Author marketing plan to take goals for your book

Your author marketing plan is the broad overview of what your goals are for your book printing and for yourself as an author – and the steps you plan to take to reach those goals.

You can begin developing your marketing plan by conducting research before you even type the first sentence of your book. You can always refine your research at any stage of the publishing process, whether you’re still writing your manuscript, are waiting to hear back from an agent, or are in talks with your publisher. There is always more to learn!

If you’ve already written your book, don’t worry: it’s never too late to research and define your book from a marketing perspective. Part of that research will require that you define and answer the following, regardless of which stage of writing or publishing you are in.

1. Identify your target audience

Be very specific! There may be multiple groups of people that would be interested in your book, but it’s best to narrow your focus before you start your marketing efforts and identify a clear target audience. Consider characteristics like age, gender, career, income, location, and educational background. Clarifying your target audience, like you may do with your first beta readers, will help you to find your niche and make your marketing much easier and more effective later down the line. You can then search out the best means of reaching your audience and execute your marketing endeavors with a clear plan of action.

2. Study your competition

The book market is huge and highly competitive. You can use this to your advantage, however. Find out what kinds of books are selling the best. Scrutinize your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and how you might capitalize on a trend or improve in areas. Track the selling price of other books based on subject, binding type, and page count.

3. Develop a strategy to reach your target audience

Does your audience listen to a certain type radio station, attend particular events, read specific magazines or blogs, or have a direct connection to a region or city? Are there cultural ties that may influence their career choices, location, or religion? Do members of your targeted audience represent a higher percentage of the demographic in certain cities? For example: if you are targeting young adults, you could research the location of the largest high schools in the United States. Or, if your YA novel has Roman Catholic overtones to it, you would want to narrow your search to Catholic schools in the same regions.

4. Develop a statement to position your book within your targeted audience

This statement should highlight your book’s unique selling position, or what separates your book from the competition. If you’re not sure exactly how to answer that, consider this scenario: A reader is browsing a shelf of books and finds the opportunity to ask you directly, “Why should I buy your book?” What would you say? What makes your book – or your experience as its author – different from everyone else’s? What special background or experience do you have as the author that will drive the audience’s interest?

5. Tighten up your marketing budget

How much can you realistically spend on marketing this year? Over the next two years? What type of media are you going to use? What kind of campaigns and advertisements are you going to develop? Some marketing efforts are, of course, extremely affordable, while others are outrageously expensive. Your budget will ultimately affect which promotional activities you can afford, but remember: a more expensive promotional product or strategy does not necessarily produce the best results. Do what works for your audience and your personality.

Now that you’ve developed the basic goals and targeted your audience for your marketing campaign, it’s time to put it to work. Do you have a defined author marketing plan?

Strategies to move forward with your book selling

You should always evaluate what has worked for you in the past and try new strategies and tactics as necessary. Aim high. Set big goals that will motivate you to action. Remember, some people thought Goliath was too big to hit. David thought he was too big to miss. Whether you have a stone in your sling or your hand in a coconut, you may need to let go to succeed.

There is a unique way to trap monkeys in the islands of the South Seas. The natives drill a small hole in a coconut, hollow it out, and fill it with rice. When a monkey puts its hand in the coconut to get the food, it cannot remove its clenched fist. Refusing to let go of their prize, the monkeys are unable to escape.

You can get caught in a similar trap if you become conditioned to avoid risks and persist in using strategies that might have worked in the past but don’t get the results you need in today’s marketplace.

Don’t just do something, stand there!

Stop yanking at the coconut. Let go of your past and pause to ponder what you are doing and where you are going. Go back to the basics of marketing and create a plan that defines your mission, generates objectives, establishes strategies, and develops specific tactics.

1. Draft a mission statement

Your mission statement is a concise answer to two questions: 1) “What business am I in?” and 2) “Who am I trying to serve?”

“What business am I in?” This may seem obvious because you are a producer and purveyor of books. But this is a limiting concept because you are really a provider of information that people need and are willing to pay for.

“Who am I trying to serve?” Define your target readers and buyers. Use the Five Ws: who are they, where do they shop, when do they buy, why do they need your content, and in what form do they want it?

