How to Start a Business: Part 3- Marketing and Advertising
Alright, everyone, fasten your seatbelts because we've already covered how to get a business off the ground and how to create content. Today we're going to start talking about how to promote your business. First, I want to start with the best quote I've heard about marketing anything.
“Tell your audience, and then tell other people.”
That's it in a nutshell, so let's talk about how to do just that.
"Um... Am I in the wrong course? You just said audience, and I don't have one. At least, I don't think I do."
Your audience is anyone interested in your topics or products. You will want to get as much information about them as possible. This will come over time by monitoring analytics and getting a feel for who is engaging with your content or purchasing your product. This can be as simple as who likes your Instagram post, who comments on Facebook, and yes, who buys your product. Step one, you need to find this information. When you set up your social media accounts, marking them as a business account will already include these analytics where you can isolate data. Once you know who those people are, you need to engage with them regularly. Don't wait until you have something to sell to introduce yourself. Say hi, build a relationship, start a blog, post pictures of your cats, do something to connect whatever it is.
A note to consider: You'll want to cultivate your brand as we talked about in the first post. If you're doing something with history, posting about history is a great place to start. If you're working with antique furniture, engaging with local historical societies is a natural fit. If you're an author, consider what you like and build a brand around that.
Let's use me as an example. I love to read and write steamy small-town romance with a little magic. Now just right there, you'll notice what I did. That brand extends beyond one book or even a series. It sets an expectation for what readers and followers can expect to see from me—interested in big-city political thrillers? That's great, but I'm not your girl. Now, does it mean I can only talk about magic, kissing, and small-towns? No, but I often post about those things first and then cooking, gardening, and cats, which is not outside my audience's realm. Chances are someone interested in a small-town steamy romance will at least find one of those sub-topics interesting. From there, we can build a dialogue and get to know each other, meaning when I do have something to sell, people are more likely to invest their money and time into something I've created. Also, by including those sub-topics, I might convince someone to find something new that they love.
In short, think about your brand and who will follow, then find those people and reach out.
"Okay, I think I have my audience. So what do I do when I have something to sell? I posted it on Facebook. Is that enough?"
That's great! Congratulations! You're officially telling the audience and hitting the first half of the goal of this course. Keep posting on all of your social media platforms. People will usually forgive you for over-selling during a launch, which lasts about a week. Consider how many times you have to see a movie trailer before buying it or adding it to your watchlist. It's the same reasons why car insurance companies always seem repetitive. Once you have that look at the data, see what's your conversion rate, that's how many saw your post and then took action like either sharing or making a purchase. That will help inform you more about your audience.
From here, you can also reach out to other professionals in the industry and ask them to share your announcement or even take over the blog for a day to expand your audience. It's best to keep in mind who your audience is. For example, asking my friend who writes Sci-Fi horror to share my books is excellent, but may not yield as much conversion as asking someone who writes contemporary romance. Staying in the author world, bloggers, libraries, podcasters, and YouTubers all can help to get the word out. Don't feel bad about asking. They are looking for content and need something to share. Why can't it be you?
"Okay, I can do that. But what about telling other people? How do I find them?"
*rubs hands together* Let's talk about advertising. People can't buy your product if they don't know it exists. The big names in advertising are Google Ad Sense, Amazon, and Facebook Ads. I've had the most success with Facebook Ads. It's not as hard as it sounds. Just got to business.facebook.com and click on ads manager. You can customize your daily budget for as low as a dollar a day. You can set a date range (or leave it as ongoing with an easy toggle on and off switch), target audience, upload your picture or video, and be off and running on an ad in no time at all.
Knowing your audience is going to be critical here. Anyone can like anything but think of it like fishing. Sure, you can catch a fish almost anywhere there is water, but knowing where they are, what type of fish, and what attracts that fish will help a great deal. We're going for generalizations here. Women typically read romance. Many men do, but statistically, women do more. Therefore, I target women because I have a greater chance of making a sale there.
Here are some key points that help my Facebook ads. Lightning round style. Facebook Ads are broken into three sections. I’ve outlined my tips for each section below:
Campaign settings
Not much you can do here except set budget. It'll shut off once it spends the amount, and you can adjust this anytime.
Ad Set Name
Choose Manually placements and do Facebook Newsfeed on a mobile device. This has been the most successful for me for over a year. Chances are if they're browsing their feed on their phone, they have the time to click and look at a product.
Use Exclusions. I know people interested in sweet and wholesome romance are not the right audience for my book, so rather than risk a bad review or an adverse reaction, I tell Facebook to take those people out of the equation.
Ad
Have good creative content, and be mindful of Facebook's rules and suggestions. One example is they don't want more than 25% text on the picture. They'll tell you if you have this, and you can appeal. Book covers don't count towards the 25%.
Take them directly to the product. The fewer clicks, the better, so don't go to your website or another landing page but go right to your work, so it can be as little as two clicks to a purchase.
Consider your audience when writing your ad copy (the words or blurb in your ad). What will they respond to? Don't send mixed messages. If it's a romance and the picture is of a lady alone or a turtle necklace, how will I know it's a romance with a split-second glance. If you're selling furniture, flowers are great, but a signature piece is more likely to catch someone's eye.
Consider using a testimonial. Look at your reviews and take a quick quote. Word of mouth sells, and even if we don't know who said your product is excellent, someone did, so I was a potential customer and more likely to be intrigued.
An important thing to remember: Don't set it and forget it—Monitor, monitor, monitor. Check back once a week and get rid of what's not working and narrow your focus on what is. Watch who clicks through, and double down on that category. For example, I could see most of the clicks were from women above 55, then I adjusted my targeting for women above 55, and my click-through rate (CTR) went a lot higher, meaning I was getting more out of my money with a greater chance for each sale every time someone clicked my ad. Another way to do this is by geography, I vastly improved my CTR when I broke it down by state and saw that for whatever reason, my ad didn't appeal to people in the great state of Alaska. It's not personal. It's business. The argument against this might be, "Sure, but isn't there someone in Alaska I could be missing?" Yes, but this is about strengthening the odds of my return on investment or ROI. To go back to the fishing example, sure there might be fish a little known shallow stream, but if I'm already catching more fish in the lake down the street, where will my time be better spent?
"This is... a lot."
Yep, but I learned, and you can learn too. And while we’re talking about learning, I’m not an expert and still am learning myself. Here are some great resources I’ve used. I don't get anything for recommending these resources, so know I'm recommending them because this is what I've used to educate myself, and I believe in them.
I started my education with Skye Warren's Anatomy of a Bestselling Book Launch workshop. Here is a link to sign up to get more information.
If you can't get to hear her speak right now, Dave at Kindlepreneur is INCREDIBLE. His free course was worth every second, and while his focus is Amazon's ads, called AMS, he has excellent information on marketing in general that anyone can use. You can get his course information here.
Also, just like anything in the 21st century, a quick Youtube search will bring up many videos that walk you through marketing and starting an ad step-by-step.
If you have a question about anything I said here or know of a resource I've missed, please drop me a comment or send me a message. I'd love to hear from you and whether or not you found this information helpful.
Next week we'll finish up the four-part course on How to Start A Business, and it's going to be a good one. :)
Stay tuned, my friends!
Kathryn
