Joan

How to find your target markets in a publicity campaign

4/10/2012 By Joan Leave a Comment

When planning a publicity campaign, consider all your various target markets.

And do so, please, BEFORE you start blasting your message to the world.

Think you only have one target market? Guess again.

Here are the groups you may need to reach:

The many people who are in a position to buy your products and services. Can they afford what you’re selling? Are they in a geographic location where they need your product? Are they in an age group that would use it?
Journalists, broadcasters and freelancers who would be interested in covering your story.
Your Facebook friends and fans, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Pinterest followers, and fellow members of online discussion forums devoted to niche topics, particularly those whose target markets are similar to yours.
Authors who are writing books and might need you as a resource.
Bloggers who are writing about your area of expertise, or those would would love a guest post.
Podcasters who are dying to have you as a guest on their show because their audience needs what you know.
Article writers searching for tips or quotes that your provide.
Anyone struggling with a problem that you can help solve.
Retirees with time on their hands who can volunteer for your nonprofit, and maybe even donate money.
Audiences that simply want to be entertained with a book, movie, play, song , tour or live show that you can provide.
YouTube visitors searching for videos so they can get step-by-step directions on how to do something like fix a leaking pipe.
Offline people or groups that need to know what you know.

If you have multiple target audiences, like most of us do, sending the same message to all of them is really difficult, and often pointless. That could mean, for example, no one-size-fits-all press releases. Or no cookie cutter pitches to the two dozen journalists in your media database.

And certainly no identical status updates that are published to your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. (Sorry. But these are all very different platforms and you must communicate with friends, followers and connections very differently.)

Finding Them Can be Difficult

Results of a survey I conducted late last year show a significant number of respondents don’t know how to find their target market. Or, if they CAN find their target market, they don’t know what kind of a targeted message to send.

You’re invited to a free 90-minute webinar I’m hosting from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, April 12, on “The 3-Part Formula for Finding & Capturing Your Target Market in a Publicity Campaign.“

You’ll come away with tips that will spare you hours of wasted time writing press releases and pitches that go nowhere, and precious hours communicating with the wrong people on social media sites.

Read more about what you’ll learn and register here. (Tweet the link and share on Facebook and LinkedIn if you think this will help people who follow you.)

Your Questions Answered

Come with questions. I’ll answer them all.

If we don’t have time for yours, I’ll send you a personal reply by email.

More than 200 Publicity Hounds have already registered for the call.

Filed Under: Publicity for Niche Markets Tagged With: pitch journalists, publicity campaign, target audience, target market

Author U Extravaganza May 3-5 has all-star lineup

4/10/2012 By Joan Leave a Comment

When I attended Judith Briles’ Author U last year as a presenter who taught authors how to use social media to promote their books, I practically filled a notebook while seated in the audience listening to the other speakers. It was a lineup of the best of the best in the publishing industry.

This year promises to be no different. If you’ve written a book, you’re in the process of “birthing” one, or you’re just thinking of writing one, Denver is the place to be May 3-5. Briles puts on one heck of a conference.

Here’s the lineup:

Florrie Binford Kichler will forecast what’s happening in the indie world.

Publicity expert Steve Harrison, who hosts the National Publicity Summit and the Quantum Publicity workshops, will explain how to get every producer to call you.

Brian Jud will speak on how to market fiction, from craft fairs to summer festivals.

Social networking expert Georgia McCabe will give dozens of tips for promoting your book in social media.

Marty Dickinson will show you how to take your book to the next level with Google+.

Mobile marketing expert Mary Barnett will help you create a marketing platform with your phone.

Nick Zelinger will show you the latest trends in book design.

Dan Pacheco will share the inside secrets of why the Huffington Post and the local Denver Post are selling gazillions of books and how you can immediately implement their techniques.

Janita Cooper will show you how to create audio and video from your books, and snazzy book trailers too!

Daniel Hall, the master of all things Kindle, will show you how to do it yourself whether you want to create an ebook from scratch, or convert a printed book.

Here are five more reasons you should consider attending:

1. All three days are packed with solid content. This is not a pitch fest.

2. They feed you. You get a continental breakfast and lunch Friday and Saturday, dinner Friday night, and dinner on Thursday for those who sign up for the special John Kremer dinner workshop.

3. You’ll find convenient electrical outlets at all the tables. So leave your 25-foot extension cord at home.

4. Wifi is free.

5. It’s well-organized. Briles didn’t miss one little detail last year.

Register here before it’s filled. I’m promoting Author U as a compensated affiliate because book writing and publishing is just too difficult to attempt on your own, without guidance from pros of this caliber.

