communication

Why does social media marketing suck and what can you do about it?

Interesting Article at the Kansas City Examiner titled Social Media Marketing Sucks… If You Do It Wrong by Dustin Riedisel

My comments:

Social media are a special type of communication technology and they too, like all other communication technologies (email fax, street mail and even Tweets), have special requirements.

The goal is to have a meaningful communication with a real person on the receiving end. The message is what matters. The real value to the recipient is what matters. You can’t use any communication technology to trigger or motivate action without figuring out the magic words first.

This in fact, is what I call, the miracle of the microcosm, since in this nation of 300 million technology and media indoctrinated people, you can learn what it takes to turn people on anywhere. This is what expert PR and marketing copywriters are really for.

And once you do figure out what you can say that turns people on (no matter where you are) then and only then can you use technology as a force multiplier, to generate the actions you want people to take, wherever they are.

Read more on social media marketing ROI here http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-marketing/

I’m a copywriter and a publicist and an author so I guess I do make a living writing. I’m happy to share with you what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.

I wrote my first news release in 1977. I went online with my first website in 1993. I’ve built up my copy writing and publicity services company at home and online over the past 15 years.

You can read the story about how I created my business in the book “Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul” published by Health Communications in November 2006. It’s titled `Ripples’. Fun story.
If you want to see it click here Ripples

The marketing I do is pretty nominal but it is consistent, and I take baby steps to keep it going nearly every day.

I’m of the belief that if people and companies have employees doing work that you can do and have more work that you can do than they have employees available to do that work, then getting paid is easy.

Can you do it?

Yes you can!

You just need to present them with a very desirable alternative turnkey to hiring you as an employee. Make it attractive and make it easy and it’s a done deal.

I’ve found that if they have employees doing something, then outsourcing to you is often a very attractive option. You can normally charge four to six times the hourly rate of pay that they pay full time employees to do exactly the same work, but without them having to carry the overhead that they have to carry for an employee. So if top technical or professional employees are making $50 an hour, then you can charge $200 an hour. Most companies will not bat an eye at these rates these days. You can run the numbers and see, at these rates, it’s not hard to bill over $100,000 a year and do it part-time from home. The Internet and email can be a wonderful place.

So no matter what the employees or you do, you can create a short menu of options and fees that break both the services you will provides (just like an employee performs, or the deliverables they create), and format this into a short list of the fee based time or product deliverables that you can perform or deliver on demand or by schedule.

So instead of a resume, create a one page brochure that says “menu of options”. Then itemize options so people can hire you in bite size chunks of payable time or for products or services by known typical units of performance (by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the page, by the document, or whatever).

This menu allows you and the client to select what you do and price it in advance, and build this into a one page contract or an email or even a phone call.

I’ve found that the best marketing tactics that work in this business are ones that allow you to leverage professional branding with your target audience. You should not waste time, effort and money unless it brings a professional branding message in front of someone who will potentially be amenable to doing business with you.

So I recommend you experiment, test and most importantly and track and analyze what you do, to identify how you are getting clients and where the biggest income streams come from. Then apply the basic rules of systematic continuous improvement to what you are doing. Simply put, if it works, do more of it, and if it doesn’t stop and do something else.

You can use my business as an example. To this day, I get most of my new business by:

* meeting people at conferences at which I exhibit, and giving short but personal consults on the fly, and once I hear what they are all about giving them recommendations that help them a little and indicate what they can get by involving me more.

* writing and publishing articles (problem solving tips articles) in magazines, to demonstrate skills, expertise, ability, knowledge and wisdom, and create desire once they realize they want more of what I can offer.

* posting articles and responding to posted questions in newsgroups and on discussion lists, to do the same.

* adding more free articles and free downloads to an extensive highly educational and focused website, to educate and motivate people to do more themselves, or hire me if they can’t do it themselves.

* adding more success stories and testimonials to my portfolio, to again demonstrate and affirm.

* sending really value added email introductions to prospects, to supply them with a plan of action that leads them to hire me.

* doing 30 minute consultations by phone, learning what clients need and delivering strategic advice and one page action plan proposals by email.

* answering prospect questions as though I was already working for them.

* carefully cultivating word of mouth off prior exceptional performance.

* speaking engagements, giving workshops and training sessions for free and for fee, but only to the right targeted company or audience.

* meeting people for lunch and listening to their project needs or dreams.

* sending them one page email proposals.

* building off referrals, and speaking engagements, and seeking to leverage host beneficiary relationships.

This last one is perhaps the most crucial. As you satisfy clients, of course, you can get repeat business. If you do work for a headquarters or a home office of a company with lots of offices all over the country, your host contact can lead you directly to many other prospects. You then get to pitch them all or better still, the headquarters contact shares you and everyone in that business network then contacts you. This situation can be phenomenally beneficial. Lucrative in fact. Same thing can happen with speaking engagements at associations. The local speech or workshop travels up to the headquarters.

Once every few years I create an innovative post card and do a mailing. My most recent mailer was a one pager back-to-back. If you want to see my most recent one, send me an email message request and I’ll send you the pdf file. I was using US Mail for mailings until two years ago. Now we participate in coop mailings and use email.

