Marketing Is About Timing by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Most of the time we finish a blog post and hit the button or we get an idea of something we want to share on Facebook and Twitter and we post or tweet. The majority of us don't take the time to think about when those posts and tweets will get the maximum exposure.

But think about it for a moment. 

People on the east coast of the US are not reading their morning email and social networks at the same time as people on the west coast because they are still sleeping three hours behind. There is even more of a time disparity on the other side of the world if we have international readers. Would someone be more likely to hit the delete button in the morning when they are wading through 100 emails rather than the afternoon when they are browsing through 20 or 30 emails? It's something to think about.

If you post something on social media, it risks rolling on and off your friend's and followers' newsfeeds before they log back on again if they aren't on when you post your news and info. Wouldn't you want to post at times that will ha

What about week days versus weekends? Which time frame will produce maximum results? Will it vary from our target audience whether we are targeting tweens and teens, Generation X and Y, or Baby Boomers? Business leaders or stay at home moms?

Believe it or not, marketers have conducted some studies on the best timing for posting things to certain social media sites and/or blogs. My advice is to not worry about this in your day-to-day social media marketing and blogging or it will drive you crazy. What I would suggest is to consider it on special campaigns and/or book launches. You can probably handle it for a temporary time and then go back to your daily activity.

Use HootSuite and your Blogger post settings to schedule posts and updates according to the infographic here. 

Schedule emails according to the infographic here. 

Have you seen these infographics before? Do you think they are helpful? Have you noticed a better time for response rates in your own marketing efforts?

Pushing Book Sales During the Holidays by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

It's that time of year again, when people are shopping, have budgeted to shop, and are in the mood to shop! This is good news for authors and publishers hoping to push book sales. As readers log into their favorite sites to purchase books during the season, authors are in the perfect position to promote their books to online consumers worldwide in a way that was never possible for authors in the past with print-only, store-only books.

Throughout the holiday season, publishers will be watching and hoping for increased sales to make up for any slumps that were suffered over the past year. Since ebooks sales grew 50% in 2012 and now make up 28% of all U.S. adult fiction and non-fiction sales, publishers will be paying close attention to ebooks in particular. This is where an author's online platform could make a difference in promotion efforts. 

Book sales are expected to increase with iPads, tablets, Nooks and Kindles given as Christmas gifts. People who have these new gadgets and their new gift cards will be eager to try them out after the holiday and into January. 

It isn't too late to pull together an effective marketing plan for the holidays. You still have 3 weeks left until Christmas and the whole month of January to convince these new gadget holders to download your book and try it out. 

Offer Holiday Specials
Unless you are a self-published author who is in control of your sales prices, you don't have any control over discounts. If you do, offer some kind of discount to lure would-be readers. If not, find out if your publisher will be offering any discounts and promote it through your connections like crazy. You could always offer special pricing through your own website from your own stash of books, which would afford you to buy more books from your publisher. Consider bundle packages if you are a multi-published author with a few series out.

Create a Festive Theme

You could create a cute little graphic ad that you could post on your website/blog, newsletter, all your social media sites, and make it available for others to share. Write blog articles related to a theme or story in your book and post links to your social media accounts. Be sure to include your branded graphic with a link where to buy your book. 

Partner with Other Authors

There is always more impact with more numbers. Approach other authors with your ideas and see if they would like to participate in a short blog tour, scavenger hunt, social media party, host a big contest with you, and swap blog articles.

Feel free to add a few more ideas in the comment section for others. What do you have planned for the holidays? 

Promoting Book Launches in Stages by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Not only have e-books brought a whole new dimension to the publishing world, but now books can be released in stages. It used to be that a book was published in print, and that first print run was the first initial launch. You only got one chance to launch your book and that was it. Now things are changing and books are being released in stages, and so our book launches will need to reflect the same timing scale. 

For instance, there are several small publishers who might first release a book as an e-book, and later if the sales do well, they will release it as a print book. My first two books were released as print, then e-books, and most recently as audio books through iTunes. With these changes, we need to begin thinking differently about our promotional strategies.

Those who are clinging to traditional promotional strategies that were strong when print books were King in the market will soon find themselves behind the times and losing ground, if they aren't already experiencing it.  Don't get me wrong, traditional promotion will always be necessary and prominent, but it will come to hold a different place in the scheme of things. 

A perfect example of this is traditional book tours where authors host book signings versus online book tours. More authors are hosting online book tours, Facebook and Twitter parties, blog scavenger hunts, and video conferencing. They are cutting back on the expense of traveling around to physical book stores, readings excerpts, and signing books. Online book stores are easier on both the author and the readers. 

It can be attended right from the comfort of their home, doesn't require expensive lodging, flights or gas mileage. The online attendance is often much better than a physical book store because readers are also in the comfort of their home where their children can continue to play, spouses can take over a other duties for dinner and baby sit while readers take a few moments to participate in the online book launch party. It isn't necessary for them to get the kids dressed, miss a church or school PTA function, and drag themselves across town or to the nearest town with a book store. 

It's perfectly acceptable for the author to plan an e-book launch, then when the book comes out in print, plan  a traditional book launch. If you know the dates ahead of time you can create a book launch campaign that includes these various stages. In my case I had no idea my book was about to come out on iTunes. My publisher sent an email out on the loop. In that case, I couldn't pre-plan so I simply tweeted and posted the news on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. 

