Tag: marketing tips

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Your Nonfiction Book is the Ultimate Business Card

If you are a consultant, service provider, or business professional, having a book can become your best form of promotion. A book provides instant credibility, elevating you above the competition who has no book. It becomes a calling card, opening doors and providing opportunities you would otherwise miss.

Your book is the ultimate business card. Learn more from the article “Your Book as Your Business Card: Indie Book Publishing Provides Professionals the Edge.”

Of course, to realize the most from your book as a business card, it must be professional. Business cards run the gambit from homemade cards using your PC printer and perforated stock to four-color glossy works of art with professional graphics and quality printing. The difference is apparent, separating card-carrying market leaders from under-resourced wannabes. Though the homemade version is better than no card, it’s only a marginal improvement.

So, too, published books run the gambit, from homemade cover and self-edited to professionally designed graphics, quality editing, and elegant interior design that ooze competence. While the homegrown book is better than no book, it is only marginally so.

Whether it is a book or a business card, when someone sees it, do you want them to think “Oh no!” or “Oh wow?”

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Creating Your Elevator Pitch: Don’t Leave This to Chance

I hate asking new authors, “What’s your book about?”

They panic; they stammer; they ramble. Five minutes later, I’m still not sure. Telltale signs that communication is not occurring are phrases like, “Then in chapter two…” or “Oh, I forgot to mention…” or “I haven’t worked this part out yet.” When my eyes glaze over, they become flustered and utter the killer phrase: “It starts out kind of slow but really picks up around page 65.”

In recent posts, we talked about writing back cover copy and promotional copy for our books. A related topic, which I should have addressed first, is creating an elevator pitch.

An elevator pitch is a concise and intriguing synopsis of our book. Imagine getting in an elevator and an agent or publisher asks, “What’s your book about?” Before the doors open, we need to have finished answering the question in such a compelling manner that the person wants to know more.

An elevator pitch must be short. Every word must count. We may only have twenty seconds, likely less. Our elevator pitches need to:

  • Grab their attention
  • Make our book stand out
  • Cause them to want more
  • Be memorable

It is usually only a couple sentences.

Prior to getting a book deal, our elevator pitch is the most important thing we will write. Yes, we must write it. Then we must memorize it. Finally we must deliver it flawlessly and with passion. The future of our book depends on it.

Here are elevator pitches for two memoir-style books of mine:

  • “My wife and I visited a different Christian church every Sunday for a year. 52 Churches shares what we learned on our journey.”
  • “God, I Don’t Want to Go to Church shares my lifelong struggle with church attendance, while offering hope to the disenfranchised. The subtitle is “Seven Churches that Pushed Me Away and the God Who Wouldn’t Let Go.”

Now I just need to work on memorization and delivery.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Writing Promotional Copy For Your Book

In five steps to write back cover copy for your book, I acknowledged that most writers struggle producing compelling back cover copy. I also encouraged you to write two versions and to save unused copy, content you didn’t use, and your brainstorming session. Here’s why:

You also need to write promotional material for your book. Yes, if you’re going with a traditional publisher, they may do this for you, but you know your book better than they do and have the most at stake. At the least, you can offer them copy to tweak and be part of the process—or you may opt to do it yourself anyway. And if you’re self-publishing, you need to write this or pay someone else to.

We’ll need to have promotional copy for email marketing, social media posts, online book listings, and other advertising opportunities. The length of the copy depends on the medium, so create multiple versions of different lengths. While back cover copy varies from 150 to 300 words, promotional copy is shorter, usually 100 words or less. I advise four different lengths: 100 words, 75 words, 50 words, and 25 words.

Then, there’s one last item. Make a tweetable version of less than 140 characters, preferably fewer than 120, so followers can retweet it with their comment.

Starting with your back cover copy, try editing it down to fit these different lengths. Do this with both versions Sometimes back cover copy doesn’t scale nicely to shorter lengths. If this happens, return to versions you didn’t use or your brainstorming session. Often these will work nicely for short marketing blurbs even though they didn’t work for a longer back cover copy.

Ideally, you should end up with a couple of versions of each length; they may be similar in concept or completely different. The goal is that any time you, or someone else, wants a promotional copy of a specific length, you have it ready. In some cases, it may need tweaking for the particular application, in which case, make the edits and add the result to your cache of marketing blurbs.