2. Define your objectives

The purpose of objectives is to divide your long-term vision into attainable goals. Traditional business planning requires that objectives be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-oriented. However, goals must be more than that or they simply remain good intentions.

Write out your objectives so it helps you find new ways to reach them. A goal to “Sell 10,000 books by December 31, 2019” puts your focus on selling books. If you say “Reach net revenue of $100,000,” you expand your focus to profitably selling your content through books, booklets, or other formats. This can also include revenue through corporate sales, consulting, and/or speaking.

3. Develop strategies

Next, develop strategies that will direct your efforts to achieve your objectives. Think of your strategies as statements of the general direction you will take in each of the four areas of marketing: Product, Place, Price, and Promotion.

Product strategy. The word product (instead of book) forces you to think of all merchandise you can create that will satisfy the needs of your customers.

Place strategy. Place refers to your distribution network. There are three general channels: direct, indirect, or a combination of the two. Indirect distribution to retailers utilizes some variation of the traditional distributor/wholesaler/retailer (bookstore, supermarket, airport store, etc.) system. Alternatively, you might consider the technique of marketing directly to non-retail buyers in corporations, associations, schools, or the military. The most effective system combines both.

Pricing strategy. There are three basic pricing strategies: 1) a penetration strategy with a low price, 2) a skimming strategy with a high price, or 3) a competitive strategy, pricing your book similar to competitors.

Promotion strategy. There are four general promotional tools you can use at different times (online or offline) to accomplish your goals. These are sales promotion, publicity, advertising, and personal selling.

4. Tactics

In each of the four strategic areas, describe innovative and specific actions you will take to employ your marketing weapons. This creates a “To Do” list of activities that will apply your strategies and fulfill your objectives. Customize your actions to your title and circumstances. Be specific and add a deadline for the accomplishment of every action.

Product tactics. If you chose a strategy that expands your product mix, list the actions you will take to do so. For instance, is your title a candidate for eBook and printed book? Audiobook? When and how will you have them produced?

Place tactics. Plan ways to work with partners and alternate (non-bookstore) retailers to sell more of your books. Also, explore non-retail segments (businesses, associations, schools) that might purchase your book.

Pricing tactics. 
What will your price be? Basing the price on your costs plus a standard markup is a simple system, but it fails to consider competition, customers’ buying habits, volume benefits, special-sales opportunities, economies of scale, and profit objectives. One price might not fit all.

Promotion tactics. 
Create a mix of tools to best promote your books – on and offline.

Sales promotion uses premiums, giveaways, coupons, and website offers to generate awareness and stimulate demand through short-term awareness campaigns.
Publicity (social networking, testimonials, media appearances, press releases, reviews) is perhaps the most economical element of the promotional mix.
Advertising, including direct mail, can reach many consumers simultaneously with the same message and with a relatively low cost per exposure.

Personal selling (direct sales, personal networking, trade shows, store events) can be the most persuasive promotional tool because it allows two-way communication.
You should always evaluate what has worked for you in the past and try new strategies and tactics as necessary. Aim high. Set big goals that will motivate you to action. Remember, some people thought Goliath was too big to hit. David thought he was too big to miss. Whether you have a stone in your sling or your hand in a coconut, you may need to let go to succeed.

The Most Effective Signage to Choose for your Success Advertisement

There may be a lot of choices to market your stores and events,but most of the time, it’s good old-fashioned printed signage that gets the job done. From banners to posters, yard signs to canvas prints, printed signage is the best at grabbing people’s attention.

So which signage should you use for your business? Here are some ways you can use effective signage for your marketing campaign.

1. Build attractive banners.

Creating an attractive storefront is essential if you want people to know about your business. The key to creating this effective signage is size. If your banner is too large or too small, it would be unreadable, defeating its purpose. Try to see how people walk or drive around your area to determine the distance they could read your banner.

Another thing you should consider is the material. Vinyl banners , Rollup Banner and Tripod Banner are great to use all around and you can clean them hassle free. If you are in a location with strong winds, you need to use mesh banners. Regular banners can get torn apart or blown away easily if it’s windy. Putting slits in them manually to prevent this will destroy the design. Unlike regular banners, fabric cloth banners have little holes in them that allow air through, which makes them ideal for a windy environment.

