Hampton Roads Business & Marketing Blog

Archive for the ‘Marketing Tips’ Category

If you’ve just written a book and have decided to self publish it, congratulations. A great book marketing plan is the next essential step. As a self-publisher, you can be a very successful author, given that you have “skipped the middleman,” and taken your destiny into your own hands, so to speak.

Although it’s certainly “easier” in many ways to have your book promoted if you find a publisher first, this is a hard road to go for many authors; it is much easier and quicker to self publish your book at the start, as a means to establish a track record. Once you are successful with your book, it’s much easier to find a publisher who would be willing to invest. The likelihood is that you will enjoy self-publishing enough to never give it up.

Build a website about your book

In fact, you should be building your website at the same time as you are writing your book. You want to have it ready to go once you’ve got a book to sell. Your website will be the central location for people to go to when they want information about your book, or to read samples of it.

It’s all about who you know

In other words, build relationships from the very first day you begin to write your book. Get online and begin to talk about your book with others; there are many writers communities online where you can get help, encouragement, feedback, and simply a sense of community as you work through this usually solitary practice of writing a book.

As you work on your book and talk about it with others at the same time, you should begin to notice that there are a few people that stand out from the others. Lots of people online are “wannabe writers,” so how do you make yourself stand out from them? First of all, when you post, make sure you treat every post as though you were talking about your book with an esteemed colleague, such as an editor, publisher, and so on. There is a lot of “junk” out there, such that many people post gibberish that shouldn’t see the light of day Make your posts stand out. Be remarkable and authentic. Make sure that everything you send out is professional and knowledgeable sounding.

Comment on related forums, blogs, and websites

Once you’ve got yourself ingratiated with several of these communities, begin posting on these like-minded sites; it’s not always necessary to talk about your book directly (in fact, this is sometimes completely forbidden), but do include a sig line with every post. Your sig. line should contain sample links of the book itself (so that people can read a sample of it before they buy), and links to your website so that people can go and purchase your book directly from there — or be linked to the source of your choosing.

Remember, you’re the professional — so write a press release

Many authors overlook that they must treat publicizing their books with as much care as they did writing them. Get a press release and send it out wherever possible, so that the world knows your book has been released. Have a publicist edit or write your press release to make it professional, containing all the key elements.

Article writing means more exposure

Don’t give away your book’s central focus with your articles, but do write and post articles on as many free websites, professional newsletters, and so on as you can find. This will further increase publicity, so that people will go and read the sample link you posted — and then buy your book.

Sometimes business owners are so targeted about making that first sale, that they miss opportunities after the sale to add to their bottom line. You don’t even have to add fancy equipment or take out a business loan to implement simple strategies to reap better sales, even after a sale is done. You just have to understand the mind of your customer better and pay attention to when they are most likely to buy from you.

When Are People More Willing To Buy?

If you’ve answered after they made a purchase and been satisfied, you’re only partially right. People are more willing to buy once the resistance to buy has been overcome and they’ve made the decision to buy, even before the sale has been completed. It’s the act of trust that says they are buying, the gives you the upper hand, for a few short minutes. At that point, their trust is the highest and you can ask them to consider other purchases too, and they are more open to those offers at this time.

Some Examples

For instance, say someone drops into your site or store and see a product they like. They ask a few things about the product and then they make the decision to buy. Instead of immediately ringing up the sale, ask them if they would also like to buy some complementary product. If you were selling shoes, for example, you’d want to know if they need socks too. You would be surprised how the simple act of asking for a few more dollars at this specific time will quickly add large amounts of money to your income.

Another time is after a sale is in process. When a person opens an order form, within that form you should have offers, even value packages, to upgrade the offer before the final sale is made. If it’s too good a deal to pass up, you’ve just completed another simple strategy to increase your sales. Finally, if a person has already bought, and are preparing to leave, offer them one final limited time sales offer that will get them to thinking about whether they should open their wallet once again or leave. Either way, you should have collected their email address and asked for permission to market them online.

Who suffers more?
As is well known, this is a global problem that affects every sector of the market regardless of their geographical location. The effects of the crisis, obviously not only suffering but also at consumer level and also suffer in all areas or departments of any company. But perhaps the areas of marketing and sales are those that suffer most from economies rescission.

And I wonder … Why?
First, they are often the first to suffer from the personnel adjustments and economic resources. Secondly, because it rests largely on the enormous responsibility that entails selling when things do not work. In these circumstances, there is no magic or unique sales strategies. The answer lies in the ability of adaptation and creativity of each employer.

Who can cope with the crisis?
According to several experts, independent entrepreneurs and small businesses are those that can best address difficult periods, which can better exploit and survive in times of recession, including relaunching and strengthening the business for when the time of austerity. This is possible thanks to the flexibility of adaptation of these entrepreneurs. Although the budget is not as high as that of big business, flexibility, dynamism and adaptability to different situations make a difficult situation that is being privileged.
If small businesses make the most of this situation and accept that the crisis can be an opportunity to generate other services, diversify and take supplements to help strengthen the core business enterprises will be the most favored in the short, medium and long term.

How do we get?
Following 7 simple and effective strategies:
1. Assess your market. It is very important to analyze how the crisis affects your market, so you’ll have the opportunity to identify alternatives to your product / service or even if there is another niche market or to sell at that time.

2. Differentiate the offer depending on the pocket. As demand is very fragmented, the fragment must be bid. There are different ways of approaching clients of different profiles: the voice marketing, telemarketing, marketing, social networks, email, SMS, etc.

3. Be prepared to sell. The vast majority of employers in mind only has to sell, buy and sell without doing so, thinking that your sales force should draw chestnuts from the fire because it is. You sound familiar? The solution is not to sell but to sell. To have to reckon with a toolkit such as having effective website and invest in the human factor, that is to devote time and resources to motivate the salespeople, train them and listen. This helps to raise labor productivity significantly.

4. Create services. It is as simple as creating a very attractive short-term to invite the customer to take the opportunity, but some of the benefits over the lifetime of the service.

5. Making alliances with suppliers and with other employers to achieve cheaper, and with new sales channels.

6. Do not miss a single customer. It is easier to retain and sell to customers who already have to attract and sell to new ones.

7. Knowing your customer portfolio. Only if we know who our customers are the best in terms of solvency and profitability, we can focus our efforts on them loyalty and streamline the budget we have provided for this purpose.

In brief
In hard times the best bet to increase sales is to make a trade adjustment, which has nothing to do with layoffs, but rather to make a thorough analysis of your market and your sales force to identify new or complementary services market niches and overcome weaknesses in your sales and enhance their knowledge and skills with proper training and coaching to enhance the sales process.