Filed Under: Authors & Publishers Tagged With: author u, brian jud, dan pacheco, daniel hall, florrie binford kichler, georgia mccabe, janita cooper, John Kremer, judith briles, marty dickinson, mary barnett, nick zelinger, steve harrison

Publicist needs ideas for promoting fitness book

4/10/2012 By Joan 10 Comments

Fitness trainer Sandi Berger

Publicist Roberta Stein of Skokie, IL, writes this Help This Hound question:

Sandi Berger, my new client, wrote a new book, “Fitnevision: Create Your Lifestyle Vision Starting From The Inside Out.”

“At her website, , and in her book, Sandi shares the story that healed her and led to her becoming a personal trainer and life coach in Chicago.

“In the 1970s, Sandi experienced both depression and crippling panic attacks. The doctor she sought help from advised her to take medicine in the benzodiazepan family, such as Valium or Xanax. She knew these drugs were potentially addicting and felt that if she took them, she would be exchanging one problem for another. She decided to try her own self-styled cure….adopting a lifestyle of exercise and positive thinking. These practices DID cure Sandi.

“In her book, she tells readers how they too can find a healthy, stress-free life. Because there is a lot of documentation, both on and offline, that backs up Sandi’s findings, I have thought of finding a psychotherapist, to be interviewed with Sandi, attesting to the validity of the message in her book.

“But I’m wondering if your Hounds can think of additional ways to promote this new book. I welcome their ideas. Thanks, in advance, for any help you can send my way.”

Filed Under: Authors & Publishers Tagged With: benzodiazepan, fitness, fitness training, positive thinking, sandi berger, Valium, Xanax

6 tips for becoming more persuasive on social media

4/10/2012 By Joan 3 Comments

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a china inspection service company. He also consults for a neon sign store that offers custom outdoor neon signs.

* * *

By Lior Levin

You may have noticed that many businesses and bloggers list the number of subscribers to their websites in a tracking box, or they include social media share counts underneath their posts. It’s easy to find out which posts are popular very quickly, but they also serve as part of a larger trend to help build trust about the content on a site.

Social media provides many tools that help marketers, businesses, and bloggers persuade readers to become repeat visitors and eventually customers. Here are six tips for effectively persuading visitors with social media:

1. Give Customers Power for Influence

Given the right tools, a customer can provide the most influential endorsement for your products or business. Copywriter Barry Feldman shares that his line of work may not be the most effective way to persuade customers to make decisions. He offers the following list of statistics to consider:

• 54 percent of U.S. adults identified old-fashioned Word of Mouth as the most important influencer of purchase decisions. (Source: 2011 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report by Experian)

• 62 percent of people trust reviews from friends, family and colleagues. (Lightspeed Research 2011)

• 56 percent trust reviews from other consumers. (Lightspeed Research 2011)

• 60 percent of shoppers said online reviews were more significant than traditional media, in-store employees and social networking. (Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group study, 2011)

While marketers can still provide relevant, truthful information that is worth sharing, one of the most important aspects of social media marketing persuasion is providing simple ways for customers to provide feedback, and to then make it easy to find what other customers have written.

Make customer reviews easy to find on your site. Provide simple ways for customers to share your pages on social media. And do your best to respond to any complaints about your products on social media. If you provide simple, accessible ways for customers to talk about you, they may end up writing the best marketing copy for you—for free.

2. Use Giveaways to Persuade Customers

Effectively persuading customers might require more effort on the front end in order to convince them to give your product a shot. How do you capture a reader’s attention on a search page or even on your own homepage? The most popular way to draw in new customers is to first offer them a free item that’s useful.

Kevin Klau suggests, “The most common things to give away are eBooks that contain secrets and shortcuts to a successful marketing campaign, brand building or SEO – something that helps them get ahead of the competition. It would be even more persuasive if you are giving them something top secret or exclusive to site members.”

Giving away a product or knowledge grabs the attention of customers and can make trying your product or business irresistible. If you’ve truly created a product or service that will fill the need of your customers, then giving it away will help persuade them to keep coming back to pay for it.

3. Commit to Engaging Your Readers on Social Media

One of the strengths of social media is immediate engagement with potential customers. A business using social media for marketing can’t use it as a one-way tunnel. It’s always a two-way street where customers are expecting a certain level of interaction with businesses.

Copywriter Jeff Sexton shares at the Social Media Examiner, “Commit to consistent engagement on the social media platforms you chose to use, to the point of staying away from new social media platforms that you don’t have the resources to actively participate in.”

Not only could you lose customers if you ignore them, you could make an enemy who generates bad press for your company or brand.

4. Tell a Good Story

A good story will help customers become passionate about your product, places them in a narrative that they care about, and helps them better understand the need for your product. A good story typically involves a hero who overcomes obstacles in order to reach a desired goal. As a marketer, it’s your job to translate the experience of the customer into that narrative.