Now you have created a great arsenal of book promotional material. Make sure you do this ahead of time, so you’re not rushed to meet a last-minute request and provide them with less than ideal copy.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

The Third Key of Book Publishing is Marketing

There are three facets of book publishing: writing the book, producing the book, and promoting the book. This final step of marketing is one that most authors would just as soon skip. But if people are to read what we write, we must promote our work.

Here are some articles about marketing to help with the task of book promotion. Though these offer generic marketing instructions, the principles are applicable to authors and publishers. As you read them, think about your book as a business.

This list is just a start, but it will help us to just that: get started.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Business

Three Reactions to Economic Conditions

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

As businesses ponder future economic conditions and how it will affect sales and their bottom line, there are three ways to respond:

  1. Hunker down and hope tomorrow will be better.
  2. Take a deep breath and maintain business as usual.
  3. Increase marketing and promotional efforts to increase sales now and fill the sales funnel with prospects for later.

The first response is a quick path to disaster.

The second option, while a viable consideration, may not be the best one.

It’s the third possibility, however, that holds the most promise for the present and the most potential for the future.

Progressive business owners and managers will pursue the third choice. As they do, they will zoom past their competition while they hunker down or hold their breath.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Sticky Series books, including Sticky Customer Service, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Leadership and Management featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an entrepreneur and businessman who has managed, owned, and started multiple businesses over his career. Common themes at every turn have included customer service, sales and marketing, and leadership and management.

He shares his lifetime of business experience and personal insights through his books to encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain.

Categories
Business

How Customer Service Can Take the Pressure Off of Marketing

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Although the precise multiple varies with who’s doing the telling, the truth is it’s many times more costly to obtain a new customer than keep an existing one.

The sad reality is, no one at the giant mega-corporations gets this — or at least their actions belie that they do.

For years, I’ve been trying to get a less outrageous rate from my local phone company, practically begging them to give me a reason to stick around. Now I have a viable alternative, so I switched providers, and cancelled service.

For the first time in 24 years they ask me, “What can we do to keep you as a customer?” Sorry, too late.

A week later I receive an email message from them. It seems I’ve been pre-approved for a special rate, one they wouldn’t consider giving me as a customer, but will if I’m a prospect. They offer to sell me phone, internet, and satellite for about what they were charging for just phone and Internet before.

If existing customers were treated with a bit more respect, the marketing folks wouldn’t be under as much pressure to regain the revenue lost from defecting customers. But instead, they do things backwards, treating customers with disregard and prospects with sweet deals.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Sticky Series books, including Sticky Customer Service, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Leadership and Management featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an entrepreneur and businessman who has managed, owned, and started multiple businesses over his career. Common themes at every turn have included customer service, sales and marketing, and leadership and management.

He shares his lifetime of business experience and personal insights through his books to encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain.

Categories
Business

Measuring Marketing Effectiveness

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

There’s an alarming trend among marketing folks, especially those focused on e-marketing. Their perspective is if marketing can’t be measured, then it’s not viable. This is incorrect; some marketing results simply cannot be tracked.

Consider print marketing. You can’t count the number of impressions, clicks, or conversions. You have no way of knowing how many eyeballs saw an ad, how many positive, subconscious imprints were made, or the degree to which a brand was reinforced with each view.

The reality is, every time someone sees your ad in print, the status of your brand is elevated in their mind and your organization is held in higher esteem.

This makes prospects more likely to click and to buy when they see you online. And this increases the likelihood they’ll answer your salesperson’s call and ultimately buy your products or services when they have a need.

Without the support of print media advertising, the salesperson’s job becomes more difficult and their sales will be lower. Just because it’s hard to measure the effectiveness of certain marketing, doesn’t mean it should be skipped. Doing so puts an organization’s future at risk.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Sticky Series books, including Sticky Customer Service, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Leadership and Management featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an entrepreneur and businessman who has managed, owned, and started multiple businesses over his career. Common themes at every turn have included customer service, sales and marketing, and leadership and management.

He shares his lifetime of business experience and personal insights through his books to encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain.

Categories
Business

Why Agents Should Stop Selling and Start Serving

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

I needed to order some ink cartridges for my printer — the kind I can only buy directly from the vendor. There was a problem with the website, so I picked up the phone to place my order.

I told the agent I wanted to order two black ink cartridges.

Not surprisingly, she suggested I buy a package that included two color cartridges as well. “No thank you, just black.”

Upon discovering the age of my printer, she tried to sell me a new printer. “No thank you — I just need ink.”

When I acknowledged that I own several computers from her company, she asked if they were working okay and did I… “No I just want to buy ink.”