Nowadays I also use a show off business card. It has a picture of me fishing. It’s a memorable experience to look at and to hold. It brands me as a distinctive writer.

I use email, short letters and one page business proposals extensively to close deals by email and phone. In fact, I have a rule which basically says that you never have a conversation with a prospect without making a customized personal proposal. It works very well.

I actually don’t need or use formal contracts at all. I just take credit cards and bill them at the time of performance. I take very few checks and only in advance if the client insists upon paying that way. Client satisfaction with this arrangement is nearly 100 percent for many years now.

I spend NO money on advertising at all and do not care about search engine placement or ad words. Clients who call me have either heard about me or find me online through research or referral. They basically have decided to hire me before they call me so I actually do very little selling.

I’ve actually found that in my business, the people who search using search engines aren’t the clients I seek to work with. Most of them don’t have the products or businesses that I enjoy and can be successful with. The people who find my site online rarely are quality clients. So search engine ranking and placement mean very little to me. I can be found very quickly if people search for me nonetheless. In fact, search on my name and you’ll see thousands of links going back 15 years.

I’ve also found that the decision to hire is based on people having convinced themselves that you offer needed value that can be acquired no where else at the costs that you present. What you need to do is just learn how to make the product or service you give remarkable and personal, unique, and phenomenally effective. You also need to learn how to communicate this to them quickly.

Do that and your business will grow consistently with everything you do. The key to enjoying yourself along the way is to simply focus on helping the people you can help the most. You also need to know when to say no to a project that is problematic and where you know won’t be able to satisfy yourself or the client. The rule should be `no unhappy clients’.

I learned this business model by studying a variety of other consultants and copywriters. This model is actually very easy to operate and fairly low cost. I incorporated a few years ago as a full C Corp to take advantage of the tax structure since the business bills over six figures a year. I pay myself a salary. I also just use QuickBooks Pro to do the day to day bookkeeping myself but do hire a professional accountant to do the taxes each year. I use the merchant credit card services offered with Quicken and it does the bookkeeping entries as it processes the credit card authorizations.

The skills I acquired to conduct my business the way I do is mostly out of books. I am a voracious reader. This is in addition to reading or skimming all the client books that come to me (Fed Ex and UPS stop here nearly every day Monday through Friday). I read at the health club, I read during the day and at night, and in front of the TV. I basically am reading (or searching and surfing the Internet) if I am not writing or on the phone.

My house is totally wireless and there are two computers on plus two laptops available for use by me and the rest of the family at all times.

I can even take my cell phone and my wireless laptop in my boat and take client calls and work while fishing along the Columbia River because of the many hot spots and homes with unsecured wireless routers along the river. It’s amazing! The technology really is wonderful these days. That makes for some very pleasant days working (yes really working) while catching salmon, steelhead and walleye! If you’ve ever called me during the day you may hear me tell you that if I get a fish on I’ll have to get off really quick, but I’ll call you back! OK, enough bragging.

I just looked over my library and I highly recommend you basically commit to reading most every business, sales and marketing book published and get whatever you can out of each and every one of them. I still probably spend $100 to $200 a month on books in this area and have for years. My wife says it takes more to keep me well read than it does to keep me well fed. I have a 25 year collection and I still refer back to them constantly.

My favorite book authors and the books I can point you to for the best answers to this question the most are:

* Harry Beckwith (everything he writes is golden including: Selling the Invisible, What Clients Love, The Invisible Touch, and his new one, You, Inc.)

* Bob Bly (again, anything he writes is worth owning. The Copywriter’s Handbook, Secrets of a Freelance Writer, How to Promote Your Own Business, and Write More, Sell More, which is still one of the best books ever written on running a writing business).

* Ralph G. Riley (The One Page Business Proposal is perhaps one of the most important books you’ll ever find. It has made me tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars).

* Dan Kennedy (The Ultimate and No B.S. series)

* Seth Godin (Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside, and Unleashing the Idea Virus)

* Mark Stephens (Your Marketing Sucks)

* Jay Abraham (Getting Everything You Can Out of All You Got)

* Dr. Jeffrey Lant (this dates me! No More Cold Calls, Cash Copy, The Unabashed Self-Promoter’s Guide, and Money Making Marketing. Good luck finding these but if you do, consider yourself lucky)

* Jeffrey Fox (How to Become a Rainmaker and How to Become a Marketing Superstar).

If you need attitude adjustment to get into the right frame of mind for running a business, then I highly recommend:

* Jack Canfield (The Success Principles)

* Napoleon Hill (Law of Success)

* Steven Scott (Mentored by a Millionaire)

* Brian Tracy (Maximum Achievement and many others)

* Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul (Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Bud Gardner)

The real trick to reading is that you have to create a written plan with the ideas that come to you.

Reading and not writing simply isn’t productive. Writing a plan of action turns the idea into something tangible. You must add in the tasks and place dates and performance measures so that you know that you have completed the task.

Knowledge is valuable but to turn a fantasy into reality you must take action and try, try, try till you actually succeed.

