4 Book Marketing Strategies That Are Guaranteed to Keep Your Online Platform Moving Forward

By Karen Cioffi

Your author or writer online platform is all about numbers and reach. It’s about how many people are aware of you within your niche and how many of those people think you have authority within your niche. In other words, it’s about how many connections you have. You might equate it to a popularity contest.

Unfortunately, there are millions of contestants in the online platform arena trying, as you are, to get the golden subscriber email address and get the emails they send opened.

Because of the sheer number of marketers, people are bombarded with marketing emails on a daily basis. This in turn has caused a drop in email opt-ins and a drop in marketing email open rates.

So, what can you do to fight the odds and keep moving forward to reach your goals?

There are four strategies you can use to keep you connected to people and keep you on the visibility radar.

1. Connection frequency

You need to connect with your subscribers and target market on a regular basis.

This doesn’t mean adding to the email inbox bombardment, it means to be visible in multiple places. How many times a week are you connecting with your subscribers and your target market?

This matters.

Are you taking advantage of the different venues you can reach people? Are you being active in groups? How about social media, such as Facebook, Linkedin, GooglePlus, Twitter, and Pinterest? Are you offering valuable information on a regular basis?

Each of these connection venues is another layer of visibility and familiarity. This frequency helps establish a relationship and helps it grow.

2. Consistency

Everyone when first starting a platform is determined and motivated. You diligently keep on top of social networks, blogging, article marketing, sending out a newsletter on a regular basis, and so on. But, then, when results aren’t what was expected or don’t come quick enough, the motivation and effort slows down.

Well, being consistent is what will help you reach your goals. In fact, without being consistent you most likely will never reach your goals.

Coleman Cox says it best: "Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts."

Create a plan of action steps and stick to them. Be consistent.

3. Authority and Usefulness

According to pro-marketer Travis Greenlee, statistics show that published authors have a 300% higher credibility rating than non-published authors.

That’s quite a difference and gives the published author a big advantage in authority. If you’re not published yet, a quick remedy is to create an ebook and get it out there. With that said, your ebook needs to be a quality product.

But, having an ebook isn’t the cure-all. In addition to this, you need to deliver quality (useful) information to your target market on a regular basis.

The point here is that you need to be perceived as a person of value to your target market. Your actions and offerings need to demonstrate that you can help them with their problem, need, or want.

If you are perceived as having high authority (knowledge and experience) and value (capability and usefulness), people will want to be connected with you.

4. Visibility

Visibility and frequency go hand-in-hand. While you need to make frequent connections, you need to know where and how to make those connections. That’s where visibility comes in.

How many different formats are you using to be visible to your connections and make new connections?

There are a number of marketing formats you can use to generate visibility, including:

•    Blog posting
•   Guest blogging
•    Creating podcasts
•    Creating videos
•    Creating e/books, reports, etc.
•    Sending out newsletters or ezines
•    Offering webinars, teleseminars, or workshops
•    Staying current on social networks, such as Facebook, Linkedin, GooglePlus, and Pinterest

You get the idea. Keep it fresh. Don’t use the same formats to bring information to your subscribers, readers, and visitors.

You need to use all four of these strategies to keep your online platform moving forward.

Karen Cioffi is an author, ghostwriter, and online marketing instructor for authors and writers. Get her weekly newsletter with must-know writing and marketing tips at: http://thewritingworld.com

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Email Marketing and Free Email Services Warning

By Karen Cioffi

If you’re an email marketer, and you should be, you should be paying attention to what’s going on with the free email services and your subscriber lists.

The first to play havoc on their email customers is Yahoo.

Yahoo recently made a change to its DMARC ((Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) Policy, according to iContact.


What does this mean for you?

Well, maybe nothing. But, if you send your subscriber emails through email services, such as iContact, Yahoo is bouncing the majority of them. They’ve bounced about 80% of my last four subscriber emails.

YIKES!

This in itself is a problem, but add to this that there was NO notification, unless you were looking for it, DOUBLE YIKES!

