In part 1, we learned how some forms of marketing were applied in local neighborhoods - via notice boards, trucks, buses, taxis etc. Local advertising is only as good as the local target audience that is likely to see that advertising: shoppers, consumers, bargain hunters, bus and taxi passengers etc. This is no good for your self-published book, though.
You need a much bigger target audience: when marketing any form of book, we need to reach as many potential customers as possible. After all, we don't care who buys the book as long as they buy it, right? It would be silly, however, to pitch your book to the French market if your book is written in English. That would not be a good way of spending your marketing dollars.
Target English-speaking audiences: If your book is written in English, then it makes sense to try to target English-speaking audiences. That is the best place to invest your marketing dollars. But do we do it in hard copy (printed matter) advertising or in online marketing? Hard copy advertising is notoriously difficult to track to see if it is working for you. You could advertise in 5 local towns, make 10 sales, and not know which towns the sales came from. If the sales came from just 2 towns, then you can dump the other 3 - saving 60% of your advertising costs, and concentrate on where you are getting the better sales. But that is difficult to track with hard copy advertising.
Online is the way to go: That's right! Online marketing is about the most cost-effective medium available to us today. Internet sales are in the billions each year, people are buying hand over fist. Online giants like Amazon, Buy.com, eBay etc., are generating sales like no tomorrow. This is definitely the way to go.
Where do I start my online marketing? The best way to start is slowly and build gradually. It won't take long to start getting a few inquiries. The best way to start is to join some of the thousands of forums on the web that allow back and forth chatting between anyone that cares to partake. By chatting, we mean replying to someone's post and then waiting for a reply - not live chat as we sometimes see. As you sign up for each forum and become a member, they are ALL FREE by the way, you fill in your profile, and at the bottom of every profile you will see space for a signature.
What is a forum signature? A forum signature is a small piece of text, or couple of lines of text that is added to every post you make on that forum. If you do not add a signature, you are leaving potential money behind on the table. Why? Because one of the best kept secrets to signatures is the fact that you can advertise your book and other stuff on it - all FREE.
What sort of forum signature should I have? Your forum signature can consist of just plain old text which is the norm, or it can contain something meaningful that will do a little marketing work for you.
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