What Works & What Doesn’t In Viral Book Marketing Online

Stop with the enforced e-mail forwards already! Trying to
force or bribe people to forward your info to friends or
family in order to be rewarded or win in today’s ultra-
permission-based world. Especially, when you tell visitors
nothing about their friend’s or family’s privacy in the space
directly next to the e-mail form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A true viral book marketing campaign gets forwarded
because consumers are compelled to do so by the glory
of the content, not because you bribed them with a free
gift or something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message
to their friends and family will not work. Adding a line at
the bottom of your e-mail that reads “Please feel free to
forward this message to a friend” is more likely to get it
deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount,
vital information or offering an incentive for sharing like
additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount
or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are
included in your e-mail might encourage the recipients to share
with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or
test, especially if it’s fun, will inspire forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are almost always
forwarded to everybody the recipient
knows.  Why?  Because they are entertaining
and entertainment is meant to be shared.

A really cool multimedia experience is
always going to achieve a lot of pass-along.
Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are
often enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Oops!  Almost forgot one really important thing….You can craft a
brilliant e-mail following all the rules, but if a consumer visits your
site and has an experience less that what was promised, you are
going to achieve viral book marketing, alright…the bad kind.  So
be certain that your book, product or service is ready and is as
advertised.

=============
About The Author
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And to help you learn more about how to market a book online, I’m
inviting you to claim your Free Website Makeover Workshop eCourse
when you visit http://www.FreeEcourse.WebsiteMakeoverWorkshop.com

 

Top Ten Getting Started Tips to Market Your Book and Business

I came across this article that was written back in 2005 and the content of it has not changed as to what must and can be done to market a book online.

Take a moment read the article, then share your thoughts and feedback so we can talk about it.

Hope you enjoy!

Have an awesome day,
C.F. -

Top Ten Getting Started Tips to Market Your Book and Business

Want to sell a lot more books? Want clients calling every day to find out more about your service? Most emerging businesses forget the #1 way to promote anything–the Internet. Specifically, writing and submitting articles.

These ten Tips will help you write a winning article that top ezines and Web sites will want to publish.

1. Include your non-fiction book’s chapter how to’s or your fiction’s juicy chapter excerpts in your articles. Your book coach encourages novelists as well as self-help authors.

2. Keep your articles around 200-800 words each. Remember today’s audience likes short copy. They want it one, two, three.Online writing is so different from what print magazines want.

3. Keep your article focused on just one thesis or point. That means mindmap your article or make a linear outline what points to keep before your write it. A plan helps.

4. Create a hook for your two or three-sentence introduction. Notice this one asked you a few questions to engage you.

5. Forget the old school of writing for print magazines and getting paid. Follow the Internet way– give your article away like Mrs. Field cookie samples, so people who read them and notice your signature file will want to visit the site where you sell your book.

6. Keep yourself out of it. Your audience wants to know what you can do for them. Replace those “I” constructions with “you.” “If you are like me….”

7. Number the main points for clarity. People love easy to read tips. Remember tips have a format that pros know. Start with a command, follow it with a benefit for doing it, and follow that with examples of how.

8. Collect ten well-edited articles before you blast off. Online readers will look at you more seriously when they see you offer more than one quick thing. They will see you as the savvy expert and click to where you sell your book.

9. Leverage one article into five. Change your audience. Change your number of how to’s. Three Tips to… or Five Tips… or The Two Best Ways to….

10. Remember free information is the reason people go to Web sites, so put your articles there as well as in a blog.

Once you get dozens of short articles or fiction excerpts out to no spam ezines or top web sites in your field, you will notice the search engines optimizing your site because they see your important key words that link you, your book, or your service together. Your submitted articles lead to the magic of “viral marketing.” The thing is that this is attraction, natural marketing at its best. Your coach’s URL and signature file is now on over 33,000 Web sites.

 

 

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The BookCoach Says…,” “Business Tip of the Month,” blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com and over 185 free articles

Book Marketing Online With Videos

Taking your book marketing online can
be done with a little less efforts with the
video source of the day!

 

Comment | Copy This

 

I’ved used it and I wanted to help you create
high quality videos for free that can be shared
across the internet.

Check out  Animoto NOW! This is something you can
do right now to create quality, bright, and original
videos to book marketing online.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson
The Authority Site For Authors & Writers

And…

Book Marketing: 12 Reasons Your Website Is Failing

Here’s a great article from an expert whom I’ve
had the opportunity finally hear LIVE & meet just
earlier this year!

So read the content of this article as if you were
in class because everything he’s sharing is worth
rereading….

Willie Crawford is a internet marketer at heart and
only just a few things may throw you off as an
author… Just continue to move forward and Just
Ask! We’ll provide you an answer!

Share you comments, thoughts, and ideas about
today’s Keys to Success Article… Won’t you do that?

Enjoy!

Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson
———

12 Reasons Your Website Is Failing

Most Saturdays I conduct a free networking and brainstorming call where we critique and give makeovers to 2-3 websites. On the weeks that we don’t review websites, the calls are generally “open discussion” of Internet marketing issues.

