If no one has told you yet you need a marketing plan. This will be your life saver as far as selling books goes. Last week I made a post about the four P’s of marketing. The first one is product and I think it goes without saying that you need a well-written book but relying just on writing a good book is foolish. The days of being able to throw a good book up on Amazon and it selling like hot cakes is over. There is far to much competition now on Amazon to not do any marketing.
So what is a marketing plan and what does it look like? Well first I want to suggest a book to you called the 1-Page Marketing Plan. Its an excellent book and can really help you create a marketing plan. In the mean time there are a few key things you need in your marketing plan.
Target Audience: Who is going to buy your book? Get REALLY specific. For example: My customer is 30 years old. She’s married with two kids and works a full-time and she uses romance novels as a way to escape and relax. If you don’t know where to start with this do some research. You can simply good “Who buys (your genre) books.” As you get further into your writing career your target audience will become more specific but start with what you have.
What’s your message?: When people think of your name what do you want them to think of? I would come up with one sentence that describes what kind of books your write and why they should read it.
How are you going to reach your audience: AKA where does your audience hang out? Are they on Facebook? Instagram? Do they prefer to walk into bookstores and pick up books? I can not emphasize enough how important this is. If you don’t know where your audience hangs out you can’t reach them.
Sales Funnel: “The purchase funnel, or purchasing funnel, is a consumer-focused marketing model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward the purchase of a good or service.” In today’s society I think its important to just straight-out write your sales funnel. If someone doesn’t know who you are how are you going to make them buy your product? There are steps involved to get from point A(Someone doesn’t know you) to point B(Them buying your book and becoming a loyal customer.) You need to write these steps out.
For example: Step One: I’m going to advertise a free e-book to collect email address. Step Two: I’m going to create automatic emails over the next week after they sign up so they can get to know me. Step Three: Educate my newsletter about new releases and hope they purchase my new books.
This is a simple sales funnel but basically you want to build a long term relationship with a reader and get them from point A to B.
Nurture Audience: How will you keep that relationship with your readers? In simpler terms this can be public relation or content marketing. You want to continue to give your readers content and attention. I suggest setting up a FB group for your super fans and show up in there often.
These are just some things to get you started and to start thinking about how to market your book. As mentioned before I high suggest the book 1-page marketing plan.
I can not stress enough how important it is to have a plan in place to how you will sell your book. Your book WILL NOT sell itself.
K.D Clark Publishing 