Tag: marketing

Posted in Social

Cross-Promotion Techniques Every Seller Should Know

Posted on by L. M. Montes

When there is something we as individuals are trying like mad to sell, it is easy to get caught up in advertising and marketing by doing what everybody else is doing. As a result, nothing sells. Why not? The strategies used worked for others but not for you. What did you do wrong? Sound familiar? Yep. Sounds familiar to me, too. That’s when its time to take a step back. Relax. Take a deep breath and look at what you have. Look at ‘what’ you are doing. Do you ‘sound’ like everybody else who was able to make sales? You don’t want to sound like someone else. You want to sound like you. You can do what others do, but do it your way. You could even add something only you can.

The key is to stand out. So, how do you do that? Well, it depends on ‘who’ you are. What are your likes? What are your hobbies? How can you incorporate them into your marketing strategies? Here’s an example. Sally Seller makes jewelry, and she writes books. In her books she features certain gemstones, such as sapphires, emeralds, jade, and lapis lazuli. The typical marketing strategies she had been using for her books were not working, so she ‘took a step back’ and thought about what she had been implementing in way of marketing. When she did this, an idea hit. She could cross promote her jewelry with her books. Here is her idea.

  1. Make beaded bracelets using Preciosa crystals in the colors of the high end gemstones featured in her books and give a free bracelet to anyone who purchases a book in her book series.
  2. Purchase some actual sapphires, emeralds, lapis lazuli, and jade beads in the colors of the gemstones featured in her books, make bracelets out of them and sell them at her book signing table.
  3. By implementing both strategies 1 and 2, readers will be drawn not only to the books but also to Sally’s handmade jewelry and vice versa.

What happened when ‘Sally’ implemented these strategies in real life (on two occasions now)? Her book and her jewelry sales went way up and more than tripled.

Posted in Social

Success

Posted on by L. M. Montes

Keep in mind, you will not succeed if you do not try. Give what you are doing a chance. I know it’s easy to give up and think success won’t happen. But the truth is this; sometimes success takes a while. If one idea is not working, try something else. Eventually, success will pick up speed.

I am going to pick on writers/authors. They spend many many hours writing their books. At the end of it all, when they publish it, there is marketing to do. If you are a self-published author, you do much of the marketing yourself. My advice, if this is you, learn about how to market your book(s). Maybe you already know. Great! If you have a publisher, they do the marketing for you. If this you, great! Everyone else mostly does it themselves. It can be discouraging at first because not every marketing strategy will work. Here again, you will not succeed if you do not try. You will not figure out what does if you do not try.

Posted in Writing

The Traveling Words

Posted on by L. M. Montes
Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels.com

Words travel across the page and along with them, our eyes. From our eyes our brains receive the “picture” that, when put together, the words project to us. This journey of words is not only for the benefit of the reader but for the author/writer as well. It’s a two sided gratification. The readers reap the benefits of a great story, which they can chew on for days afterwards. They will even pass it on to others who then get excited to read it. This cycle continues from reader to reader. It’s a form of advertising, whether they realize it or not.

There are two journeys authors go on. The first being that of the story itself, which changes more than once along the way. Sometimes they may even feel as though they’ll never get it finished (many of us go through that), but they/we do, and they/we gain the satisfaction of having finished such a lengthy project. The second journey begins when the book is finished, which involves passing the book along to others. Marketing. It’s fun because there are so many creative ways to do this (not going into details, as this is for another post), yet it’s challenging. But, once you get going with it, the momentum picks up. Time, give it time. My point is, authors pass along just as the readers pass along. The two are on two different highways, but the goals are the same. They’re getting the book out there.

Thus…..the words travel on and on….