I have a news flash for you: everything you do is a part of marketing your product.
Including your product!
I don’t care if you write novels, blog for a living, or submit articles to magazines . . . everything you do is a part of your marketing program.
My wife Bev and I play this little game while watching television. We rate commercials. It’s nothing too complicated . . . the rating system spectrum is something like “that sucked” to “totally tubular, man!”
There was one commercial that really stood out. I think it was for Volkswagen, and it happened a couple months ago. Some family took a cross-country road trip with grandpa’s ashes, and it was a series of memories of love ending with them on a cliff side tossing the ashes into the sea . . . and it was powerful, so powerful, in fact, that I have remembered it for quite awhile.
It was powerful and effective because it played to our emotions. We have all experienced the loss of a loved one. It was something we could all relate to, and I think that is the point many writers completely ignore . . . their work, their notifications, their blogs, and their marketing materials, all should be something we, the buying public, can relate to and want to experience more of.
Give me a reason to read your blog. What is there about your blog that is unique? What does your blog give me that I didn’t have before?
Give me a reason to read your novel. What is there about your novel that hasn’t been done, ad nauseum, a million times before?
Give me a reason to get excited about your product. I am bombarded by between 4000 and 10,000 ads per day, so why should I pay any attention to your product?
Be brutally honest in answering those questions. The answers you get just might make a difference in your sales one day.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 