You need to create two independent processes:

The first is the process for creating quality work (writing) that you can get paid for.

The second is the sales process that you use to get customers and get money.

Once you create these success processes for yourself then you apply technology to get more of each done in less time, with less effort and expense.

In fact, if you do both of these enough, it all becomes second nature, much like riding a bicycle or a car.

At some point, it can even get boring. To avoid losing faith and being unhappy, you have to find your happiness in delivering whatever happiness and help you can to others.

And that is my belief in what life is all about. .It’s my definition of success:

You achieve happiness and success when you help the people you can help the most and get rich at the same time.

The bottom line is that I believe that the opportunities to be a well paid writer right now are simply phenomenal. You can specialize and focus on any one or more of hundreds of markets. The country is huge. There are 300 million people in the US. There are 30,000 towns. There are simply millions of companies all of whom can be helped again and again.

Don’t be shy. This isn’t that hard to do and you’ve got the skills. Focus and go for it.

BTW, here’s the link for the pdf file containing the story `Ripples’ from Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul, or if you want the latest flyer I used in my mailings, just send me an email request. I’ll send you the pdf files.

Hope this helps. Questions welcome!

Paul J. Krupin – Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
Paul@DirectContactPR.com

A question was presented to me today:

>> If CNN does decide to interview me, or if I’m scheduled for an interview on
>> any of the other cable news networks I’ve approached, I’m going to want the whole world to watch and learn about my concept.

>> I need to hire someone who knows how to use the Internet to make that happen.

Actually, I don’t think you need to hire anyone. I can’t imagine lots of people being motivated by a message that says ‘watch me on CNN!’ Think about it. You might send out an email to friends, colleagues and your mother, but most media won’t tell their audience to go watch you on another channel or network.

What I think you really need to do is refine your idea until it flies by itself when you present it to anyone and to everyone.

You’ll know you’ve got what it takes when it happens repeatedly and reliably and a level that produces a sustainable yield.

I call this the miracle of the microcosm. If you create something good and can communicate it so that people want it in your little neck of the woods, then when you go on CNN and say the same thing, it will have the same effect on millions of people.

But if what you created isn’t all that great, and what you said to people to get them interested wasn’t all that persuasive or galvanizing, then it won’t matter at all what you say even if you are on CNN.

You can develop your ‘mar-com’, script, or that magic sequence of communications yourself right in your back yard. You create the interview script that goes A-B-C-D-E and produces action XYZ.

This works because we are a nation of people who have been raised to respond to media communications the same way. We laugh at the same jokes and cry at the same sad stories, we cringe at the same pictures of tragedy and disaster and squeal with delight and water at the mouth when promised something sweet to eat.

Here is an article which describes a method for developing your own galvanizing communications sequence and testing it till you know it works.

The Magic of Business
http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=105

Here’s a link to another article I wrote with tips and ideas on:

How to Be Galvanizing- 22 ways to be galvanizing and interesting to media, prospects and customers
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/getting-more-publicity-getting-more-sales-how-to-be-galvanizing

To me and based on my experience with my own books, databases, inventions and clients, perhaps the most powerful thing you can do is make your presentation in the form of a helpful problem solving article or interview. Being helpful is the most important thing you can do to get people interested in what you have to offer. What you offer has to be truly remarkable and useful.

So here’s one more set of ideas for you all about:

Publicizing and Promoting by helping the People You can help the Most
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/publicizing-and-promoting-by-helping-people-the-people-you-can-help-the-most

If you do create a script that produces reliable action when you present it to people, of course, then it’s time to incorporate it into news releases and other business proposals and send it out to media and companies and organizations everywhere, so you can use the power of the media as a force multiplier.

I’ll be happy to see that ‘mar-com’ once you’ve created and feel like it’s ready to be pitched.

This is one of my most popular articles turned into a Powerpoint presentation and an ebook pdf file.

Free Powerpoint Presentation here:

Why News Releases Fail Powerpoint Presentation“

Free ebook pdf file here:

Why News Releases Fail ebook pdf file

It’s perhaps the most common question I hear after a client walks in the front door. I wrote a book, now what do i do?

I reviewed many years of doing PR and marketing for thousands of clients and from experience, it appears that it all comes down to …

HELPING THE PEOPLE YOU CAN HELP THE MOST

What is the most effective communication that you can put in front of people that will get them interested in what you have to offer? What type of message will attract more of the right type of people to you and will create the best and lasting impression? How can you maximize your sales with the lowest possible budget?

There are several types of news releases or marketing communications that you can choose to use to get peoples’ attention and interest. Sure, you can create a product announcement, a book review or a personal story about your quest to create a book or a product. But these types of messages tend to produce a relatively low impact on how much coverage you get and how many products or services you sell. That’s because it’s all about you and you fail to really give the media what they want the most.

The best media coverage results when you offer something of value that appeals to lots of people in the audience at a deep personal level.

By far, the highest impact media coverage and sales comes from value-packed problem solving messages placed before needy people in a dramatic way.

What this means is that you if you want publicity and sales you need to craft your messages and couple them with actions so that you help the people you can help the most.

