Tag: marketing

Ausoma’s Book Marketing Philosophy

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

Yes, we use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram and tweet and post regularly about your book. We’re also less expensive than virtually every other book marketing firm. But none of that is as important as what we really provide.

At Ausoma, our book marketing efforts are designed to help, not just you, but your audience as well. Our magic is that we understand you, the client, and your audience to help you build a relationship with them.

A Background in Neuroscience and Writing

Joel and Sue in front of the Piggly Wiggly in Sister Bay, WisconsinJoel has informally studied neuroscience and psychology for decades, reading more than 100 books on the subjects. He’s spent his whole life fine-tuning his innate intuition about people, allowing him to understand what our clients, and their clients, need, and how to deliver on both counts.

Between us we’ve written 9 business books and marketed them ourselves, so we know the pressure an author is up against.

Our understanding and compassion makes us a great team, and a whole lot of fun to work with, too.

Our Process

To understand who your target audience is, our intake form asks these questions:

  • How would you define your target audience?
  • What topics are they interested in?
  • What challenges do they have that you help solve?
  • What keywords or key phrases would your target audience use to find your information?

We ask you to provide us with a list of at least five influential people, authors, experts, trade associations or news sources that provide information related to topics your target audience would be interested in.

We also ask for a digital version of your book so we can read it and understand the message you want to share. And then, of course, we actually read it.

We’re selective about who we work with. We want to become, not just another service you use, but partners in your marketing adventure.

Don’t Miss the Publicity Boat!

Posted on by Sue L Canfield
This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Book Publicity Mini-Course

Whether you are about to launch your book or are continuing your book marketing efforts long-term, you are looking for publicity opportunities. Don’t miss the publicity boat! One of the biggest mistakes we see authors make is timing.

When you are contacted by an interviewer or media person, respond promptly—immediately! If they ask for additional information, provide it as quickly as possible or at least let them know when they can expect it. Any delay in replying might mean that someone else will reply promptly and get the publicity opportunity you were hoping for. This applies to responding to HARO requests as well. Even though you reply within their deadline, they usually use the first replies received. Respond promptly.

Timing is important with press releases as well. Plan to send press releases out in plenty of time for the media to respond. If you post it too late or too close to the event you are promoting, you may have missed the boat.

Randy Ingermanson’s 10 Commandments of Marketing

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

This gem of a list dropped in Randy “Snowflake Guy” Ingermanson’s newsletter today.

The 10 Commandments of Marketing

  1. Always know what is the special magic that delights your Target Audience.
  2. Focus all your marketing efforts ONLY on your Target Audience. This means that all your marketing should be designed to delight your Target Audience.
  3. Never do any marketing action without a reason. (And you need to know what that reason is.)
  4. There are three valid reasons for any marketing action—either it Attracts or Engages or Converts someone in your Target Audience.
  5. You must first Attract someone before you can Engage them.
  6. You must first Engage someone before you can Convert them.
  7. Any valid marketing plan must sketch out at least one complete Marketing Pipeline—in which you Attract someone in your Target Audience, then Engage that same person, and finally Convert that same person. You can use any combination of marketing tactics you like, as long as they make a complete Marketing Pipeline.
  8. Always measure every possible element of your Marketing Pipelines. You can usually measure more than you think. If there is no way to measure any element of a Marketing Pipeline, then you are not doing marketing, you are doing wishful thinking. Never execute a plan that is just wishful thinking.
  9. Look at your measurements on a regular schedule. Stop doing things that don’t work. Improve things that could work better.
  10. As much as possible, design your Marketing Pipelines as automated machines. It’s hard to make money if a Marketing Pipeline depends on you interacting one-to-one with each person in your Target Audience. If your personal effort is an essential part of a Marketing Pipeline, then try to apply that effort in one-to-many mode, not one-to-one.

Anyone who works with Ausoma can tell you we believe these commandments and implement them so nonfiction authors can be social and get noticed.

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

The 80/20 Principle in Social Media Marketing

Posted on by Sue L Canfield

How does the 80/20 principle apply in social media marketing? In short, it means that about 20% of your messages are self-promotion, ‘buy-my-book’ messages and 80% of your messages are generous, sharing what your audience finds valuable and informative.

This is important for authors trying to promote their books. If your audience sees the majority of your messages are self-promotion, they will quickly lose interest. Turn that around. Make the majority of your messages generous, information sharing.

Ask yourself: what does my reader want? What does my reader need? Then share! What you share can be tips from your book. That will encourage your audience to buy your book whether or not you specifically promote it. Also share links to other helpful information provided from other sources.

The 80/20 numbers are not carved in stone. It’s not a rule. It’s a principle. The important thing is to remember this principle in all your social media marketing.

Share more than you promote.

Note from Joel

While this is not really an application of the Pareto Principle wherein most of our results come from a small portion of our effort, it’s convenient to reuse the numbers 80 and 20 partly because they’ll be easy to remember. But hey, perhaps we’ll write another post about applying the Pareto Principle in your marketing efforts, because it definitely applies.