by Karen Cioffi
Having yearly, monthly, and/or weekly marketing goals are crucial to achieving success.
With goals, you know where you’re heading and can work toward that end.
Marketing goals can be considered a marketing plan, and it will have a number of steps or objectives that must be set in motion and accomplished.
Whether you’re trying to sell a product or services, six of the bare basic marketing strategies are:
1. Create a presence and platform.
Creating an online presence and platform can be initiated by creating a website or blog.
First though, you’ll need to be sure of your niche because the site name and content should reflect your area of expertise is.
Remember, plan first.
Choose a site name that will grow with you.
Using an author as an example, if you choose a site name, Picture Books with [Your Name], you’ve limited yourself.
What if your next book is for young adults?
Some authors create sites with the name of their book.
This is a good strategy for pure focus on that one book, but again, what happens when more books become available.
Will you create a site for each of your books?
While you can do this, you will be stretching yourself thin and diluting your main focus: you as the author of multiple books.
Leave room to grow; it’s always advisable to use your name as the site’s name.
In addition, with today’s gone-in-a-second attention span, it’s a good idea to keep your site simple. Sites that take a few seconds or more to load may cause you to lose potential buyers.
2. Increase visibility.
Writing content for your readers/visitors is the way to increase visibility.
The word is: Content is King.
Provide interesting, informative, and/or entertaining content that will prompt the reader to come back and just as important, to Share your post or article.
Also, be sure your content is pertinent to your site, and keep your site and content focused on your platform.
3. Draw traffic to your site.
To draw traffic to your site, promote your posts by using social media.
You should also do article marketing which will increase your visibility reach.
Another strategy is to offer your readers free gifts, such as an e-book relevant to your niche.
This will help to increase your usefulness to the reader and can also be used as an ‘ethical bribe’ for subscribing to your newsletter.
This is considered organic marketing; it funnels traffic back to your site with valuable content and free offers.
4. Have effective calls-to-action.
Your site must have call-to-action keywords that will motivate readers to visit and click on your links.
Keywords to use include:
• Get your Free gift now for subscribing
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Free e-book to offer on your own site
• Buy Now
• Sign up or Join Now
• Don’t hesitate, take advantage of our expert services
• Be sure to Bookmark this site
You get the idea, motivate the reader to want what you’re offering and give him/her a CLEAR and VISIBLE call-to-action.
Make it as simple as possible for the visitor to buy what you’re offering.
5. Develop a relationship with your readers.
It’s been noted that only 1% of first time visitors will buy a product.
Usually, only after developing a relationship through your newsletter, information, and offers will your potential customer or client click on the BUY NOW button or other call-to-action you have in place.
While it will take some time and effort to implement and maintain these strategies, it will be worth it in the long run.
Think of it as a long-term investment.
6. Create an ebook for increased visibility and opt-in enticement.
This is an effective marketing tool and ebooks can be offered for sale or given away as a gift or ‘ethical bribe.’
Whichever you will need it for, it’s important to get on board the ebook wagon.
About Karen Cioffi
Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author and children’s ghostwriter, rewriter, and coach with clients worldwide. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move, and an author online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing.
Karen’s children’s books include Walking Through Walls and The Case of the Plastic Rings. She also has a DIY book, How to Write Children’s Fiction Books. You can check them out at: Karen Cioffi.
