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Synopsis
If you want to share your book with the world, and thereby help as many people as possible, and make some money doing that, you’ll need to treat your book like a product that your business sells. And that means learning about marketing, especially online marketing. But don’t stress out over this. It’s actually an interesting process that can also become a very enlightening learning experience.
What You Will Learn
1. You will learn about the fundamental elements of a successful marketing plan.
2. You will learn how these elements are defined, and how they can help you sell more books.
3. You will learn how and why you must treat your book like a product that your business sells.
How To Build A Better Marketing Plan, And Sell More Books
Introduction
If you have any hopes of making money with your self-published book, you’ll need to become familiar with online marketing. But, if you self-published your book simply for the sake of seeing your name in print, that’s fine too.
But, if you want to share your book with the world, and thereby help as many people as possible, and make some money doing that, you will need to treat your book like a product that your business sells. And that means learning about marketing, especially online marketing. But don’t stress out over this. It’s actually an interesting process.
So, to get you started, here is an explanation of the five basic elements of a successful online marketing plan:
Element # 1. Credibility
Credibility refers to the impression we make on our readers. Credibility is by far the most important part of marketing. Without this trait, our marketing efforts will not work well. With this trait, your readers, your followers, your buyers, and your customers, will listen to your message – and hopefully, look to you for even more information. Your credibility, and your believability, will keep readers hooked. They will then be more likely to take a chance and buy from you.
Element # 2. Usability
Usability refers to how well people can use and understand your online marketing. All of your online marketing efforts need to be as user-friendly as possible. This means that your website and blog need to be easy to understand and use. Its navigation buttons need to be easy to see and follow. Your contact information needs to be easy to find.
Element # 3. Visibility
Visibility refers to your ability to get noticed. The whole point of marketing is to get you and your book noticed. We do this by utilizing social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. We can also get interviewed on the radio, or in a magazine, or write a guest blog post, or get our book reviewed, or create a podcast.
The number of ways to get noticed by a specific audience are limitless. Of course, your own website will have links to all of the places that you get mentioned, as well as to all of your social media pages.
Element # 4. Sellability
Sellability refers to how well you can show and tell your audience about yourself and your book. People need to understand why your book is worth buying from you. We can help with this process with press releases, videos, and testimonials. Having credibility, usability, and visibility all together makes you and your book much more sellable.
Element # 5. Scalability
Scalability refers to the increasing momentum that your marketing efforts will achieve over time. This momentum will happen when you continue to improve your credibility, usability, visibility, and sellability. Constantly working on and improving these five elements will make them more powerful and make your marketing efforts more effective and productive.
Conclusion
Each of these elements has a major role to play in ensuring that your online marketing strategy has a strong foundation. And this foundation will enable you to build a larger audience, and achieve the higher book sales that you seek. None of these elements are difficult to understand, or build, or implement into your marketing plan.
But none of them will get built overnight. It will take time and effort on your part. But once you start, you will quickly discover that it can become a very enlightening learning experience.
Questions For Us To Think About And Discuss
1. Have you been able to incorporate these five elements into your marketing plan? Which were your favorites?
2. Have these elements helped you sell more books? Get more followers?
