึ้ตามลำดับ เป็นที่น่าคิดว่า เศรษฐกิจทางฝั่งอเมริกาจะกลับมาคึกคักอีกครั้ง

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How do you market an expensive item?

F Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the rich are different from you and me”. Well, high-ticket items are different from other goods too. There are no quick tricks when it comes to selling expensive products. But take the right approach with your marketing and you could seriously improve your sales, as Drayton Bird reveals

Years ago I wrote the ads for a very high-ticket item indeed. It was called the Airbus.

How much did I vary my approach? Less than you might think. I started with five thoughts.

1. I had to explain how it was different and better. So I explained how the two engines (rather than three or four) made it more economical.
2. I had to overcome objections. So I explained how these engines were just as safe — you could land with just one functioning.
3. I had to remember that people would be buying it. So I went about appealing to human emotions.
4. I had to remember that there would be many decision-makers. So I bore that in mind in my copy.
5. I had to remember decisions on expensive purchases take a long time. You don't get up one morning and say "I think I'll buy an Airbus". So I didn't say "buy now while stocks last".

So, yes, high-ticket items are indeed different. But it is still all about buying and selling. You must use common sense and adapt what you do to how people buy — the process.

Besides the fact that you often have several decision-makers, and that they all have different motivations which you must address with differing messages, there is one very significant difference.

The greater the price, the harder it normally is to get a sale.

A low price usually means a one-step or maybe a two-step sale, without a great deal of reflection. Who broods over spending £5?

But a £1,000 sale — that may be different. And a £50,000 sale, even more so.

In those higher realms, there may be many stages. You run an ad, or send an email or somedirect mail. You get a reply. Or maybe they go to your website. You try to capture their names. You may phone them. You may have a salesman go and visit. You may invite them to a seminar.

Then, it may take you months or even years to get the sale closed.

Here are some things to bear in mind.

Long copy or short?

Good, long copy almost invariably beats short copy, anyhow. But this is particularly true when things cost a lot.

Let me give you a couple of examples: one of our clients sold a product that starts at £85,000. The average spend though, was £170,000.

Their sales process began with a one-page letter. So we rewrote it. When we had finished, it was four pages long.

Here's the rub though: they said they wouldn't send it out as “nobody will read a four-page letter”. But we persevered, and they reluctantly agreed to send it.

The result? Response tripled and sales doubled. You see, when you are asking people to spend substantial amounts, their neck is on the line - they'd read a book on the subject if they could find one.

More recently we sent out a six-page letter to sell a very complex online product to lawyers. It went to under 2,000 people. One firm splashed out over £100,000 just on the strength of that letter, another over £50,000.

The mailing with one follow-up and a whole sales sequence has produced over £1,000,000 in sales so far. We have just created another follow-up for that client.

Remember, though, there's a huge difference between being long-winded and being relevant. In fact I think my first letter to lawyers was a bit flabby, and have cut it back.

Use individual sales points intelligently

Expensive products seldom if ever have one single benefit — usually you'll end up with quite a list when writing your drafts.

Here's what you should do.

1. Write a letter, email or landing page that encompasses all the points. If you miss any one out, you are missing a potential sale from readers who might be motivated by it.
2. Make sure you also overcome all reasonable objections and fears. Again, any one omitted can lose you a sale.
3. Break the individual topics down into a logical sequence, then use them as the openings to a series of helpful messages to prospects. These can be letters, White Papers — whatever.

Doing this serves two important purposes.

Firstly, different prospects have different needs — and until you are further down the sales process, you won't know what they are. So you have to cover every angle.

Secondly, you stay on their radar without sending out mindless propaganda. And prospects tend to hang on to useful, helpful information.

Another good reason for doing this is it's very hard to stay in touch with prospects when you have nothing new to say and keep repeating yourself.

Mind you, continually sending out the same message to existing prospects is better than doing nothing at all.

Continually qualify your prospect

Every so often, politely ask your prospect whether they'd prefer if they didn't hear from you again.

This not only saves time and money weeding out duff prospects. Another real advantage is forcing your other prospects to ask, "Are we interested in what you have to say and offer? 

Naturally, when you do this, you get more people than normal asking not to hear from you again. But at the same time you get more people letting you know their intentions and where they are in the buying process.

I suspect when you read the bit about long copy you muttered to yourself "Easier said than done".

