Power of Promotion: How to Promote Your Book

Finally! Your book is written, edited, and printed! Maybe you have a freelance business that you have launched. Or maybe you have that E-Book ready for download on Amazon. Whatever literary path you decide to go or have gone, the question is; what do you do next to get your work in front of an audience. Promotion is the answer to that question but how do you promote?

Power of Promotion



When it comes to promotion the choices that are available are endless and if the right promotional combinations are used; the success of your book or literary business will almost be a guarantee! Promotions are essential to any marketing campaign. Look at it like this. Once your book is finished and you launch it on Amazon’s publishing platform along with the other millions of books. The question is, how will yours stand out? Unfortunately, unless you are a well-known author it probably will not.

Sadly, your book will simply be just another title on the shelf collecting dust UNLESS you promote! Promotion is the secret sauce for any business and for authors like ourselves. You may have the best book ever written but if no one ever reads it; then you will just have, well, the best book ever written. Instead, what you want is the best book ever read and promotion has the power to do just that.

Online Marketing Tools That Matter

These essential and effective marketing tools will help bring the needed attention to your book(s) or business. It will also generate an interest and will hopefully lead to a loyal client base to your work. The goal is to first get your name circulating before you can expect any income to start flowing in. Luckily, the best and simplest way to do that in this day and age is by online digital marketing.

Online Digital Marketing, or online advertising is simply the use of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for example to promote yourself and your work. Aside from the oldest and probably the best forms of promotion, which is word of mouth; one of the best ways to utilize and promote on these popular platforms is by the way of ads. Yes, there will be a small cost to get yourself in front of possible future readers. However, if you go this route the payoff will be well worth it!

Promote with SEO

Another great approach to get yourself in front of your targeted audience is by SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. The goal to SEO is to have a better strategy than your competitors or other authors in this case. SEO is a strategy used if you have a website or even a LinkedIn account to promote your business. The goal with SEO is to drive as much traffic to your website and LinkedIn account as you can. This will rank you higher on Google and other search engines which is the key to success with this option.

However, getting traffic to your sites will be impossible without keyword research! Keyword research is simply a cheat sheet into seeing what consumers are interested in via their Google searches. It is also a window into what they are buying. This priceless knowledge will not only help you to promote but will also allow you to zero in on what your audience want. Targeted keywords will help to draw your audience to your site and get you noticed.

For example, if you are a romance novelist, and you have found that after conducting your keyword research that a common Google search phrase is “great romance novels” then that should be a keyword phrase that you use in your blogs or website pages to draw in that targeted traffic. There are many platforms that offer keyword research. One of the most popular, and one that I use myself is KWFinder. Keep in mind that, whatever your brand is- all the mentioned marketing tools can be utilized to promote and get you noticed.

Promote by Identifying Your Brand

First, what is “your brand?” Your brand is simply your product, design, name, or logo that is used to identify your business. Identifying your brand is critical to your success. The goal is to have a brand that resonates with its audience over multiple platforms from social media to the delivery of your product or service.

The same way that you can use online digital marketing and SEO to promote your literary endeavors. Brand Marketing is yet another tool that can be used to promote your books and services in a specific way that will highlight your overall brand. Keep in mind however that no matter how many places you put your logo or how many times you use your business name; without customer reach it all means nothing.

Customer reach, or simply, the potential number of customers your business can reach through marketing can be established with Brand and content Marketing. The power of this channel of promotion is beneficial because it helps to build your reputation and the reputation of your business as well as your trustworthiness.

Brand Marketing will also help build a bridge between your identity, personality, and values to your audience. It is simply a link to your product and your customer. In this case, the author and the reader.

Evidence of the Power of Branding and Promotion

Let us take J.K Rowling for example who, surprisingly was once a single, unemployed mother living on benefits when writing her first Harry Potter novel. Fortunately for her, Rowling mastered the art of exciting her audience and has continued to give them what they want. And who has also mastered the art of branding.