With authors and publishers this usually means that you create and use a problem solving tips article approach which identifies a crucial problem and offers your best advice on how to solve or alleviate that problem.

Then when people read or see this type of message, they experience hope and desire for these benefits, and they contact you and purchase the book, product or service that you offer.

There are three key questions you need to answer to use this technique successfully.

• What can you do to help people?
• Who are the people you can help?
• How can you reach them to let them and others know you can help them?

This technique is very powerful. Helping people in need gets attention. It brands you as a helpful person. It motivates people to find out more about you. Depending on the value of your help, it even creates a sense of obligation that triggers a reciprocal response. Of course, the beneficial impacts this has on your relationships with your prospects and customers dramatically reduces the barriers to sales. It can also be so powerful that people realize that to get as much of you as they really need, they need to hire you or buy what you offer.

With non-fiction books, products and expert professional services this technique the help you offer is based on the topic in which you are most expert. The people you focus on are those who need your expertise the most.

Even if you are a fiction author, you focus those people who are most interested in your type of work and you choose to be helpful, entertaining, inspiring and galvanizing so that they get interested in you and what you have to offer.

What is Help? To help means to give support or assistance that solves a problem or improves a situation in some tangible way. To help means to give a remedy or provide relief to someone or do something for someone else that enables them to achieve something they want, need or desire.

Help can be a noun. You can give people something tangible or intangible that they do not have enough of.

Help can be a verb. You can do something for people that they cannot do by themselves.

To offer help you must identify a problem or issue that people are experiencing. You can identify the barriers or challenges people face. A barrier to progress is an opportunity for problem solving.

Then you must identify what they must do to address or overcome that barrier. You have to look inside yourself and find knowledge and experience that you are particularly qualified to present in a fashion that people will trust with confidence.

You then organize these actions or ideas into a presentation and deliver them to the people you are trying to help so that they can receive the support or the assistance and can act on your advice to receive and experience the benefits you offer.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP PEOPLE?

Step one is to identify what you can do to help people.

There are lots of ways you can people. Think about what you do best. Think about what you created. Think about how you have learned to make a difference to people in their lives. Decide to focus and harness your energies to help people. Think about the biggest problems people in your target group face. Identify what you can do to help them.

Look over this list of possible ways to help people. Then come up with your best ideas.

Physically

Go to them
Go with them
Be with them
Lift them up
Pick them up
Transport them
Shelter them
Protect them
Bring whoever they need to them
Bring whatever they need to them
Bring them wherever they need to go

Mentally

Guide people to better choices
Consult, give advice, provide counsel, listen and console
Teach people how to do something better
Explain how to do something important
Explain how to do something better
Tell people exactly how to build, create, develop, find, or achieve something
Tell people how to avoid disaster, pain, anguish, or negative experiences
Provide interpretation to help people achieve greater understanding
Simplify and explain a complex poorly understood issue, topic or mystery
Tell stories to demonstrate a concept
Provide information to fill in a lack of knowledge

Materially

Give people what they need or want
Give money, food, shelter, materials, water, staple items, essential sundries, tools,
Provide tangible aid, support and resources where too few are available
Provide personal or technical expertise
Volunteer time, expertise, services
Send manpower — people to provide capability
Canvass a neighborhood asking for material supplies for the needy
Collect and store material supplies for the needy.
Deliver supplies to the needy.

Socially

Introducing someone to others who can help them
Giving referrals to others who can help someone
Communicate with others on behalf of someone
Get other involved or engaged in helping someone
Raise awareness of a need or situation
Enlist others to devote energy to needy people
Lead or manage an effort to get an organization to focus their resources and effort on a problem

Financially

Give money – donate funds
Give time to help raise money
Tell people about someone else’s financial needs
Create a fund for someone
Conduct or support a fundraiser for someone
Ask others to give money
Get visible in public raising money
Call people by phone to raise money
Write people by letter and email to raise money
Go see people and ask them for money and support
Get other involved, motivated, and committed to give or raise money.

No doubt there are lots of other ways to help people. Use this list as a checklist to identify the things that you can do.

There are things that fall in the category of ACTIONS.

There are things that fall in the category of IDEAS, ADVICE, OR GUIDANCE.

Most authors will tend to focus on the advice and guidance elements. But some of the best publicity that creative people can get couple advice with real social action and when thy go out into the community to find and help the people who need their help the most. Action attracts people. People in motion doing things gets attention.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOU CAN HELP?

Step two is to identify the people who you can help the most.

Look at your customers. Consider that each one is representative of other people with similar interests and problems.

This is the miracle of the microcosm. It is the most powerful tool for creating a targeted marketing plan there is.

When you solve the problems of one, you have a solution that you can now offer and deliver to for many others with the same problem.

So no matter where you are, you can develop a process for helping someone and achieving a sale. Then you can target these people and re-play the messages that resulted in you being able to satisfy your original customer.

So look at your customers carefully. Identify their:

Age
Sex
Personal characteristics
Social characteristics
Employment characteristics
Religious characteristics
Physical characteristics
Education
Professional credentials
Professional affiliations
Hobbies
etc.