It's true. So one good trick is to write next to each paragraph a phrase summing up what it says. Then you can see whether the sequence of argument makes sense.

Lastly, here's a point you'll know I'm very fond of:

Don't ignore old prospects — always true but ESPECIALLY true with expensive items. As I said to start with, the decision may take a long time — sometimes years.

Putting the fury and energy most people apply to finding new prospects into existing prospects is always smart. Yet so many still do not do it.

And often, old enquiries are your best prospects. For one thing, you have already been educating them about your merits!

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Getting Clutter Under Control

I have a lot of stuff-too much stuff from the looks of things around here. The books shelves are packed dangerously high and deep, and with a great deal more stuff than just books. Pictures and photos that range in dates from my parents’ childhood to the latest pics I got for Christmas from my brother and his wife and his two kids, looking way too cute. (It had to be photo-shopped, because they normally don’t look like cute like that!) But anyway, that is just a description of one of the many piles of stuff that festoons this place that I like to think of home, no matter how messy it is. It got me thinking though. When exactly is enough enough? When do you know when you have too much stuff? And on top of that what do you do with it when you realize it’s gotten to that level, and you actually have to do something about it? There are a few things I think are simple and easy signposts to recognize it’s time to downsize some of your stuff. Read on to learn more.

Taking a Good Look

If you clean and after you are done you still don’t have a lot of room to walk around, you might have too much stuff. If you find stuff that you haven’t seen in a few years and think I haven’t seen that in years! I was wondering what happened to that … regardless of what it is, you might have too much stuff. Take a look around and be really honest with yourself.

Decision Making Process

The hard part will be deciding what to keep and what to trash to gain control of the clutter. If your only problem is like mine, all those photos, garbage is usually the right decision. In the digital age there is almost no reason to keep photos like that. Old photos of Grandma as she came off of the Carpathia are another story entirely, but if you have questions about something and you aren’t sure you should keep it, that is a sign that it has outlived it’s usefulness, and that usually means the only correct answer is goodbye. If the furniture is worthless and beaten up and you can afford better stuff or it’s simply taking up space you want to use for something else, by all means, toss it.

Downsize

Now this is the hard part. You might really have to bite the bullet and get rid of stuff that you really love. Bite the bullet. Do it. If you do it fast it’ll be like a pulling a Band-Aid off of hairy skin. It will only sting for a second and then the pain is gone, especially if it’s something small like that clearly photo shopped pic of my brother’s kids. Trust me, they’ll take more pictures. They always take more pictures! 

Storage

But what if it’s something that you can actually use, and know you will want for later? Like furniture or that insanely large collection of sports plaques that your husband simply can’t bear to part with? You could go with self-storage. For a fairly small fee depending on the size you want, you can safely store the stuff that you actually need but don’t have room for. For less than one hundred dollars, you can usually get a space large enough for most anything.

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The branding behaviour of high-growth start-ups

The most powerful brands mean something to people; they have values and are emotionally attractive to their target audience

Examples of powerful brands include social photo-sharing site, Instagram, which sold to Facebook for $1bn aged after just 18 months. Or there’s the UK consumer brand, Ella’s Kitchen, which in eight years has grown to have a 20% share of the UK baby food market and a turnover of £100m.

The learnings are the same. These companies set out to create a new market or completely disrupt an old one. To do this you need to have a very clear idea of who you are and what you are doing, and this is all about branding.

Branding is often misconstrued to be the visual elements that represent your business. But to create effective brands, the real work starts long before the creative people are let loose with their colouring pencils.

Here are the five principles that create stand-out brands from day one:

Who are you? What do you stand for?

Your brand positioning is the essence of what you are about, and what you want others to see you as. It should concisely sum up your brand — without fussy words, lengthy sentences, or explanatory sub-headings, with language that emulates the impression you are trying to create. Crack this and your positioning builds to be emotive and more than the sum of its parts.

Paul Lindley, founder of Ella’s Kitchen, developed a brand positioning that effortlessly sums up his mission to revolutionise kids’ eating habits by making healthy food tasty and fun. This compelling positioning can be seen in the company’s tactile packaging, the naming of their products as ‘The Red One’ and ‘The Yellow One’ and in their innovative approach.

