New Writers:
‘Marketing’ and ‘promotion’ are two different terms that mean two different things. It’s easy to get them mixed up and many people use them interchangeably, but there are some key points about them both that you might like to know.
‘Marketing’ is a broad term that includes various aspects of selling anything. Marketing encompasses your branding as an author, your branding for the book, the cover you create / buy, the tone of your subscriber emails, where and how you advertise your book, and more.
Promotion is just promotion. That is simply getting your book in front of people who may be interested in buying it and / or be interested in following you as an author. Promotion is advertising.
Sometimes, while you’re shopping around for services, you may notice that professional marketing firms have much higher price tags for their services than someone who is focused on promotion. This is often because a marketing agency is going to help you with the complete array of marketing concerns, not just promotion. Marketing professionals will often want to read your entire book or a detailed outline in order to get a more intimate understanding of the content so that they can help you revise things like display advertising campaigns, the book’s cover, or the details on your landing page.
People and companies who promote or advertise a book (TikTok influencers, reader website managers, niche genre bloggers, etc.) are sharing it with their audience because they believe they have people among their followers who would like your book. For example, if an author purchases a promotion for a romance novel, I will share that with my company’s romance readers, but not the people who mostly / only read science fiction, memoirs, mysteries, etc. If an author purchases a promotion for a book on becoming a better entrepreneur, I’d share that with our self-help readers, but not our children’s book lovers or our poetry lovers.
I’ve seen many writers be impressed by a large number that a promoter or an influencer has thrown at them and end up disappointed. I encourage you to pay more attention to (asking questions to get this information, as needed) the QUALITY of the subscriber list or the social media followers.
AN ULTRA SIMPLISTIC EXAMPLE
Sherry’s Strange Promo List
► Total subscribers: 500,000
► Subscribers who read books: 100,000 (about 20% of people in the US read recreationally)
► Lovers of your specific genre on this list: 19,000 (based on most popular genre percentages of the market)
► Active users in your genre (people who regularly open Sherry’s emails): 3,800 (based on an average open rate of broad email campaigns)
► Users likely to click on the promo when they see it: 570 (based on an average CTR for broad email campaigns)
► Users likely to convert to buyers once they hit your sales page: 29 (based on an average conversion rate of broad email campaigns)
► Result: 29 sales based on promotion to 500,000 people. Less than half of 1% of the list bought your book.
Gene’s Genre-Specific Book Promo List
► Total subscribers: 150,000
► Subscribers who read books: 150,000 (because the list is specific to readers and uses a double opt-in feature)
► Lovers of your specific genre on this list: 150,000 (because the list is dedicated to readers of your specific genre)
► Active users in your genre (people who regularly open Gene’s emails): 68,400 (segmented lists get an average of about 14% higher open rates than broad lists)
► Users likely to click on the promo when they see it: 20,520 (segmented lists get nearly double the CTR of broad lists)
► Users likely to convert to buyers once they hit your sales page: 7,182
► Result: 7,182 sales based on promotion to 150,000 people. Nearly 5% of the list bought your book.
It might be tempting to take Sherry’s offer at first blush because her list is numerically longer. But that doesn’t guarantee she can give you the results you’re looking for. As a matter of fact, in an example like this, her list may only be so long precisely because she gets people on her list for random reasons. The recruiting of subscribers isn’t focused on building a group of book lovers, and definitely not readers in a specific niche.
Gene’s list is about 60% smaller than Sherry’s, but it packs more punch because each person on the list is literally about 10 times more likely to buy your work.
When considering a promotion service, be sure to ask about the size of the list and where the person / company gets their subscribers from. Ask to see a sample of the subscriber page. Ask about their open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. These are the kinds of things it’s helpful to know so that you can make an informed decision about your advertising.
Happy selling! ♥♥♥