Do this for each of your customers. Make a list of these factors. Identify the common characteristics of your customers.

Do this systematically for each type of customer you have.

Now this is very important – now identify how many customers fall into each factor and what they spend or are worth to you.

Now put them into a tentative priority list from most value to the least value.

HOW CAN YOU REACH THEM TO LET THEM AND OTHERS KNOW YOU CAN HELP THEM?

Step three requires you identify how you can effectively reach the people who you can help the most.

So where do you find more of the people you can help the most?

For each one of the demographic characteristics you identified, think of where you will find more people just like your customer. Now you need to identify where you can help them and how you can communicate effectively with them.

You can communicate with people by taking action, by writing, by or by speaking, either in person or from a distance.

Where can YOU do this readily and comfortably? What exactly do you need to propose and get people to agree to?

You can communicate with them using directly in person, by phone or by email and the Internet.

You can also use media to communicate with them. To target media you ask the question: What do my customers read, watch or listen to, particularly when looking for the type of help that I’m offering? The targeted list of newspapers, magazines, radio, tv, news services, syndicates and Internet media that results is a structured set of people that you want to contact to see if they will help you reach your target audience.

You can also identifying the key places where you will find more people of like mind:

Groups
Associations
Clubs
Institutions
Foundations
Support Groups

Search to find ways to reach out and touch more people just like your customer. Use the communication technologies that these people are accustomed to using to communicate with their friends and peers.

You can use the list brokers and also search the Internet and make use of online subject directories and databases.

This can be done nationally, regionally or this can be done locally town by town.

If you use search engines in particular you can target the places where you find similar groups of people with similar interests or needs. Use a plus these plus a to zero in on web sites in specific geographic areas like this:

Then you create and present the right type of pitch to offer your help to them.

If it is direct aid you offer, you say, “Can I come over and help you?”

If it is an speaking event, you say “Can I talk to your group?”

If it is an article, you say, “Will you publish this helpful information?”

If it is an interview, you say “Will you let me share these ideas on the air?”

And so on. You craft your offer to help to match the situation and your capabilities. You also craft your messages to convey the appropriate ideas and actions.

Do it. Get out there and help the people you can help the most.

1. you know how you can help
2. you know who you can help
3. you know where they are located
4. you know how they communicate with each other
5. now take action to help them and communicate with them

Helping people is a natural attraction to media. It is very easy to get media to pay attention to a community involvement event.

If you schedule an event to help people let your local target media know what you are doing.

Write up a problem solving tips article that presents your support or assistance or describes what you do or did to help people. Let the media know when and where the event will happen.

Target similar people with similar problem solving actions and advice.

Create a value-packed problem solving action, package or article. Target the right media and ask them to share your message so that you help people. Target the organizations and support groups that your target audience belongs to and ask them to share your message so that you help people.

Use your value packed problem solving abilities, stories, and content in a variety of ways:

News releases for articles
News releases for interviews
Email
Business proposals
Phone conversations
Street mail
Brochures
Pamphlets
White papers
Audio
Videos
Live, taped, telephone or web presentations, speaking events, workshops or seminars

You can also tailor this same content and use it for

Search engines for key word discovery
Web page content
Blog posts and tours
Ezines and newsletters
Mailing Lists and discussion groups
Forums and Article Posts
Social media

Adapt your problem solving stories and tips articles so that your best most helpful actions and guidance are also incorporated into your marketing communications.

Leverage your core content and make use of the diverse technologies and places where you find the people that you can help the most.

Here is my November 21, 2008 response to a post to the online discussion group Small-Pub Civil at Yahoo groups:

>>Hello, everyone! One of my authors has written a 250+ page book about his open-heart surgery. The bulk of it is autobiographical, including childhood memories, interviews with
everyone from the surgeon down to the cleaning staff and an entire chapter of get-well emails from his friends (he has their permission, BTW). Since he produces and hosts a long-
running regional TV show with a reasonably-sized fan base and is promoting the hell out of the book, I am confident he will sell a few thousand copies. But he’s expecting big-time
national success, including being stocked in the chains and selling on QVC. He is seriously counting on coverage in the NYT.

>> When I try to point out that this is unlikely he accuses me of negativism. Am I just being negative?

———————————

I encounter this with authors all the time. It goes with the territory. It could be a truly remarkable memoir. It might contain experiences that can make people smile, cry and laugh as they read. But then again, he may not yet have gotten any meaningful feedback from people, or the feedback he has received may be designed to make him feel good and congratulate him on his effort and accomplishment with having written a book.

I wrote an article to try to get people to grasp the significance of their dream and what it means to them if they really want to see other people appreciate their writing, especially if they really intend to now use that writing to achieve fame and financial success.

I work with hundreds of authors and publishing companies each year and really and truly, very few of them have really created a book that it good enough to achieve fame, glory and financial success for the author. Most are labors of love. There’s a sizable financial investment and personal emotional investment that’s required to go from “author” to “best selling author” and few really have what it takes to make it through the gauntlet of the marketplace.