Rowling created a powerful brand through her famous Harry Potter series of books that captivates her readers in 69 languages in 200 countries around the world! Her audience bought into the world that she created within these magical novels and once they became a success; she could then explore other branding and marketing opportunities.

For her this meant clothing and other apparel, movies, and even theme parks! Now, that is an example of the power of branding as well as promotion! The lesson in this is to allow your business to evolve at its own pace and to allow the success to come naturally. It is hard to believe that the now billionaire had her manuscripts rejected and criticized multiple times before becoming published yet she endured and bounced back.

Promote and Prevail

Now, we may never reach the star status that J.K.. Rowling has through her writing. However, we can still obtain a comfortable level of success through our writing. Without promoting your brand, books, and services you will never surpass the small audience that you may have. This limited audience unfortunately may only consist of family, friends, and co-workers.

To prevail, you must promote to create a broader reach that goes beyond your original audience. This broader reach will yield new customers, loyal clientele, and more interest in what you are offering and writing about. It is vital that your targeted audience is selected correctly to ensure that everyone that is interested in your genre or business services are reached.

Promote Strategically to Identify Your Target Audience

Most times marketers will make the mistake and market to anyone that is willing to buy their product. The problem with that way of thinking is, it will not produce loyal customers. Target marketing, or more simply; a marketing campaign designed for a brand to target a group of people that it wants to sell their products and services to is much more than understanding demographics.

Instead, psychographics should be incorporated to get an even better understanding into your audiences ways of thinking and buying decisions. Unlike demographics which only gives basic insights such as age, gender, race and occupation for example. Psychographics goes even further and gives more personal insights such as personality, values, lifestyles, attitudes, aspirations, and interests.

This is how your targeted audience will be found and separated from the target market. This specific group, which has been narrowed down will be the people that will more than likely buy your books and any other services that you offer. Psychographics will break down a buyer persona, or in simpler terms, an ideal person that encompasses the characteristic traits of your prime potential customer.

Relate and Prevail

If done correctly, target marketing will strategically help identify your targeted audience which in turn will nearly guarantee success in your literary journey. To break this methodology down even further, let us take J.K. Rowling again for example. The original targeted market for her Harry Potter series were children although she never intended to write children’s books. Furthermore, the targeted audience would be children who embraced the magical fantasy world that her books are known for.

Through her main characters she knew children would be able to relate in some way which was a great strategy to captivate and pull her audience in. Harry, who always seemed to get into some type of trouble while at the same time felt like an unwanted outcast. Hermione, the know-it-all student who, did not make friends easily. Lastly, Ron, who is constantly embarrassed by his large family and many siblings who loves him dearly.

There is no question that children will relate to at least one of these characters. However, after the tremendous success of the series Rowling’s targeted market and the targeted audience has changed almost overnight after her fantastic stories began to captivate people of all demographic groups. J.K. Rowling’s stories are now read by grandparents, young adults, children, and parents around the world.

Putting It To Work

So, now it is time for you to put in the work and promote yourself and your brand! If you are a romance novelist for example, zone in on your target market. Maybe it is women between the ages of 18-45. From there, narrow that group down by utilizing psychographics to determine your target audience.

This measure may show a group of women who, always wants love to win. Or maybe these readers will prefer a romance novel with a splash of mystery, thriller, or an action plot. Or maybe erotic romance is what is popular amongst your target market. Simply put, it is vital that you understand your audiences reading habits and wants in order to deliver and gain loyal and repeat customers.

Conclusion

Writing a book or an E-Book is the easy part. However, getting those books in front of readers is the hard part. Luckily, there is power behind any marketing campaign. Moreover, knowing how to target a potential audience and who to target is vital to any literary success. Staying consistent and utilizing the online tools that are at your fingertips along with brand and content marketing will help you to promote your brand and get your work in front of thousands if not millions of potential customers. Happy Writing!