So, email marketers who found out after the fact, like me, had to resend their emails, which means about 20% of my subscribers got duplicate email content for four messages.

My sincere apologies to those who did receive duplicates. Unfortunately, 80% of those subscribing to The Writing World didn’t receive the emails, so I needed to resend them.

iContact notes that Yahoo’s purpose is to prevent suspicious or phishing attacks. So, if your ‘From Address’ is tied to yahoo.com and it’s not sent from one of their IPs, your email will be bounced.

Just the Beginning

As with everything online, there are usually no solitary acts. Yahoo may be the first to implement this anti-spam bounce policy, but be assured that the others will follow.

The Solution

If you are using free email services like Yahoo and Gmail for your email marketing, change your “From Address” to a paid service, use a domain that you control, one that’s connected to your website.

If you’re not sure how to do this, ask your email marketing service for help.

Hope this is helpful,

Karen Cioffi, the Article Writing Doctor
Prescription for Your Content Marketing Needs
Content Writing Training for Small Businesses, Solopreneurs, and Health Professionals

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Email Marketing - Your Opt-in Landing Page

 

Landing pages have specific purposes. One might be a sales page and another might be your email opt-in page. Whichever it is, a landing page is a specific page that is intended for a specific purpose and draws targeted traffic. The traffic is drawn to this page to take a particular action . . . to say YES to your offer or opt-in.

One of the most essential landing pages’ is your subscriber or email opt-in page, and it should be designed specifically to garner email addresses.

The reason a separate opt-in page is crucial, as with any landing page, is to eliminate distraction.

While it’s a good idea to have a subscriber opt-in box on your website’s sidebar for stray visitors and those who find your blog through a search for a particular keyword, you need a separate page to lead your targeted traffic in from your ‘outside’ article marketing endeavors. These ‘outside’ strategies include, submitting to article directories, guest posts, and participation in joint ventures. They are the strategies that need a resource box, bio, or tagline that will direct readers to a page designed to let the reader know why she should give you her valuable email address.

It’s on this email opt-in page that you can fully explain the benefits the reader will get if he opts in: relevant information, tips, tools, reviews, news, etc. You also have the space to list the title and description of the ebook you’re offering as an ethical bribe. Or maybe the free ethical bribe is a one-on-one free consultation, or an instructional webinar. This opt-in landing page allows you to fully answer the reader’s WIIFM (what’s in it for me) question.

In addition to the WIIFM information, you can include what you’re qualifications are for offering this particular information, for claiming to be an authority in this niche.

Due to its focus and lack of distractions, your email opt-in landing page allows for a higher conversion rate. This means a higher percentage of visitors will follow your directions and say YES to the action you’re asking them to take.

Just remember that simple always works better in regard to websites and landing pages. You don’t want to make it feel or look busy, or give confusing or complicated steps for the visitor to take action.

To emphasize the ‘simple is better’ strategy, Google’s company philosophy is “Simplicity is powerful.”

While it’s in a writer’s nature to usually write more than is necessary and an individual’s nature to make things more complicated than necessary, follow Google’s lead and keep it simple. Keep your email opt-in page to the essentials, and learn how to write effective copy for it. 

If you're just starting out with your mailing list, you will need an email service and opt-in box. I use Get Response. I love them so much, I'm an affiliate for them. So, if you're in the market for a great email service, get started with them.

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Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Children's Ghostwriter 
https://karencioffiwritingforchildren.com

Founder and Editor in Chief of Writers on the Move

Selling Your Book Before It’s in Your Hands

When is the best time to sell your book? The second your book is in the printing process. Pre-selling your book is a must and an important marketing strategy, especially for self-published authors. If you’re not a New York Times best-selling author or celebrity, then the success of your book is a marathon, not a sprint. This means you must talk repeatedly and consistently about your book over a long period of time. 

Everyone gets the general concept behind marketing…Advertise. However, it does not do any good for a product to have a big “to-do” when it is released and then just drops off the face of the earth and out of the minds of the consumers. Your book is a product and in order for people to buy the product, they need to know it exists before its release date. So, how do you make your book sell even prior to its launch date?