What I recommend people do is go slow. Show and tell one on one. It’s possible to learn how to sell. That’s the miracle of the microcosm. If you learn what you need to say to people in your little neck of the woods, chances are you can then say the same thing anywhere and everywhere you go and you’ll be equally successful selling your products wherever you go.

But you need to learn those magic words first.

You have to write to sell, and the job of writing isn’t done until the book sells. This is where most self-publishers go astray. They publish their book without verifying it was really ready for market.

You have to test your ideas and test your product and test your mar-com (marketing communications) on real live people. You need to identify your end users and the people who will buy the book for your users. Then you need to learn what to say to get these people to take the action you want.

Write to sell and test, test, test. Do this in small doses till you get the right buy signals. Reliably. Not just once or twice, but repeatedly and reliably.

Do 25 to 50 POD versions and test it with these important people.

You’ll know by their behavior and response whether you are really ready to publish the book.

If you can’t get people to even look at it, then you’re not done.

If they look at it and put it down, then you still have work to do.

If people look at it and grab it, you might be done. It depends what happens when they then pick it up and peruse it. If they put it down, then you’re not done.

You may have to redesign and re-write it till you know you are done. You have to work with your prospective audience to get real feedback, and you must listen to what people say and address the issues you receive.

This may take a lot of reiterations.

But one thing is for certain, there is a point that you will reach when you know that you are done. It’s a wonderful thing when you get to this point and know it.

Here’s what I’ve observed and experienced.

You know when you are done…

When people look at it, grab it, look at it again, look up to see where the cashier is, and then head to the cashier.

You show your book someone and they hold it close and won’t give it back freely.

You show them the book and they reach for their wallet.

They pick up one book, look at it, and grab four or five of them and head to the cashier.

One person picks up the book, grabs it and heads to find and show his or her friend the book, and they both grab one for themselves and buy it.

You know that you have something when kids pull it off the shelf and haul it over to their mothers and fathers with a look of desire and wanting and excitement in their eyes that says please????!!!!

I call this the hoarding syndrome. What you are witnessing I call a clutching response. It occurs when people touch something and decide that they want it.

This behavior in people clearly indicates to you that the book or object they are holding has such inherent value and importance that they are willing to pay for it. They know it and you know it instantly. They clutch the object of their desire in their hot sweaty hands and pull it in close to their body as if to possess it and protect it.

I know you’ve seen this and even experienced it yourself. You see it in stores and shopping centers all the time. I see it when my wife and teenage daughters shop. I know from their behavior when I’m toast. There is no arguing with them once they’ve experienced certain hormonal reactions to objects that they’ve been in close physical contact with. That’s they way we humans respond to certain material experiences.

Other people here have no doubt experienced this in a variety of ways. It would be very cool to hear from people about when they knew that they were done.

I work with a lot of authors and publishers, and I see success a lot less frequently that I wish I would see. I attribute this to people rushing through to publishing their books without making sure they have created a product that people will actually buy.

So this is my bottom line advice:

Write to sell. Don’t stop writing and re-writing till you know it sells, and sells easily and continuously.

Prove it with small test POD numbers. Use the technology that is available to all of us wisely. Then move it up through the publishing and promotion chain level by level.

In most cases, the author thinks the book should excite and grab people. But it doesn’t always happen that way.

So to me, they still have work to do. But they can’t speculate about what’s wrong, they need real data.

This is what I tell people to do – get the data. Figure out what you need to say and do to produce action that will satisfy your stated goals and objectives:

Go ask your candidate customers. Ask until you are blue in the face and get the hard difficult data and feedback you need to redesign and redo your project.

I had a recent publisher come to me with a book which presented his ideas on how to have a successful marriage by using a marriage contract.

Myself, I’m a former attorney and I would not pick up a book that had a marriage contract in it.

Do people want to run their marriage off of a contract? Like it’s a job or a construction project? Do they want to reduce communications and relationships to policies, procedures and stipulated provisions?

When we looked at our marriage vows, my wife said “strike the obey” and I said “and add in this here dispute resolution clause”.

And that’s what the minister did, and we still live by those words.

And that was the oral vows.

Put it in writing? Something doesn’t fit in the picture. Like ‘what’s love got to do with it?’

This is the type of process most people go through when they contemplate buying a book.

Do I want to get married to this person and his or her ideas? Even if I can get divorced from them later?

You are not done until people fall in love with your creation. You’ll know it only when it happens.

I agree that marketing poetry can be an expensive and endeavor with low return on investment. That said, I see a lot of my poet clients embarking on personal branding campaigns that eventually produce significant fruit.

In fact, as a publicist I see the same problem occurring with all sorts of self published as well as mainstream published books.

I believe that it can be done. It is not hopeless. It is challenging and it does take skill, excellence, and devotion.

So here’s some ideas and a strategy about how to create an online presence that generates interest, and ultimately sales. Many of my clients do this as they work with me on the publicity. In fact, when this online strategy is coupled with targeted publicity, and judicious integrated marketing offline, the best results are always forthcoming.

Here’s my recommendations on what to do online.

You have to be willing to post some of your best poetry (or content no matter what you write or create) so that people see what you write, and enjoy it so much that they get interested in buying everything you have for sale.