Storefronts are not the only places you can put banners. They are effective at trade shows and events as well. A great choice for trade shows would be retractable banners. These banners are lightweight, compact, and ideal for traveling. You can set them up easily in seconds and reuse them if you’re participating in several trade shows. Backdrops are also great additions to retractable banners, especially if you have a wide area during trade shows and events.

2. Promote exciting events with posters.

To tell customers about your store promotions and events, posters are an effective signage option. When creating a poster, you need to look at two elements—design and content—and how both interact with your target customer.

Thus, you need to define the audience of your poster and use it as a foundation for your design and content. Designing your poster blindly would only yield a poor result. It’s good practice to refer to your buyer persona, and the specific segment of it that you are targeting, when planning your poster.

From there, you can start with concepts on poster design and copy. As a general rule, less is always more. You should distill your design into one message that you want to convey. Most of the people looking at posters only have a few moments. You need to make your message clear within these few moments for it to be effective.

Your information should also be organized. Include the details that are important for your audience, including the date, time, location, contact details, and of course, the promotions or freebies that they could get if they participate.

3. Pull potential customers in with yard signs.

Politicians and real estate agents have used the power of yard signs for decades. Nowadays, other industries and business have tapped into yard signs because of their power to increase awareness. They capitalize on the traffic your home or business, or that of your customers.

The biggest advantages of yard signs is in their cost and mobility. For a fraction of the expense, you can have your very own billboards around your community. Long term cost is also lessened if you have already collected a set of yard signs made for every season. You can easily change them to display the appropriate message for the season and reuse them every year. Finally, yard signs are easy to set up, dismantle, and move to places where there is the most traffic. Just stick in the grass, then pull out when you’re done using them.

4. Create works of art with canvas prints.

If there’s one thing canvas prints are good at, it’s adding artistry and sophistication to the visual medium. Nothing speaks to class more than any photograph or message presented in a canvas print.

Turn your photographs and artwork into works of art with canvas prints. Not only are they great interior decorations for stores and businesses, they can also improve your branding and reinforce the message you want to convey to visiting customers. Canvas prints easily attract attention since they are less common. If you work in a visual-heavy industry, such as photography, art, and even real estate, you need to try using canvas prints to present your work to potential clients.

Make your artwork into high Premium paper art prints

The digital age has changed art and artwork altogether. Doodling is a real thing now which can be done without the usage of paper or actual colors. It is simply done by an electronic pen. However, digital art also needs to be transformed into a tangible form to be sold or even posted on your kitchen fridge. This can be done by some ways. One way of doing it is by.

Premium paper is a set of paper which is thicker than standard paper but less stiff than actual cardboard. Premium paper printing has now become cheap and convenient due to the technological advancements in software and printing hardware.

If you want to convert your artwork into a high-end print quality result where you can make money, you will need to take care of certain aspects while conducting premium paper printing. The things that you have to be careful about are:

Printer

There are two options available for the printer you require. The first one is that you get the services of a professional printing press which is expensive in nature. The other option is the purchase of high-end printer to print on cardstocks at home.
Artists in the business of printing their artwork usually have large format printers that accept thicker cardstock paper. This kind of a printer will enable you to control the colors as well, and the output will be high-quality, high end reproduction of your digital artwork.

Ink

This is one of the most important aspects of high-quality printing. If you use a high-end printer but low-quality ink, your print can not bring out the colors you want or the colors may not last for a long time. Also look out for compatibility of ink and ink cartridges with your current printer or the one you are thinking to buy.

Paper

Selection of the correct paper is also imperative rather the most valuable as bad paper will save you less money but waste all the money you have spent on the other equipment. Selecting the right cardstock for cardstock printing is, therefore, the element which you should focus on the most as that is your final product. A photo paper cardstock is the safest bet if you don’t have much idea about different kinds of cardstocks.

Settings

The printer and software setting also have a heavy impact on the output. General settings can be learned quickly but to print your artwork in a professional manner, you will need to learn the basic and advanced settings of your printer. Adjusting it will take some experience, but over the period you will arrive at the custom settings that will help you in achieving your goal of transforming your artwork into high-end gallery art using premium paper.