My advice is to begin planning as soon as you can, jot down some ideas, do some research on cost, timing and the logistics on carrying out the plan. Form a realistic budget and stick to it. Be reasonable about the amount of time and energy you will be able to devote to it. If you need to hire a publicist to do a few things that you cannot do yourself or you don't have time to do, create a plan for what you CAN do and a different plan for what you expect your publicist to do. Then research publicists, talk to a few and find someone that you feel comfortable doing business with. 

Remember, think of your book launch campaign as something that will happen in stages. Times have changed.

Authors Marketing Websites and Blogs

Regardless of whether you're published or unpublished, you need to make an impact on the Web. The difference in being published is that you want to make an instant impact to sell your books now.

Why then, are some websites so hard to find? How many times have you seen an advertisement with a URL address and think to yourself that you didn’t even know they had a website? Or how many times have you found something that looks really promising from a search engine description, only to find that there was little to offer when you got there?

The two largest mistakes include: 
1) Designing a really fabulous website and then only performing basic marketing measures to promote it. 

2) Hardly taking the time to build a well-designed website and promoting it like crazy. Neither technique will work. You must develop an online marketing plan and follow through with it. You cannot cut corners and skip chapters. It doesn’t work like that.

Do you even have a marketing plan? If you do, does it include online marketing? How old is your marketing plan? When was the last time you updated it? The answers to these questions could be the solution as to why you might not have the success you want.

Unfortunately, people look at marketing the same way they view fitness. It seems like too much work. Starting out we have great intentions, much like joining a fitness center in January because of a New Year resolution. We go full force with determination until we burn out or life gets in the way. Marketing isn’t something you can do for a while and stop. It isn’t a business fad, and it isn’t a business hobby. It is your business. Think of it as your house or rental payment. As long as you need somewhere to live, you will pay a mortgage or rent payment. Marketing is the same. As long as you are writing books, you will need to market your books to keep selling them.

Marketing plans are designed for a reason. When written effectively, updated appropriately, and followed consistently, they work.

Marketing plans fail because of three things:
1) They aren’t written and designed for you--to meet your writing needs and your schedule. You don't want a boilerplate template of someone else’s marketing plan. You need something that is realistic for you. Your writing pace, publication deadlines, family needs, obligations to other jobs and/or church are different from other writers. Therefore, your marketing plan should be realistic to other needs in your life.

2) Marketing plans are not updated consistently each year or proactive in taking advantage of new developments and technological advancements, as well as changes that take place in your personal life.

3) People don’t follow-through consistently with their marketing plan. Somewhere in the middle they want to make adaptations without proper planning and research, or they give up altogether. 

What about you? Have you fallen prone to one of these 3 situations? What steps have you taken to fix and/or improve things? 

Strategies to Create an Effective Blog by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

I've been blogging since 2006, but I didn't get serious or deliberate about it until 2008. During that time, I've noticed some key strategies that helped me build more followers and generate interactions from readers. Below, I've highlighted a few things that your blog should do, and included some things that your blog should not do.

• Content - Know what you want to say and why it will help others. Unless you're a celebrity, people aren't interested in what you had for breakfast. Your blog shouldn't be a place to rant and complain about your personal circumstances or the drama you might be enduring from other people in your life. What expertise can you offer that will benefit others? It doesn't have to be writing-related. It can be parenting, a particular ministry, cooking--something that you enjoy, have an interest in doing or learning, and sharing.


• Schedule - Be consistent so people will know what to expect from you. It isn't necessary to blog every day, but you need to blog at least once a week to a few times each week. Random posts will not lure regular readers. If you post nothing for several weeks or months, why should readers bother coming back to read nothing? If your blog covers a few related topics, it would be a good idea to schedule particular posts on specific days. For instance, Mondays can be for one topic and Wednesdays could be for another related topic. I've said this before, people are creatures of habits, get them in the habit of visiting your blog.


• Design & Layout - It should be appealing and easy to navigate and read. The color of the text should compliment the background, but be enough of a contrast to read without creating sore eyes or making readers squint, which means large enough text and a simple font for those needing reading glasses. Make sure your static web pages are easy to find and the links work. Also, give people the option to share your blog posts on their Social Media accounts. They may not have anything to say, but they might like your post enough to share it with others and this is what you want. Often, I may not have a comment on my blog, but I've had readers share my posts on LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter and this is important. It's still considered engagement.


• Don't Give Up - If you really want to blog and build an online readership, keep blogging even if it's irregular. Don't get discouraged, if you have trouble keeping a regular blogging schedule for a while, you can always get back into the swing of things. Don't quit and lose the readership you've worked so hard to gain. It's much easier to re-engage readers who still follow your irregular blog posts than to start all over from scratch a year later and try to find them again after they've stopped following your blog or you closed it down. 

I can look at my blogging history and see how much better I did with a consistent blogging schedule in 2009-2010 than I did in 2011-2012. Things will happen to distract you, and sometimes you have to set priorities. For me, I choose to skip a few blog posts when we were experiencing the loss of a loved one, my mom's battle with cancer, an unexpected move, and then the onset of my daughter's epilepsy these past five months, plus book deadlines.

My blog may not have have grown in readership as I would have liked, but I didn't lose any readers. I was honest and transparent in letting them know some of my challenges without allowing my blog to become a public complaint board. When I did post something, it was an update, a praise report, or a request for prayer. I kept these blog posts to quarterly or every couple of months so that my blog didn't become about ME. 

Other ways to grow your readership is to comment on other blogs, host giveaways, and bring in guest bloggers who have a following. What about you? How have you grown your blog?