This is the formula for professional branding that I also advocate with problem solving tips articles, humor, music and other creative works.

Offer a little of your very, very best work. Shine. Sparkle. Dazzle people. Amaze people. Make them sweat, make them cry, make them laugh.

But whatever you do, do it very quickly. You only have between 10 to 20 seconds to hook them and no more than 3 minutes to convince them totally.

It’s like people get to see the tip of the iceberg and it’s so good and intriguing, they develop a desire for more.

It’s like finding a diamond in the rough, or seeing a glint in the dirt and grabbing it and finding out it’s a gemstone.

The key is to post something so good and timely to the right needy people that you really trigger their interest.

The copy you select is crucial. One warning – don’t sell. Help or entertain or educate the people you can help, entertain or educate the most.

You have to engage them meaningfully and that is the only way this technique will work.

This means you have to select a truly remarkable piece of your writing and then you have to carefully select where you get it placed.

If you haven’t read my article on how to create these magic words, then you might want to read The Magic of Business sometime. Here’s a link to it: http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=105

Once you have some proven magic words, then you have to be strategic about where you place these little nuggets.

You can do this online using search engine tools. But you can’t just post them anywhere. You have to find the right places and opportunities.

What you need to do is think about targeting. What do people read, watch and listen to when they are in the right mood and are receptive to a suggestion?

I do this with prime media when we target media for news releases. We go through this same process only we target newspapers, magazines and trade press, news services and syndicates, radio and TV stations and shows, freelance writers, and the Internet media counterparts to all the above.

You do the same thing online with the different types of online publishing and search technologies that are available. Of course, you have to find them first.

This requires you to study, strategize and decide what to write and who to target very carefully.

I’ll illustrate with one simple example. Let’s say you write a poem about overcoming the challenges associated with breast cancer.

If you write a poem for breast cancer patients, then in front of breast cancer patients is where you want to be.

So think about your most important key words and select one:

For this example (I’m sending this to my breast cancer author clients of course), I’ll use the key words: breast cancer support.

You have to make use of the specialized search engines. So look for specialized search engines that will bring you to the right web sites and other online technologies and groups. What you are looking to make use of is:

Regular search engines: Web sites where cancer patients and their support networks hang out.

Photo search engines; the best photo sites about breast cancer

Audio search engines: the best audio sites about breast cancer

Video search engines: the best video sites about breast cancer

Blog search engines: Bloggers who write on breast cancer

Forum search engines: Forums that focus on and talk about breast cancer

Newsletter and ezine search engines: Health / cancer news letters and ezines about breast cancer

Association search engines: cancer and health associations about breast cancer

Podcast search engines: podcasts about dealing with breast cancer

Social networking search engines: sites from breast cancer

Yes there are specialized search engines that focus on just these technologies and you can access them and use them if you learn how.

Not every site you discover will meet your needs in terms of quality and visibility, but you can identify the ones that are significant and valuable to you.

For each valuable site you discover, you take a one to one approach, study it carefully, find the contact in-road or access point to the owner or editors, and craft a pitch designed to offer your content for publication or use the way they are accustomed to publishing it.

If you embark on a plan that allows you to hit five per day, then at the end of thirty days you’ll have contacted 150 online media. If even half these take you up on your pitch, then you’ll be on 75 sites.

And if you maintain that for a year, then you’ll be on 900 hand selected relevant sites by the end of the year.

That’s just for one key word: breast cancer support.

Now do some key word rotation switch to breast cancer information, help, guidance, counseling, mentoring, and so on.

When you have a key word NOUN, couple it with keyword VERBS or ACTIONS. I call this the SOAP method, where S = subject words O = Object words A = action words and P = process words

Create powerful keyword combinations by using SOAP.

For each subject word think of the synonyms and related key words.

Now create a key word chart and launch your search for the right web sites.

Then you systematically rotate words one at a time.

You can even do this geographically using the same key words and Google maps.

Go to Google maps and enter the words breast cancer support plus a location like “breast cancer support Atlanta, GA”

The map that results yields businesses, names, addresses, phone numbers and even web sites.

Now rotate to a new location and search again.

Now you may ask where to you find all the specialized search engines.

I have a patent on a search engine tool which I’ve made available for many months now that’s free. It’s still there for you to use:

Search Word Pro

http://www.searchwordpro.com/quick.src?Action=&T=130&04908effad

Search Word Pro operates like a channel changer for search engines.. Enter a search word and then you can send it to over 60 different search engines in all the categories described above and more.

BTW, you can easily use this to design and deploy your own blog tour. There are PR firms out there that will do the same blog tour for you and charge $10,000 for getting you on to 100 top blog sites. No kidding.

So if you want to make use of this and do it yourself, I’ve just shared with you how to do it.

How do you do that so that the right people talk about you in a way that helps your business?

What you need to do is sprinkle the airwaves with certain types of information that result in communications between people that ties back to your business so that:

1. drives interest to your business or website
2. produces traffic or incoming calls or visits and prospect inquiries; (so you can covert prospects into customers); or
3. produces direct sales (so you don’t have to convert at all).

