Time for another Monday Marketing post!  I’ve already covered a number of Marketing tips and advice, that can be found in my Marketing Section in the tutorial pages. 

But you can never have too many.  So today’s topic is all about Marketing Strategy.

 

Isn’t a Marketing Strategy just another name for a Marketing Plan?

Actually no, people will often mistake them for being the same thing.

A Marketing Strategy is all about what you want to achieve, whereas the Marketing Plan is details of how to achieve your Marketing Goals.

When do I need to create a Marketing Strategy?

Early.  Like before you are published.  After all, it’s easier to do marketing when you know your market and how your work fits into the world of writing as well as what you’re trying to achieve.

Your Marketing Strategy can help build your Marketing Plan and make it easier to move forward with your business – the business of publishing and selling books.

Know your objectives

What do you actually want to achieve?  Your objectives should include both short-term and long-term objectives.

Example of Short-term objectives would be things like gain x number of followers on x social media platform and/or x number of subscribers to your mailing list.

Example of Long-term objectives would be reaching x number of sales by 3rd quarter and/or x amount of revenue by the 4th quarter.

Think of all the objectives you can and make a list.

Build the Strategy

Take your list objectives and break them into short, medium and long-term.  Then include what you want to achieve for each one.

Start small.  Think about your social media channels, after all these are the best places for building up a following and developing engagement which is a great first step for your marketing.

List all your active social media platforms, the ones you want to dedicate time to.  Take your objectives for each platform and look at breaking the list down into months or quarters and what you want to achieve by each one.

Your strategy could also include when you want to get the book ready for publication.  Setting your own deadline dates is a good way to give yourself accountability.  Everything from getting it completed, to the editing phase, to having it beta read, to creating a launch plan.

Don’t worry about everything you list, Marketing Strategies should be fluid to allow for changes as things come up.

Prioritise the Efforts

Unless you have oodles of time to do everything, you will need to prioritise your list and give each objective a decent time frame as things can creep up and affect everything.

By marking the objectives that are the highest priority, it means if things get in the way, you can stay on target with those specifically.  Focusing your attention on those that will have the biggest impact.

Don’t try and cram all your short-term objectives within the same small time window.

Start Early

I am still surprised to hear from writers who tell me they don’t think about marketing, let alone starting any because they aren’t published yet.

Marketing is less effective when started AFTER you’re published.  It’s a big uphill battle if you wait until afterwards.  Don’t make things hard for yourself.

The sooner you can start to build a Marketing Strategy and Marketing Plan, the stronger your position.

Share with us your most effective marketing strategy in the comments

Happy writing

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