The 3 Things I Learned About Marketing

One of the things writers/authors tend to loathe is promotion.  We’re little fish in a big, ol’ soupy pond of poetry and short stories and vampire novels and John Grisham and self-help books and the latest celebrity autobiography.  Not only that, we are competing with other news and things that have nothing to do with the literary world (this week was mainly Kate Middleton’s royal baby, memes about Kate Middleton’s baby, baby name speculation, and George Zimmerman).  Amidst all the celebrity gossip, George Takei witticisms, and big literary news (see last week’s post), it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.

So, we have to do our best to drum up support and keep twittering/blogging/posting updates on Facebook in order to keep our names alive and our images fresh.  All this, while trying to write the next great American novel.

And you don’t have to be an aspiring writer to know how this feels.  I also run a small photo booth company with my brother and we are going through the same thing: How does a small-time company/person fight their way into the market while competing with the big dogs–the established corporations and big-name celebrities?

One of the secrets: your marketing infrastructure.

Building your marketing system is a lot like building a series of roads.  You need quality, logical connections that are user-friendly and make people want to say, “Yes, I’ll take a drive down this road!  Seems like a good way to travel.”  My first stab at creating my marketing infrastructure was a jumbled mess.

The pieces were in place, but they were not logically connected and were fairly uninteresting.  I was so excited that I finally had an author page and a Twitter account, that I didn’t think about how they fit together in the larger scheme of things.  How did outsiders see my website or Facebook page?  Would somebody make a logical leap from my blog to my LinkedIn profile?  Would they want to?

The second time around, I’ve figured a few things out.  I’m not a marketing expert (although I do some free-lance marketing for one of my many side-jobs), but I do know a thing or two about website/page aesthetics and drawing positive attention to your marketing infrastructure.  Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Names and name-recognition are huge.

This is part of the reason I decided to start using a pseudonym in my writing (see last post for more on this).  I wanted something a little more snappy and recognizable (not to mention spell-able!) than my real last name.  Somehow, it worked for Chuck Palahniuk, but it wasn’t working for me.  After establishing my new name, I made sure everything–all my marketing platforms–connected back to it.  Hence, www.katebitters.com, @katebitters, www.facebook.com/AuthorKateBitters.  You get the idea.  Previously, my website, blog, Twitter account, etc. had names that were all over the place.  Unfortunately, my blog doesn’t follow the pattern, but I decided not to start over and did this little trick instead:

http://katebitters.blogspot.com/

Clever, no?  That way I don’t have to start from scratch and people will still be directed toward my actual blog via the blog with my name attached to it.

So, the highways are connected.  But why would people want to drive on them?  What’s special about your roads?  The destinations.

2. Create interesting, consistent content.

Maybe you noticed: When I first created this blog, my posts were all over the map.  Most vaguely related to writing, but some were really just about me or whatever I was thinking about at the moment.  Not too smart if you want to foster a loyal readership.  Yes, create a variety of content, BUT make sure it stays true to your mission.

Don’t have a mission or a goal for your blog?  Create one.  Otherwise, you’ll just be floundering around, posting about dinner or your lovely day at the beach.  People like a blog with a purpose.  Like JourneyWoman.com: a blog with the specific goal of becoming the online travel resource for women.  All posts relate back to this topic and target a specific, loyal audience.

So, we talked about consistency.  Great.  That’s a good start for your blog/Twitter/Facebook updates.  But there’s a second, crucial element you almost must consider: Is it interesting?  Of course, this is a completely subjective criterion, but my rule of thumb is: Would I read this?  If not, that’s a bad sign for your audience.

In sum, consider the “interest” factor when you’re posting and DON’T over-post.  Despite what Twitter experts say, there is such a thing as too much.  I recently stopped following Bob Collins on Twitter because I was tired of getting thirty updates an hour about Obama’s latest speech or the Timberwolves’ game he was watching.  Just watch the damn game, Bob!  I don’t need your analysis every time someone misses a basket!  Whew.  That felt better.  How about one more tip?

3. Remember: We live in a visual world

This point goes along with creating interest.  What are people interested in today?  (Not necessarily reading…which makes my profession extra-challenging!)  Today’s audience is most captivated by short videos and images.  Visual media break up the monotony of words and re-capture your readers’ attention.  They also lend support to what you’re saying.  For example, if you are blogging about the mass extinction of honey bees, a pile of dead bees will likely stir more emotions and give more credence to your argument than if you were to merely describe the bees’ troubles.

Will Steger used this tact when I saw him speak at the Nobel Conference at Gustavus in 2007.  His speech was on witnessing climate change first hand through his arctic explorations.  He gave many compelling arguments about the validity of climate change and we all nodded gravely in agreement, letting some of the facts stick in our brains, while most of them sailed in one ear and out the other.  Then, he showed us a photograph of a dead polar bear and you could feel the oxygen leave the room as we all gasped.  Woah.  There it was: one of the outcomes of climate change lying dead on the ice.  It was a powerful image and I’ll never forget it.

Remember, it is also important to have an aesthetically-pleasing marketing base.  What I mean by that is this: create a beautiful, sleek website, blog, Facebook page, etc. that is interesting, but not too busy.  There are plenty of articles on how to do this, so I won’t get into the specifics here.  Just keep in mind that your pages should be (above all) captivating and easy to navigate.  I spent an insane amount of time redesigning my new blog header, but I am incredibly happy with the result.  The investment was worth it.

I could go on, but let’s end it here!  Maybe I’ll come back to this topic in a later post.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep working on my marketing infrastructure until it’s cohesive and logical.

Best of luck to you in your marketing endeavors!  It is possible for little fish to thrive in the big, scary pond.  All we need is a little strategy and a lot of follow-through.