These calls are just another tool in my very effective marketing arsenal, and you can join them by registering at: http://WillieCrawford.com/free-brainstorming-calls.html

During most weeks, I get dozens of joint venture proposals, and several potential new clients who want me to evaluate the potential of a project that they’re working on.

Many of the joint ventures that I turn down, and many of the clients that I reject, are for the same reason. Their websites are so poorly written that I know that the websites won’t convert. I rarely do outside copywriting, but I often suggest revamping their websites before they move forward.

With the sites reviewed on my calls, and with the sites I look at for other reasons, I notice many of the same mistakes. Here are 12 of the most common:

1) The site has no focus. A website should be designed with its primary purpose in mind. You should have ONE thing that you’d really like most visitors to your page to do. Almost everything on that page should lead the visitors toward deciding to take that primary action. Nothing on the page should distract them and “lead them off down other trails.”

Common primary actions that you’ll want your visitor to take are to join your list, buy your product, download a free trial version, or join an online community. Make sure that you know what you want your visitors to focus on and get rid of the other distractions. It’s been proven that if you give your visitors too many choices or confuse them, they will simply choose to leave!

2) The site has no email capture mechanism. Most honest copywriters will tell you that in most Internet marketing type niches, a 1-2% response rate to a sales letter is VERY respectable. You’ve worked very hard to get visitors to your site, and if you completely ignore the 98% who don’t buy you’re not going to be in business very long.

Incorporate a form into your website that gets them into an autoresponder so that you can follow-up with them. Offer them a free report, access to an MP3 on the topic, or access to an exclusive community. Get them to opt-in, and then you can follow-up with them on their topic of interest.

Your opt-in form can be set up “in-line” as a part of the webpage, and even take them back to the point on the webpage where they were reading before they stopped to opt-in. You can also have an exit popup, or pop-under, that offers them a freebie as they’re leaving your site. Once they’ve decided to leave, you’ll probably NEVER see them again unless you have a way to invite them back. An autoresponder is the perfect way to do this automatically.

3) The owner is “hiding behind the website.” Web surfers are skeptical and distrusting. You need to let them know that there is a real person behind the site. Give them contact information, show them your photo, and even let them hear you. You can easily add audio or video to your website, and allow it to “touch” your visitor on such a deeper level. When people hear your voice or see you talking and get to watch your body language, you communicate so much more effectively than just the written word.

To add audio to your website, all you need is a microphone plugged into your computer. To add video to your website, all you really need is a webcam plugged into your computer. There are services that will take this audio or video, allow you to edit it with a few clicks of your mouse, and then stream it from their servers or upload it to your server.

A totally amazing service that I use is called Audio Acrobat. I use it to have customers, subscribers, etc., call in and leave testimonials. I use it to record some teleseminars, interviews, product recommendations, and for dozens of other purposes. I do record video from my webcam to this service too. You can also upload video recorded on a regular video camera to this service, and then stream it from their website.

As I said, I LOVE Audio Acrobat. If you want to check it out, you can get a free 30-day trial from here: williec.audioacrobat.com It’s where I have dozens of testimonial lines, dozens of audios, and a few videos. It’s also how I save on my web hosting bandwidth

4) The owner of the site offers no credentials. The very first question I ask when reading a magazine article, watching a television show, or reading a webpage, is “What makes this person qualified to teach ME this topic.” Most web surfers don’t trust you and believe that most Internet sites are out to rip them off. You need to show them that your experience and training make you qualified to teach them the topic. In addition to formal credentials, a professional looking website also shows that you are a serious businessperson. Don’t skimp on your website’s design!

5) Not offering proof of statements. It’s natural for you to say how great you and your product are. That means nothing to potential customers. Get others to share how your product improved their lives. Use media interviews and statements by officials in professional organizations to provide third-party validation.

Testimonials with photos, audio, or video, are very powerful. Testimonials with just a set of initials, or with just a first name, have NO credibility.

6) Offering the wrong payment options. The majority of Internet users prefer to pay via credit card. If your product allows you to do it, and still make a satisfactory profit, consider taking orders through an answering service or call center, via fax, via snail mail, and through third party processors such as Paypal as well. Evaluate each of these options and decide which of these make sense for you.

As an aside, I once considered even offering my customers the option to order C.O.D. (cash on delivery). My local postmaster strongly suggested that I NOT do that and also pointed out that it’s almost never done these days. He convinced me that it was more trouble than it was worth

7) Using the wrong or too many fonts. When you use different sizes and colors of letters on your webpage you need to have a real reason. When you highlight or underline text on your webpage you need to have a logical reason.

As your site visitor reads your webpage, he will subconsciously ask himself why you emphasized a certain word or sentence on the page. If you had no logical reason, you pull him out of your message as his mind “wrestles with the why.”

You page should be structured such that a “skimmer” could just read the headlines and sub-headlines and get the message. He should be able to read just the highlighted text and get the gist of your webpage. He should be able to just go to the bottom of the page, read the “P.S.” where you’ve restated your offer, and order without being forced to read the rest of the page . . . if he’s in a hurry.