What could a story look like? One of the most common stories we see on television is a mother who struggles to keep her home clean and orderly amidst food-dropping husbands or dirt-tracking kids. The quick and simple solution is often a cleaning product that helps her restore order to the home. However, if you provide tax advice, the narrative could be a stressed out small business owner who finds peace of mind through your company.

5. Build Trust to Persuade Customers

When customers encounter your business or brand, the deciding factor that determines what they do will be whether they trust you. Have you demonstrated your expertise and communicated the awards your company has won? Do your graphics create a professional feel?

Mashable suggests the following parameters for trust: “If you’ve ever published a book or built a successful company, you are considered an authority. Developed an app? You are an expert.”

Share your accomplishments and awards with customers, letting them know that you have credible and recognized experience in your field.

When moving potential customers from awareness to acceptance, trust building makes the difference according to Suzanne Vara at Social Media Today. She writes, “Trust is a big factor when they consider the propensity to buy. If you offer the lowest price, should people be skeptical? If you offer the highest price, is what you are providing the best of the best?”

If you offer the best price for sneakers, you need to also demonstrate a proven track record with customers and among your peers in the business community.

6. Analyze Your Progress

If you want to persuade customers, then you need to set up at least quarterly reviews that enable you to track your effectiveness at driving conversions. Are you persuading customers to take action toward the right products?

Social media manager Pam Sahota writes at Social Media Today: “You should be regularly analyzing how much traffic and leads you’re generating from each social platform you’re participating in as well as how valuable it is. This will allow your team to evaluate its efforts and make adjustments if needed. For instance, you may want to spend more time engaging the community that tends to convert into more qualified leads.”

If you’re effective at persuading customers, then your sales should show a return on your social media investment. Flat or dipping sales will indicate that you need to explore other ways to persuade and engage your customers.

For example, perhaps you’ve been trying to convince business owners that you have the most creative website designs when they really just want something that’s simple and functional. When customers don’t take action, that’s a clue to try another avenue of persuasion.

Social media provides quick and simple ways to connect with your customers. However, before you jump into the social networking game, make sure you have a clear strategy for connecting with customers, processing feedback, and effectively creating an environment of trust.

Filed Under: Social media marketing Tagged With: barry feldman, persuade readers, product endorsements, product reviews, word of mouth

How to boost the number of your friends on Goodreads

4/7/2012 By Joan 23 Comments

Confession: I hadn’t heard about Goodreads, the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world, until I was preparing for a presentation at the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Publishing University last month on how authors can reach online communities of readers.

I hurriedly signed up, promising myself to return to the site after the IBPA conference to beef up my profile. I’m hoping to do that this weekend, and I’m grateful that my friend, Joel Friedlander, passed along a terrific suggestion about something that I had overlooked when I joined the community of more than 7.5 million book lovers.

Friedlander is a book designer, blogger, and author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish. He’s only been on Goodreads for about five months but already has 1,728 friends.

One of the first rules of social media is that the person with the most friends doesn’t necessarily win. Much more important is how you connect with your friends and how much you can help them.

But many of his friends aren’t strangers. They already follow him on Twitter. And I had overlooked the fact that I can import Twitter and Facebook friends into Goodreads.

“You can integrate Twitter, Facebook, Hotmail and Yahoo,” Friedlander said. “When I created my account, it suddenly dawned on me that if I dumped all of my Twitter friends into Goodreads—and Goodreads seems to add them a little at a timet—I could keep adding friends for months.”

That’s exactly what he did.

“I now have quite a few connections and I’m at the point where I’m building my relationships,” he said.

More Tips for Using Goodreads

He offers these other tips for authors on Goodreads:

Import your blog into your profile. ”Every time I publish a blog post, five days a week, that RSS feed is going into Goodreads and my friends are alerted that I have a new post. I get comments on those posts that I don’t get at my blog site.”
Create digital bookshelves. Your friends can see what you’re reading, and you can promote your own books. “I’ve created shelves filled with books that are published by me and designed by me.”

Review several books at a time. Keep the reviews short so you have more time to review more books. “Reviews are part of the echo system of Goodreads. If you get on there but never contribute, you aren’t really using the site like you should be.” He writes only positive reviews and never shares negative comments about books he doesn’t like.
Join the best discussion groups where you can learn and contribute the most. But monitor how many you’ve joined so you aren’t overwhelmed. “The discussions can be very powerful for authors.”
Check out local groups that are in your own community. “I joined a group from San Raphael, Calif., where I’m from, and it’s a lot of fun.”

Friedlander says another big plus for authors who are members of Goodreads is that it keeps them from falling into the trap of writing for other writers’ blogs and discussing topics such as how their sales are going, or what they think of Kindle Select—topics their fans don’t really care about. Their time would be better spent, he said, using Goodreads to connect with, and write reviews for, the people who are reading their books, and others who love to read.