Then she offered me a special price on anti-virus software for only…, “No, I only want ink!”

Next, she inquired if I was interested in a maintenance plan to… “NO, just ink!”

Perhaps she was supposed to try to upsell me five times or maybe she was on commission. I don’t know, but I do know the call took twice as long as it needed to, I became irritated, and the likelihood of me buying another printer from them is highly unlikely.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Sticky Series books, including Sticky Customer Service, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Leadership and Management featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an entrepreneur and businessman who has managed, owned, and started multiple businesses over his career. Common themes at every turn have included customer service, sales and marketing, and leadership and management.

He shares his lifetime of business experience and personal insights through his books to encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain.

Categories
Business

Would You Go Double or Nothing on Your Advertising?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

I remember reading a notable case study in my college marketing class.

It was about cereal rivals Kellogg’s and Post. Prior to the Great Depression, their marketing efforts and corresponding market share was comparable. But when hard times hit, Post reacted by pulling their advertising, whereas Kellogg’s doubled their efforts.

When the economy rebounded, Kellogg’s market share surged ahead, while Post’s languished, never to again catch their rival.

While I would never tell someone to double their advertising, I am most willing to advise businesses against scaling back. When advertisers stop advertising, readers notice. (I know, because they often ask me about it.)

The absence of a regularly appearing ad where there once was one sends a negative message. It also fails to build and re-enforce the advertiser’s brand to potential buyers – and even places doubt in the minds of existing customers.

You never know when someone will be in the market for new equipment, software, or services, but when they are, you want them to contact you first.

Consistent advertising is the key to making that happen.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Sticky Series books, including Sticky Customer Service, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Leadership and Management featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an entrepreneur and businessman who has managed, owned, and started multiple businesses over his career. Common themes at every turn have included customer service, sales and marketing, and leadership and management.

He shares his lifetime of business experience and personal insights through his books to encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Write Better Headlines By Studying Bad Ones

Last week, I recorded the headlines of press releases that I received—not the ones I used, but the ones I didn’t use (and many more were screened before they reached me). Many don’t even address the industry I cover, so make sure you only send your press releases to those who actually cover your industry, niche, or geography.

The next step in getting your press release picked up is to write a compelling headline. In reading these examples ask yourself: Which ones are interesting? Which ones make me want to read more? Which ones have a great hook? And, which ones do I even understand?

  • Presence Technology is positioned in the Visionaries quadrant of CRM Web Customer Service Magic Quadrant
  • Girls Night Out Event Tour Comes To Zeeland
  • New Combination Locking Cap Designed to Protect Children and Teens From Prescription Medications
  • SecuriGlobe Deploys Interactive Intelligence IP Business Communications Solution
  • Sitel Work@Home Solutions Provide Next Generation Virtual Workforce
  • Professional Insurance Marketing Association (PIMA) Publishes Updated Advertising Manual
  • TantaComm Announces New Interaction Recording Solutions for Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs)
  • iPractice Group, Inc. Acquires Doctors Access
  • Intelliverse Introduces Partnership Program for Cloud Services in International Markets
  • Copper Helps Serve and Protect Along Lightning Alley
  • MDSL and FancyFon combine TEM with Mobile Device Lifecycle Management
  • HyperQuality Releases New Performance Management Features in ClearMetrix 3.0
  • NYeC Announces List of Speakers for Digital Health Conference 2011
  • Amazon’s Latest Bite into Apple
  • Amazon Unveils Kindle Fire Tablet, Two Other New E-Readers
  • Olympus KeyMed selects Alcatel-Lucent for Innovative Data Center and Customer Service Solutions
  • Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC)
  • SuccessEHS Announces Results of 2010–2011 Implementation and Customer Support Surveys
  • Encoda Announces Eileen Harrow to Develop Professional Services Division
  • HireIQ Launches InterviewPlus Solution, Enabling Organizations and Recruiters to Streamline Hiring Process
  • Ambry Genetics First to Offer Exome Sequencing Service for Clinical Diagnostics.
  • Breakthrough Service to Supervise Children’s Use of Mobiles Launched by MM Technologies
  • Finalists Announced for the 2011 Eddie and Ozzie Awards!
  • SIMM Associates Uses Latitude Software Suite to Reduce Operational Costs
  • West Corporation Celebrates InterCall’s 20th Anniversary

Writing an effective headline is part art and part practice. By studying these beauties and learning from them, we can hone our craft of writing a compelling headline and increase the chances of it being picked up and promoted.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.