Using header graphics that distract from the message. Your header graphic should spell out or emphasize the main benefit of your product. It should be simple enough that the visitor is not forced to waste time trying to decipher its meaning.

Sometimes it’s better not to even have a header graphic. This is something you should test. You want to get your visitor reading the text on your page and discovering how your product can help him as soon as practical. This is what will sell him . . . not cute or fancy graphics.

9) Not focusing on benefits rather than features. Don’t tell your visitor how great the product is; tell him how it will improve his life. Your testimonials should also provide concrete, and very specific, examples of how it improved someone else’s life.

10) Focusing on “I” rather than “you”! Look at your webpage and make sure that it talks about the customer and his problem more than it talks about you, your company, and your products. Your customers don’t really care about you. They care about how you can help them! Read through your copy and make sure that it answers that question. Make sure that you’re not talking about yourself too much and that when you do talk about yourself, it’s answering the question of how you can help the reader.

11) Not emphasizing the guarantee. When a customer purchases with a credit card, or through certain third-party processors, the guarantee is implied anyway. So, why not make your guarantee a selling point? If a customer goes to Visa or MasterCard and states that they are unhappy with their purchase from you, they will get their money back in most cases… and you’ll pay an extra fee for the “chargeback.” If a customer goes to Clickbank or Paypal with a complaint, they will end up issuing a refund in many cases.

Make it easy on yourself by offering and honoring a guarantee. It will increase your conversion rate; and unless your product is total JUNK, it won’t increase your refund rate.

12) Not using a P.S. Many busy surfers will jump right to the end of your webpage and read the P.S.(s). If they were somewhat pre-sold before they arrived at your page, many will go ahead and purchase at that time. Use the P.S.(s) to restate your offer, emphasize the guarantee, showcase your bonuses, and to emphasize any scarcity factor in the offer.

The bottom line is that if your sales page is horrific, it’s pointless to drive traffic to the site. Fix the page before you do anything else, or you’re just wasting time and frustrating yourself.

A well-written webpage is so pivotal to the sales process that many professional copywriters will often rewrite bad sales letters. When they discover great products that they KNOW would sell if the products’ owners just had better copy, they will often rewrite bad sales letters, pre-sell the products, and then send the “ready-to-buy” customers directly to the order form.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, recognized the value in revamping bad sales letters so much that he went as far as to set up a membership site, offering members rewritten sales letters for Clickbank products in hot niches. You can check out what Dr. Mike has done and join his site, if he hasn’t already closed memberships, at: FixingTerribleWebpages.com Tell him that I sent you.

Fix the 12 common errors covered above, and your website will be more effective than 99% of direct sales websites out there. Don’t fix these mistakes and your sales won’t increase, but at-least now you will understand why.
Willie Crawford has taught thousands how to build successful online businesses since late-1996. His membership site contains over 40 interviews of leading online marketers sharing their views on “How To Break Into The Internet Marketing Inner Circle.” You can access those powerful and shocking interviews at: TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com

You May Also Enjoy:

6 Steps On How To Market Your Book Online
>> http://tinyurl.com/Book-Marketing-Video-One
>> http://tinyurl.com/Book-Marketing-Video-Two
>> http://tinyurl.com/Book-Marketing-Video-Three

or

The Importance of Proofreading

Here’s a resource even I haven’t been faithful
to, but this has all changed.

Comment | Copy This

http://www.OjectiveEye.net

Continue to make it happen!

Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson

P.S. Have you download the FREE 60 Minute Audio
Tutorial on Online Book Marketing? No!….

Just look to the right, take the quick survey and
then immediately you’ll have your free audio
helping you learn how to market your book
online….

Why Are Authors & Writers Failing Online?

This radio interview isn’t for the faint and light
hearted authors and writers!

Publisher and entrepreneur King Pen, interviews
C.F. Jackson an author and website makeover
trainer.

 

 

Topics of Discussion:

• How To Sell Fiction Online 
• How To Market Your Book Online
• Website Maketing Optimization Tips
• and more…

They discuss the mistakes authors and writers
make. Included are solutions to reach the next
level.

Continue to make this your day!

Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson

P.S. Download Your Free Website
Makeover 101 Session . . .

How Knowing “2″ Simple Things . . .
Can improve your website. . .
Create more readers . . . and more!

Jump over to . . .

>>>>

What Is MySpace Really?

MySpace isn’t and shouldn’t be your main
place to send your new reader and your
new customer…

Lenora Love interviews C.F. Jackson and
we unfold what MySpace.com really is and
how to sell books on the internet.

Just take few minutes and I’m sure you’ll discover
something new!

I wanted to offer to you this FREE AUDIO
on this Website Makeover Monday!

After doing this interview I was inspired to
write the article Why MySpace Is More Harmful
to Authors Than Good… It’s great article worth
reading.

Enjoy!

Continue to make dreams happen!

Won’t Be Denied,
C.F. Jackson

P.S. Download Your Free Website
Makeover 101 Session . . .

How knowing “2″ Simple Things . . .
Can improve your website. . .
Create more readers . . . and more!

Jump over to . . .

>>>> Download is now on the Writers
Resource Page

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