Expert Advice

Build an effective publicity campaign

AuthorHive’s director of author marketing services offers some valuable tips

With all of the marketing strategies available to authors, it can feel overwhelming at times when choosing the marketing initiative that will best benefit your book.

But before you begin researching your options, it is essential to formulate a marketing strategy in order to work toward your desired results in the most efficient manner. Chris Bass, the director of author marketing services at AuthorHive, provides insight into the process of building an effective publicity campaign.

Our process consists of four stages: Plan, Create, Execute and Measure. Each of these stages allows our authors to understand what is going to happen, and when, during the course of their campaign. 

Plan

We start with a thorough and sensitive knowledge of determining what is important to the author and the author’s intended audience. We build upon this by determining what things about the book are important to the potential customers. Also, we consider where they might get their information: from the Internet (YouTube, Web sites, social media); newspaper; at events; etc. We also weigh if there are things highlighted in the book that are relevant to current societal trends.

From this we take all of this garnered information and combine it with the author’s goals, target audience and our experience to develop a messaging strategy, or platform, that best distinguishes the author’s book in the market. 

Create

This strategy guides the creation of all initiatives, such as media pitching through news releases, social media outreach, author video, radio interview or other services that are part of the author’s campaign. During this step, creative inspiration is an important element when packaging the information in a compelling and efficient manner to not only the people who might purchase the book, but also to the journalists who might report on the book.

Execute

Using our premier media databases, we identify and inventory the specific media (such as print and electronic journalists, hometown journalists, niche reports in obscure markets, and even bloggers) throughout the nation who should be contacted about the author’s book.

Once we’ve created a targeted list of media contacts, we begin sending out pitches specific to the author’s book and genre based on the messaging strategy. 

Measure

As we gain feedback from the journalists, we measure the results, sharpen and refine the messaging strategy and provide weekly reports about our findings to the author. We’ll look at things like impressions (which is the number of times an advertisement has been downloaded and presumably viewed) the number of people following the author’s tweets, fans on Facebook, and the number of interactions with the author’s blog.

And even when the publicity campaign is executed and the results are in, the marketing efforts shouldn’t end there. “Marketing isn’t something you do once in awhile,” said Bass. “You’ve got to have a plan. If you’re not getting results first, go back to the basics: who is my target audience?  If the answer is everyone, it’s likely you haven’t defined your messaging strategy. It also takes more than one impression point. Think about how many messages or ads you see in a given day. You have to reach out to your audience in more than one place.”

Providing integrated marketing services to more than 60,000 authors, AuthorHive is dedicated to offering the best opportunities and services possible. Our Publicity Campaigns aren’t just tools bundled together—there are numerous factors specific to each campaign an AuthorHive publicity expert considers when building an effective plan for an author. For example, the media outlets contacted for a thriller novel will not be identical to those targeted for a children’s author. If you would like more information, contact a Marketing Consultant at 1.866.697.5289.

Expert Tip:

Leverage existing relationships with current customers. One simple, yet often overlooked initiative is to ask your friends and acquaintances to recommend your book on Amazon.  These recommendations can be used in other media and provide credibility to others who might purchase your book.  They also make great testimonials that can be used in social media.