1. With an email marketing campaign. An email campaign allows you to reach quickly and inexpensively a huge market—hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. Email advertisements work like a spider web. They can be boundless, giving you more possibilities and bigger sales. By personally broadcasting your email advertisement to your own list and on social networking sites, it can increase the popularity of your book and these virtual connections, just like word of mouth, forward your advertisements without hesitation, causing an increase to your book’s exposure to books lovers and reading enthusiasts across the internet, further expanding its popularity.

2. Link to your publisher's bookstore. Email advertisements can be talked about and attract discussions about your book, further expanding its popularity. But by increasing your book’s exposure with a link to your publisher's bookstore, you can vastly increase book sales and awareness about your published work. Furthermore, these email advertisements and links to an online bookstore help give consumers more information about the book. They can learn how they can purchase it—a highly effective tool that helps drive traffic to the book and you the author. 

3.Book reviews. Book reviews are another great way to gain exposure for a book. Amazon is a great place to build up your reviews. You should have all of your friends and loyal followers post a review of your book on Amazon and other book review sites. If you want to know how many reviews is enough -  Enough is never enough! Having over 100 reviews would be great, but if you look up some bestsellers, they will have even more than that.

One way to get reviews posted on Amazon and other review sites is to list your book on Dan Poynter's Publishing newsletter. You need to have free copies ready to mail prospective reviewers, and here is how you get your book listed:

Email Dan Poynter at danpoynter@parapublishing.com

Put "Review Wanted" on the subject line

Write a small description of your book - he requires LESS THAN 100 words

Include your contact information

Wait for people to contact you to get a copy of your book so they can post a review on Amazon.

It is that simple.

4. Have an Author's Page on Amazon, Linked In, Facebook and other review or social sites. You don't need to have an author page on every online social or review site, but you should have a couple on the sites you tend to visit often. This is a great way for fans, reviews and avid book readers to learn more about you, your books and events.

5. Do book reviews. Believe it or not, but by doing book reviews you help build your name as an expert. You also hone your own writing skills by reading others work. You may even get an idea for a book or even be inspired to write in a genre you never tried before. There are many reasons to do reviews and this is one area many writers over look.

6. Sell your books on Facebook. Facebook is an important place for publishers, authors, and books to have a presence. It is the number one social media site on the Internet. With more than 500 million active users and more than 50% of them logging on to Facebook on any given day, keeping your books and your brand in front of your fans is one way to improve your sales.

7. Offer autograph copies on your sites and blogs. Studies have shown that “ease of purchase” is an important factor in making sales. People are more likely to purchase a product that is easy for them to find and buy. Therefore, it follows that the next step, after engaging your fans offer your books for sale right on your sites and blogs, ensuring ease of purchase.

8. Start talking about your book to friends, family and co-workers. Let them know you are becoming an author! Be excited about your upcoming book and don't feel you're over doing it. A newly published book for an author is like becoming a parent to a new baby. Wouldn't you be telling everyone about your new baby? So why not do the same with your book? 

9. Send a news release and media kit to your local TV, Radio and Newspapers. Make sure your media kit has a copy of your book and how to order your book.  

10. Contact all local organizations and schools and ask to be a guest speaker.  

11. Network, network, and network some more. Networking working is key to the success of your book. Contact local retail stores including bookstores and specialty stores. Contact local craft fairs, city events and libraries. The list is endless.

These are just a few ways to get exposure. Talk to other authors who you feel have really made an impact on their book sales. Find out what marketing strategies they used and customize to fit your budget and marketing plan. 

Remember that what worked for one book might not work for another so try a couple at a time and stick to the ones that show results.   

About our Guest Blogger: Lisa Umina, owner of Halo Publishing International, not only publishes books but also enjoys a successful career as an award-winning author, motivational speaker and literary consultant. Umina´s publishing company continues to flourish by strengthening the movement of words across the international borders in order to benefit cultures and society as a whole. She has been interviewed by countless newspapers, radio and and television shows and has traveled the world to teach children about their purpose and important life lessons inside her books. 

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