After you have published a book, you have to start marketing your book digitally and also traditionally. It won’t be a success if it doesn’t get into the collective consciousness of the public. This is why, you need good book marketing tactics to back it up.
Since we’re in the digital era, we must attach more importance to the digital aspect. Some authors start marketing even when they are in the process of writing. All the other book making processes such as layout, illustrations, formatting are carried out gradually.
Let’s first understand what is marketing?
Marketing is a term that covers a combination of activities aimed to make people aware of your products and services and persuade them to buy the same. Marketing is also the process of getting people interested in your company’s product or service.
Furthermore, marketing is about building connections and relationships with people and providing valuable information to them. Authors whose books are doing well are out there promoting themselves, speaking, and going to conferences. Ultimately, people buy from those they know, like, and trust.
Furthermore, marketing is about building connections and relationships with people and providing valuable information to them. Authors whose books are doing well are out there promoting themselves, speaking, and going to conferences. Ultimately, people buy from those they know, like, and trust.
How many types of marketing are there?
Broadly, there are two types of marketing- Traditional and digital. Traditional marketing includes magazine ads, billboards, television and direct mail.
Now, what is digital marketing?
In practice, digital marketing typically refers to those marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. Of course, it makes use of electronic devices. So, marketing specialists use it to convey promotional messages.
While advertising is the most common way of marketing, it also involves consumer research, product design, as well as other aspects.
Why did digital marketing gain more importance?
Digital marketing is more affordable, flexible, and engaging than traditional marketing methods. Even top-performing small and mid-sized companies are finding better competition, improved best practices, and increased engagement through digital marketing. Most importantly, with almost 95% internet users in UK and US and 60% worldwide; you can reach a huge audience through digital marketing.
1. Global Reach
Geography restricts traditional marketing. Hence, creating an international marketing campaign can be hard, expensive, as well as labour-intensive. However, digital marketing happens on the Internet, which means that the reach and visibility you can achieve with it is immense. This would never be possible with traditional marketing or would cost a whole lot of money to do so. This online accessibility has opened many growth opportunities for businesses to explore.
2. Local Reach
While global reach is a significant advantage of digital marketing, it also improves local visibility hugely; which is especially important if your business relies on nearby audience. For instance, if you have written non-fiction about something concerning your locality, it will help sell more books. Local SEO and locally targeted ads can be beneficial to bring you more customers, certainly! Think of the reach you can get to a whole neighbourhood with digital marketing versus the reach it would take you to print out flyers and distribute them around.
3. Lower Cost
Whether you want to promote your books locally or internationally, digital marketing provides you with the most cost-effective solutions. You don’t have to invest heavily if you use highly-targeting strategies (such as SEO, social media and content marketing).
4. Easy to Learn
While there are many aspects of digital marketing that you need to learn, it’s fairly easy to start. It is all a matter of finding the right strategy that works for selling your book.
5. Effective Targeting
Digital marketing makes sure that every book campaign reaches the right audience. Of course, you know which genre you are expert at! There are many ways of targeting such as keywords for search engine optimization (SEO), Pay per click, or through demographic information on social media. It also helps you to analyse the changing behaviour of readers and modify book campaigns according to those changes.
6. Multiple Strategies
There are different strategies of digital marketing that can be used by different types of businesses. A B2B business may have a totally different strategy than a B2C international business selling books. While some companies can benefit more easily with content marketing and SEO, others can benefit from conversion-based ad campaigns. The key is to always analyse the results and develop better tactics with time as Kindle self-publishing does. A digital marketing strategy is well-executed when it changes and adapts quickly with the changing needs of the business.
Some of the book marketing strategies which you can undertake according to your feasibility are:-
- An efficient social media book marketing strategy will help you win more readers for your book(s).
- Video marketing for book publishers is the perfect digital marketing strategy to reach potential clients. Video gain 80% of the audience’s attention. Invest in book-trailers to grow your business.
- Build a website to market your book. You can customize your site your way, publish your own content, you decide how it looks and what gets published. Many authors promote their books through social media or the author platform on Amazon self-publishing; yet a website is necessary.
- If you are serious about your book marketing, build your e-mail list as a top priority. Nothing else comes close.
- Outreach an influencer for book promotion and review on social media.
- List your book in Facebook Groups and other social media groups. Find and join book clubs, the goldmine for new authors.
- Land interviews on podcasts which can introduce you to new readers.
- Publishing another book is also a great way to building up your brand. Your book may be great, but you can compound that greatness by writing more books, preferably in a series.
Digital marketing isn’t merely advertising or promotion, but it’s also using skills to stay connected with the latest trends in the market, boost online reputation, to identify competitors to generate more revenue. It definitely plays a key role in book publishing. As book publishers have shifted their focus on publishing more eBooks, the publishing industry has boomed evidently.
