Now, In this post, I continue sharing tips on: now that you’ve survived the Amazon self-publishing challenge, how do you get your book in front of potential clients?
Because you created your book to help grow your business, now you want to get it in the hands of prospective clients, right? Even if you used a traditional publisher, how do you let your audience of ideal clients know about your book?
You can find part 1 of this post, 8 Ways to Grow Your Business with an Amazon Self-Publishing, here.
Let’s dive into the remaining best practices for using your book to begin relationships with potential clients so you can grow your business.
4. Gift Copies of Your Book via Amazon
This next one is similar but has some significant differences. Have you ever wanted to reach out to someone who is inside a company or an organization and is guarded by a ‘gatekeeper’ whose job it is to stop you from getting to them? If so, then this program is something you should consider using.
I have no real explanation of why this is true, but lots of experience in how this works. It seems that no one opens a box that is addressed to someone else with the words Amazon Prime printed on it. They generally just deliver it and drop it on the person’s desk. Additionally, Amazon has a gift option when you are buying something that you are giving to someone as a gift, in this case your book.
So, you purchase a copy of your paperback book on Amazon and pay the retail price. You might be thinking “I pay Retail?” Remember, you get your royalties back. I use an example below.
When checking out, click the box that says it’s a gift and pay a few bucks to have it gift wrapped. They usually use a blue wrapping paper with yellow silk ribbon. You also get to fill out a gift card that provides you a few lines for a personal note. You can say why you were sending it, or maybe point them to a specific section.
You might also consider creating an individual video and provide a link on the gift card. Now, you enter the name and address where you want to send it and complete the transaction. Next, your package will arrive in a box marked with Amazon’s logo.
Benefits of Sending a Gift-Wrapped Book
As an aside, even Administrative Assistants or Executive Secretaries don’t want to open a package with a wrapped gift. You can imagine how careful they want to be, what if it’s a book of porn or something else they should not see when they open it? They might just get fired! The safest thing for them is to just put the package on the desk of the person it was addressed to.
Let’s consider the cost of using this method to put your Amazon self-published book in the hands of potential clients:
- You pay the retail price for your book on Amazon.
- However, you do get royalties back (60% on your paperback book sales.
- Also, if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, among the benefits are “free shipping” and “two-day delivery”.
- Gift wrapping is $3.50 and then there’s a small amount for sales tax.
For me, when I add all this up for my current Amazon self-published book, it comes to around $11, out of pocket and does not include my royalty back. When was the last time you were able to put together a custom marketing piece for a customer for $11?
How Book Gifting Added Revenue for My Client
So how effective is either sending an autographed copy of your book with a customer letter or using the second technique of sending via Amazon as a gift? I helped one of my clients create a book about his business, publish it on Amazon, and ran a campaign to get it to #1 Best Seller. He then asked me “What’s Next?” I recommended that he select 12 either previous clients or ones that he had unsuccessfully attempted to connect with and “gift” them a copy of his book.
We talk twice a month, and a couple of weeks later when we connected, the first thing he said was “From now on I will do whatever you tell me”. It seems that he had heard from 4 of the 12 clients he’d gifted the book to. Two were interested in talking with him in a few months, one was looking to see how he might use him for additional projects. However, the 4th company offered him a project that would allow him to double the “size” of his business in the next quarter, not the amount of sales, but his entire business.
In discussing 2019 planning a few months back, this company was interested in him taking on a much bigger contract equal to about $9M during 2019 and 2020.
My client is also looking at creating a new service line to his business since more companies need this exact type of work. All this activity for a minimal expense.
One last point on this subject. This does not take a lot of time or money to implement. It is also easily understandable. I was part of a Mastermind Group a couple of years back, and at one of our breakout sessions, I explained this program. At our next group meeting, I was approached by two partners with a consulting business who’d heard me explain the process. They decided to give it a try, especially since it was not very expensive. Their result was terrific. They sent out 20 books, had conversations with nine contacts, and won six consulting engagements. That was a 30% close rate, not response rate. Have you run many marketing programs with these types of results?
So, how could gifting your book to key prospects and past clients work for you?
