Category: marketing

branding, marketing

What’s in a name?

In a previous post I discussed the importance of naming your book, product or company in such a way as to optimize it for search engines on the Internet. You do this by infusing the name or title with keywords.  Case in point: While I was in a grocery store the other day, I decided to test this hypothesis by examining the names of products.  The majority of packaging demonstrate this tendency.  I started to look a little ridiculous texting product names into my iPhone standing in the personal hygiene aisle, but here’s just one example of a product that has a keyword-infused name:

Right Guard Xtreme Fresh Blast Ultra Gel Anti-Perspirant Deodorant

That’s a mouth full, but I bet it comes up on an Internet search. Hey, if it works for Gillette, it can work for you…

branding, marketing

Establishing your expertise

Whether you are promoting a book or promoting a company, one integral step is establishing your expertise in your field.   If you are a novelist, your “field” is your genre. If you write non-fiction, your “field” is your topic or subject matter. If you own a clothing store, your “field” includes the clothing lines you carry. 

The question is not whether you are an expert in your field, since, presumably, you are if you have either written a book or started a business.   The question is, how do you establish that expertise publicly by sharing it with others, either your potential readers or your potential customers?

There are a number of ways to establish your expertise, and they are the same regardless of whether you have written a book or started a company.  One way is to write a blog. Another method is to write articles and distribute them through “article banks” on the Internet.  These are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, once you are doing one of these things, you can easily do the other. The writer’s maxim is the opposite of the old carpenter’s maxim: you should write it once, and use it twice — or even more!

Interestingly, if you own a business, one of the best ways to establish your expertise in your field is to write a book and publish it.

ceo, marketing

How book promotion is like company marketing

Marketing is marketing. There are some basic steps one must take to promote either a product or a service. As both an author with a book to promote and a business owner with a company to market, it becomes easier to see the similarities in the necessary steps:

1. Establish your expertise
2. Optimize your (new) product/service for Internet searching
3. Make it easy for people to buy your product/service
4. Give incentive for people to buy your product/service
5. Seek awards or other forms of recognition
6. Distribute press releases that announce your (new) award/product, and that…
7. Establish your expertise
8. Repeat

In the coming days and weeks I will discuss each of these steps specifically as they apply both to book promotion and company promotion…