Here are the ways to do that:

1. tell a remarkable story
2. offer up a really incredible product or service
3. break some important news
4. be phenomenally helpful, educational or entertaining
5. be innovative
6. be unique
7. be original
8. be unusual
9. be incredibly knowledgeable
10. help the people you can help the most

What you need to do is develop this information and package it into a core document which can serve as a source for a suite of other specific communications you can use in a variety of ways.

Now recognize that there are over 20 different categories of online and offline media that you can place your message.

Package it and present it so that it is readily usable in each technology and situation. What you need to do is reformat the message the same core message can be readily injected and utilized by these various technological mediums.

Then you’ll be able to persuade other people to get the word out for you.

This question was posted to one of the discussion lists I monitor. I just brainstormed this question and here’s what came to mind.

When time are tough:

1. Re-evaluate everything, top to bottom. Identify who are you best customers, your best income streams, your best products, your best services, whatever you have. Get the data and stare at it really hard. Make sure you truly understand what happens in each marketing process you use so that you can identify why customers buy what you sell and what you can control and influence by what you do.

2. Focus on only the most important sources of income. Analyze them until you can visualize every step and communication that produces these sales. Make sure that you spend more time protecting these income streams than anything else you do.

3. Document what works best. Make sure you have a real foundation to believe in. Identify the successful repetitious processes carefully. Make sure they are reliable and produce known results. Once you know which processes are producing what income, make intelligent mature choices as to where to stay and what to let go. Then do it. Change how you operate.

4. Zero in on what works, with whom, and explore what you can do to a. get repeat orders, b. get larger orders, c. get expanded orders – all from the same people. Make sure you identify your most important target audience and stay focused like a laser on them. Forget trying to sell to the world. Focus on your crucial niche. Stay there and get known for real value.

5. Look for host beneficiary opportunities. If you sold to a HQ office, go back and see if you can get them to endorse a referral to all the branch offices. Look for the opportunities and be creative with business proposals to leverage who you know and have performed well for already. Then pitch and pitch some more.

6. Ask for referrals. If you have existing relationships, contact them and ask them who they know and then outreach to them with your best and freshest offer. If you don’t identify the people in your target who can buy the most the fastest. Then contact them one at a time

7. Stop spending generically. Spend surgically. Make sure that you can document what happens when you invest in a process. Make sure the metrics mean something. Learn to sell your product or service. Really and truly learn what it takes to be successful. Then repeat, repeat, repeat.

8. Stop communicating generically. Communicate surgically. Identify what you say that turns people on. Use these messages. Use technology to repeat these messages. If you don’t know, test, test, test till you do. Then repeat, repeat, repeat.

9. Drop almost everything that’s not producing serious reliable income. Focus only on the big ticket items or the ones that have tremendous potential if successful. The Long Tail only produces for people with lots of customers and the ability to sell and profit from lots of other people’s products. If you are not one of them, you have to focus on what produces solid income for you. Make choices that matter.

10. Same goes for your direct communications with people, your PR communications and your marketing messages. Identify what you did and what you said that turned media and people on. That message is probably laden with psychological activators. Re-use it. Repeat what you did till it stops working. Don’t break something that doesn’t need fixing. But let the data tell you what’s the right thing to do. Get the data.

11. Communicate with your customers like you never have before. Talk to them about what’s going on and how you can help. Get to know them and the personas they exemplify. Learn where they hang with and where they hang out when they get information that influences what they buy. Then go to those places and study how things are done.

12. Help the people you can help the most. Look at your customers. Consider that each one is representative of other people with similar interests and problems. This is part of the miracle of the microcosm. Solve the problems of one, and you have a solution for many others with the same problem. Identify the barriers people face. A barrier is an opportunity for problem solving.

13. Once you define a successful script for communicating, then you can use all the available technologies to get the word out and share your knowledge. Remember GIGO – Garbage in, Garbage out – can be replaced with MIMO – Magic in Magic Out.

Paul J. Krupin – Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/

Sometimes you just have to look and marvel at how well some publishers do their job. This front page article in the October 16, 2008 edition of Rolling Stone Magazine demonstrates all sorts of lessons learned for anyone who yearns for publishing and publicity success. This article is worth reading not just because of the importance of the topic but because of the way it is written. This article captures and demonstrates many of the rules I teach and advocate for my clients.

Look at the timing — three weeks before the election. Lead time is right on.

Look at the headline. Short, catchy, top of mind. Does this present ideas that interest a lot of people in the audience? You betcha!

Look at the subheadline: dramatic personal achievement in the face of adversity plus a little ironic humor. Does this indicate that there’s a lot of value in what follows? You can bet your six pack on it.

Look at that first paragraph. Does it contain the five w’s and weave it into a story that hooks you and engages you emotionally?

Look at the goal and objective of this article. Does it seek to provoke decisive action?

I don’t care which way you lean. From a writing and copywriting standpoint, you can learn a lot about what you need to do to capture media and public attention.

To the editors of Rolling Stone magazine – heartfelt thanks for this gutsy and important article.

Here’s the link:

Make Believe Maverick – October 16, 2008 Rolling Stone Magazine