Mean something to someone but not everyone

Never fall into the trap of trying to be liked by everyone. Head down this road (and many do) and you’ll be vanilla and not meaning anything to anybody.

Successful brands focus their energy on a distinct target audience looking to create a passionate bond with them, even though they may be hated by others. One of the most publicly extreme examples is from Mike Jefferies, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch who famously said “We hire good-looking people in our stores... good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people." 

Controversial as it is, they have marketing to generation-Y absolutely nailed — they understand them and focus on them only. The opposite of love is not hate — it is complacency — and complacent customers are not loyal. So decide who your “someone” is — define them as one person and make, do and say everything with them in mind.

Define how you act

Whether you prefer to think of it as brand values, beliefs or business ways of working, capturing the way you want to act is vital to creating a scalable business. Left undefined, the way the founders or management team do things gets lost through the business and the customer experience becomes lacklustre. 

How you act covers two areas — how you talk to consumers, and how you want everyone to act within your company. Moo.com revolutionised the B2B stationery printing market with a simple online platform brought to life with a friendly tone-of-voice.

Defining how you want people in your business to act often comes down to ethics or values, but some businesses — such as Innocent — develop one central “way” running across the team and to customers. They have job titles like chief mixer (for the product technologist), chief writer (for copy writer) which brings the personality that makes Innocent special.

Understand your visual codes

For every brand behemoth like Coca-Cola, there are thousands of newer brands trying to stand out and attract the attention of potential customers.

Your visual codes are those elements of your brand that customers associate with your product or service. They include a logo but it doesn’t stop there. Your colour scheme, fonts, imagery and tone make up the brand codes that signal to customers it is you.

Create strong enough visual codes and your customers will know it is you even when you play with your codes — just like Google does with their daily doodles. This is how you can know the brand in a TV advert even before they expose the logo or product.

If you have a story, use it

Most entrepreneurial brands have one consistent thing — a powerful start-up story — and it can add depth and integrity to a brand for customers.

At Ella’s Kitchen, Paul Lindley’s job title is simply Ella’s Dad because he started the business to solve the problem of his daughter’s dislike of healthy foods. At bespoke tailoring companyA Suit That Fits, the wonderful story of co-founder Warren teaching in Nepal underpins the ethical manufacture that continues to this day — and customers relate to the brand more because of this.

Branding is a complex and emotionally-led business, but it has tremendous power in its ability to connect with customers and drive that all-important thing called “loyalty” that every high-growth business wants.

Read more »

How do you market an expensive item?

F Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the rich are different from you and me”. Well, high-ticket items are different from other goods too. There are no quick tricks when it comes to selling expensive products. But take the right approach with your marketing and you could seriously improve your sales, as Drayton Bird reveals

Years ago I wrote the ads for a very high-ticket item indeed. It was called the Airbus.

How much did I vary my approach? Less than you might think. I started with five thoughts.

1. I had to explain how it was different and better. So I explained how the two engines (rather than three or four) made it more economical.
2. I had to overcome objections. So I explained how these engines were just as safe — you could land with just one functioning.
3. I had to remember that people would be buying it. So I went about appealing to human emotions.
4. I had to remember that there would be many decision-makers. So I bore that in mind in my copy.
5. I had to remember decisions on expensive purchases take a long time. You don't get up one morning and say "I think I'll buy an Airbus". So I didn't say "buy now while stocks last".

So, yes, high-ticket items are indeed different. But it is still all about buying and selling. You must use common sense and adapt what you do to how people buy — the process.

Besides the fact that you often have several decision-makers, and that they all have different motivations which you must address with differing messages, there is one very significant difference.

The greater the price, the harder it normally is to get a sale.

A low price usually means a one-step or maybe a two-step sale, without a great deal of reflection. Who broods over spending £5?

But a £1,000 sale — that may be different. And a £50,000 sale, even more so.

In those higher realms, there may be many stages. You run an ad, or send an email or somedirect mail. You get a reply. Or maybe they go to your website. You try to capture their names. You may phone them. You may have a salesman go and visit. You may invite them to a seminar.

Then, it may take you months or even years to get the sale closed.

Here are some things to bear in mind.

Long copy or short?

Good, long copy almost invariably beats short copy, anyhow. But this is particularly true when things cost a lot.

Let me give you a couple of examples: one of our clients sold a product that starts at £85,000. The average spend though, was £170,000.