5. Creating a Digital Version of Your Book
If you self-published on Amazon, you probably have a digital (e-book) version of your book. Amazon calls it a ‘Kindle” version. However, if you haven’t already created a digital version of your book, now is a great time to do so. If you’re thinking, “Why should I create an e-book?” You want to pay attention here because you’re missing out on several great marketing capabilities.
First, you create a digital book, which means that you can add hotlinks throughout your book back to your website or on an offer page you create.
For example, you’ll probably want to create an offer associated with your book. Of course, you’ll also need a mechanism to get the word out to your prospects or ideal clients. Let’s assume that someone who purchases your book is a good prospect. One problem you should know about is, when someone buys your book on Amazon, they won’t tell you who bought it. So how can you connect with your book readers so you can start a relationship with them?
Here is the beauty of using hotlinks (hyperlinks). You can connect by using hotlinks throughout your book including on the Title Page. Putting a hotlink on the Title Page to valuable bonus or educational content will attract attention, not only with people who bought your book, but people who might first click on the “See Inside” that appears on Amazon’s sales page for your book.
Enhance Your Book with Free Bonus Content
One of the things I tell my clients as they’re creating their book is, at the end of a chapter stop and go back and read the chapter. If you find something that is missing or would increase the understanding of your material, write it down.
I do not recommend that you then update your manuscript. Instead take the opportunity to create a piece of content that lives on your website and includes the new material and offer it as a Bonus. It’s the same concept as a freebie, lead magnet, or cheat sheet that you offer on your website to encourage web visitors to join your email list. In this case, the bonus content is an extension of what you share in your book.
You can provide one or multiple bonuses at the end of each chapter. You might decide on a specific type of checklist, template, or description of a process—it can be in downloadable PDF form or a video.
For example, if you’re health and wellness coach and that’s what your book is about, you could offer a short email course on healthy shopping / cooking for busy families. That way you can help your ideal clients (readers) get a feel for the unique approaches you teach.
It doesn’t have to be a lot of content. I once saw blog post on this subject and the author mentioned that he ran a contest. He offered people a great checklist or a chapter to his, not yet available, new book. Hands down, people picked the checklist.
6. Introduce Yourself to a Broader Audience Using Your Podcast or Blog
The idea here is to have people get to know you and what you do better than anyone else in your space. Both a Podcast or Blog gives you a megaphone where you create and deliver content about your capabilities. With either a podcast or a blog, you can have guests. They might be live on a podcast or you can create some content from a meeting you had with them and publish it on your blog.
Of course, this begs the question of whether you should have a blog or a podcast? Simple answer is YES you should have both. You might be thinking that this will add a significant amount of time to your work. Not necessarily if you know how to approach this. Let’s say you have a podcast and you invite someone who has some great content to share with your audience. You can use Zoom or Skype or some other platform that allows you to record your conversation. Then you engage someone like Rev.com to take your audio and create a transcript. There are a number of companies in the transcription business, but I really like Rev. They do great job quickly and the fee won’t break the bank.
So, you created one piece of audio content and have two pieces of content. One audio and the other written text. It will not take you any longer to create the audio and then send it off for transcription.
You can also take a number of podcasts and use the transcripts to create a book. This was exactly what my friend John Cote did to create his international Best Seller, Healthcare Elsewhere. John had a #1 Best Selling book on Podcasting. One of his colleagues invited him to attend a conference on Medical Tourism to talk about the value of podcasting. He also got to attend a pre-meeting where the leadership team was discussing what they should be focusing on to grow the group. At the end of this meeting, John told them that he thought that Medical Tourism was a fascinating concept and would be a great podcast. They all thought it was also, but no one stuck up their hand to take on the podcast.
Finally, John agreed to do their podcast under certain conditions. First, having no knowledge of the medical tourism business, they needed to provide the weekly guests for him to interview. They also had to make sure his content was correct.
I would see John about every six months, and the next time I saw him he explained that the podcast was #1 in its category on iTunes. He had 26 episodes and decided to take the top 16, iTunes told him the rankings, have them subscribed and made into a book titled Healthcare Elsewhere, which became in International #1 Best Seller on Amazon.
