Elements of an Online Marketing Plan for Authors
Tonight I’m teaching a 3-hour workshop at the Learning Exchange in Sacramento on Online Marketing for Authors. I thought it might be helpful to share the outline here for readers who are working on the same goal:
1. Target Audience
Ø Community and building your audience
2. Great Website
Ø Professional design with content management system
Ø Pages: Home, About the Author, Book Details, Media, Contact, Services, Speaker, Blog, Resources/Articles/Reports
Ø Optimize for search engines
Ø Content, resources, community
3. Blog
Ø Benefits
Ø How to maintain: frequency, amount of content, type of content
Ø Promotion: social media, blog directories, commitment
4. E-mail Marketing
Ø Capture information to engage with your audience
Ø Provide incentive
Ø Always building your list
Ø Tools: ConstantContact.com, EasyContact.com, iContact.com
5. Article Marketing
Ø Content sites: IdeaMarketers.com, EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com
Ø Industry-specific sites
Ø Print publications
6. Internet Radio/Podcasts
Ø Why internet radio rules
Ø How to pitch
Ø Sources: BlogTalkRadio.com, AllTalkRadio.net, wsradio.com, womensradio.com
7. Bloggers and Online Alliances
Ø Influence
Ø Opportunities: book reviews, guest blog posts, interviews, cross-promote
8. Social Media
Ø The Big 3: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
Ø Where to spend your time
Ø Getting started
Ø What to post: blog links, articles, resources, facts, humorous quips (always remember target audience)
Ø Tools: Tweetdeck.com, Hootsuite.com
9. Online Groups
Ø Find your audience—or build it!
Ø LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo Groups
10. Virtual Book Tours
Ø Choose your dates
Ø Combination of activities: internet radio/podcasts, guest blog posts, blog interviews, cross-promote on your site
Ø You are always on tour
11. Amazon Promotion Strategies
Ø Author Central
Ø Tags
Ø Book Reviews
Ø Search Inside the Book
12. It’s All About Community – Plant Your Garden!
Ø Find your audience or build it
Ø Plant three seeds each day
If you’re not part of this workshop, I cover all of this and more in the 8-week Accelerated Author Marketing Audio Course, which is now available for just $29.99!