Their sales process began with a one-page letter. So we rewrote it. When we had finished, it was four pages long.

Here's the rub though: they said they wouldn't send it out as “nobody will read a four-page letter”. But we persevered, and they reluctantly agreed to send it.

The result? Response tripled and sales doubled. You see, when you are asking people to spend substantial amounts, their neck is on the line - they'd read a book on the subject if they could find one.

More recently we sent out a six-page letter to sell a very complex online product to lawyers. It went to under 2,000 people. One firm splashed out over £100,000 just on the strength of that letter, another over £50,000.

The mailing with one follow-up and a whole sales sequence has produced over £1,000,000 in sales so far. We have just created another follow-up for that client.

Remember, though, there's a huge difference between being long-winded and being relevant. In fact I think my first letter to lawyers was a bit flabby, and have cut it back.

Use individual sales points intelligently

Expensive products seldom if ever have one single benefit — usually you'll end up with quite a list when writing your drafts.

Here's what you should do.

1. Write a letter, email or landing page that encompasses all the points. If you miss any one out, you are missing a potential sale from readers who might be motivated by it.
2. Make sure you also overcome all reasonable objections and fears. Again, any one omitted can lose you a sale.
3. Break the individual topics down into a logical sequence, then use them as the openings to a series of helpful messages to prospects. These can be letters, White Papers — whatever.

Doing this serves two important purposes.

Firstly, different prospects have different needs — and until you are further down the sales process, you won't know what they are. So you have to cover every angle.

Secondly, you stay on their radar without sending out mindless propaganda. And prospects tend to hang on to useful, helpful information.

Another good reason for doing this is it's very hard to stay in touch with prospects when you have nothing new to say and keep repeating yourself.

Mind you, continually sending out the same message to existing prospects is better than doing nothing at all.

Continually qualify your prospect

Every so often, politely ask your prospect whether they'd prefer if they didn't hear from you again.

This not only saves time and money weeding out duff prospects. Another real advantage is forcing your other prospects to ask, "Are we interested in what you have to say and offer? 

Naturally, when you do this, you get more people than normal asking not to hear from you again. But at the same time you get more people letting you know their intentions and where they are in the buying process.

I suspect when you read the bit about long copy you muttered to yourself "Easier said than done".

It's true. So one good trick is to write next to each paragraph a phrase summing up what it says. Then you can see whether the sequence of argument makes sense.

Lastly, here's a point you'll know I'm very fond of:

Don't ignore old prospects — always true but ESPECIALLY true with expensive items. As I said to start with, the decision may take a long time — sometimes years.

Putting the fury and energy most people apply to finding new prospects into existing prospects is always smart. Yet so many still do not do it.

And often, old enquiries are your best prospects. For one thing, you have already been educating them about your merits!

Read more »

Can your marketing make people feel good?

Many small business owners feel uncomfortable about marketing. Some positively hate it.

A new client of ours — the head of a very successful consultancy — has shied away from marketing for years because to him, it feels intrinsically wrong. In his eyes, markeing is putting on an act, pretending to be something you’re not. Like many people, he thinks there’s a dishonesty at the heart of marketing that doesn’t sit easily with the way he feels about himself or his business.

He’s not the only one. Pretending to be something you’re not is never a good feeling.

Don’t be a pushy marketer

We all have a short fuse when it comes to being marketed at by pushy marketers — cold callers, spammy emails, incessant amazing never-to-be-repeated deals (until tomorrow, that is, when you get them again). And that means we don’t want to be that pushy person ourselves 

We say look at marketing differently. When you approach marketing from the standpoint of ‘how can we help our customers better?’ rather than ‘how can we sell more stuff?’ it becomes easier. And, it works more effectively. It’s easy to switch off from a marketing message, it’s not so easy to switch off from something that genuinely answers a question that’s been really bugging you.

Right now, it would be impossible for me not to click on something that showed me how to get my 16-year-old son to revise.

You’ll stop seeing it as pushing, lying, or manipulation if you don’t push, lie or manipulate. Create marketing content that is genuinely helpful and you take the pressure off yourself.

Of course feel-good marketing is only possible if what you’re selling makes a difference. But that doesn’t mean you have to be Greenpeace, it just means you genuinely want to improve your customers’ lives.

Do good to feel good. That’s feel-good marketing.

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