The next time I saw John, he told me that things were even crazier, he had just returned from a Central American country who, because of Healthcare Elsewhere, wanted to hire him as a consultant. They had decided to develop a large part of their country and create a medical tourism city. He was under a non-disclosure but promised to let me know once he was free to talk about it. A few months later, John sent me an email. He was now Director of Business Development, Belize Business Zone for Medical Tourism.
So, John started with his own book and podcast, took advantage of an opportunity to create and deliver a podcast on a subject he knew about, took 16 of the highest ranked podcasts and had them transcribed into an International #1 Best Seller that led to a country hiring him as a consultant and then as the Director of Business Development.
The same tools that John used are available to you. How many ways can you think of to use them in your business?
7. Pitch Yourself for Speaking Gigs as a Published Author
We’re hearing more and more that, when you pitch yourself to present at events, meeting planners, event organizers, and associations are asking if you have a book. You can say, “Yes, I do!”. Check out panels, Meetups, workshops, or keynotes at industry events. To boost your credibility, send a digital (Kindle) or print version of your book to key event organizers in your industry. Create a pitch explaining how your skills and expertise will benefit their attendees.
This is a great way to get in front of a large number of possible ideal prospects in one place.
8. Build Your Visibility on Traditional Talk Radio
Identify the broadcast radio producers favored by your perfect customers. Send producers a pitch with:
- Five strong reasons you’d be a great guest.
- A copy of your book.
- Suggested topics based on your book’s table of contents for the interview.
Remember, radio producers have to fill a set number of hours of programming every week. Get familiar with each one’s specific audience. Show him or her how you’re an ideal fit with their listeners. Highlight how your book, expertise, and knowledge can be beneficial from their audience’s viewpoint.
So, I have shown you a number of ways to use your book to grow your business. I don’t believe that any of these will cost a considerable amount to develop and execute. More importantly, you can re-run these at any time and should plan on relaunching each of the ones you choose a few times a year. Don’t think you will be wasting your money and time running the same campaign with some tweaks you learned at the last launch.
You might be thinking that your prospects might become annoyed if they receive lots of content from you using the same content but with different media. At one point, I was concerned about the same thing.
In 2017, I was part of Frank Kern’s Inner Circle and attended one of his Live Events. At one point, he made a pretty compelling offer and as people were signing up, Frank asked the group “For those of you who purchased, raise your hand if this was your first purchase of a product from me”. There were a few hands, but one woman said that she had been following him for about 10 years and this was the first time she’d purchased anything. When he asked why, she said that his offer really got her attention and she felt compelled to get it.
To me this reinforced the idea of looking at the results of a program and the offer, making changes that you think will make it more valuable, and launching it again. It can take time for your email subscribers, readers, or blog followers to decide to invest in one of your programs.
Closing Thoughts
I have covered at least 8 different ways for you to use your content to grow your business. They each have the potential to accelerate your business and change your life. Now, it’s your turn. All you have to do is decide which ones are of interest and then EXECUTE on it.
I also want to reinforce that the examples where people had dramatic outcomes like John Cote and my client who gifted copies of his book, are not Internet Marketing/Social Media giants with massive lists. These were small business owners who were curious enough to look into Self-Publishing, Podcasting, Blogging and new ways to create and share content with their ideal customers/prospects. Their curiosity led them to find someone who could help them better understand use these new tools. More importantly, how the EXECUTE the programs they created. That made a significant impact on the results they achieved.
So, thinking about your business, can you see value in:
- Creating a book that describes you and your business and why you are better than the competition?
- Engaging your network to invest in buying your book and potentially getting it to a Best Seller Status on Amazon?
- Spending very little to gift copies of your paperback book to people who you want to connect with but don’t know how?
- Using your digital or e-book version of your book as a marketing tool to build your list.
- Enticing people to see your offers and visit your website.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Much of the information in these past two posts was covered in my latest book Spin Your Content Into Gold. You can get a PDF copy by clicking on the link below.
If you would like to know more about how to get started growing your business with Amazon self-publishing, you can check out this post.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this and answering your questions.
In my next post, I am going to cover the technologies and systems that I use for these programs including their costs. You’ll probably be surprised at how little each of these are.
Recommended Reading
Essential Business Advice on Personal Development to Increase Your Credibility with Clients