Ronita Mohan is becoming one of this blog’s favorite guest bloggers—and with good reason! Her posts always have great book marketing tips and ideas. Today, she explains the best ways to market your book this holiday season.
Ronita is a content marketer at Venngage, the online infographic and design platform. She is an avid reader with an interest in mystery fiction, history, graphic novels, marketing, and diversity. Twitter: @Venngage
Top Tips for Marketing Your Book for the Holiday Season
The holiday season isn’t just about snow and families and giving gifts—it’s also a great time for marketing your book.
We have some top tips for holiday book marketing—including what to post on social media and include in newsletters—so you can improve book sales and reach customers well into 2020.
Season’s Greetings
How are your fans and audience going to know that you are participating in the holiday season? A simple gesture is all it takes—share season’s greetings on your marketing channels.
This means sending out a holiday-themed post on your social media and sending a holiday email.
But you can go beyond that. Why not also design holiday cards—with card templates—that fans can send to their families?
You can use imagery from your books or, if you prefer, something simple: you in a festive hat, or your books with festive bows tied around them.
Sharing best wishes for the season is a simple way to remind people that you and your books are just what they need to make their holiday season.
Holiday Advertising
The holiday season is a great time to advertise your books to audiences—people are on the lookout for gift options and a well-placed and timed ad will ensure book sales.
The important thing to remember is that you aren’t the only one advertising during the holiday season—fellow authors, as well as small and large businesses, are also creating ads.
Prices for advertising also increase during the holiday season, while approval times take longer. All of which need to be kept in mind when designing a campaign.
You need to work doubly hard to ensure people see your ad. This means optimizing your Instagram and Facebook ad images, and keeping your text short, to attract people’s attention.
The links you use in your ads should be direct links to your books—such as the direct Amazon link or online shopping links.
The fewer steps in the customer journey, the closer you are to making a sale.
Holiday Stories/ Poems
This marketing idea takes a little bit of work, but it could make a massive difference to how you reach your audience during the holiday season.
Consider creating a holiday-themed short story or poem that you can share on social media or send to your email list.
Not only is a new story or poem relevant content for your audience, but it will give your followers the impetus to buy your books for the holiday season.
Festive Videos
55% of users watch videos online every day, so video marketing is definitely an area that you should invest in for your holiday marketing.
You don’t need to make anything elaborate. A Facebook or Instagram Story shot in front of your holiday tree while you talk about your book should be enough.
You could also create a video gift guide, read a holiday-related page from your book, or share your favorite literary holiday memories.
The aim of this exercise is to engage with your audience aesthetically and thematically for the holiday season while also reminding them that your books will make the holidays special.
Videos are a creative digital marketing platform but remember to include clear calls-to-action and clickable links in your video to improve sales.
Email Marketing
Source: Venngage
We have mentioned how holiday advertising can be an expensive exercise, more so than it is during the majority of the year.
But there is a marketing tactic you can use that doesn’t pinch the pocket as much—email marketing, which continues to be the best marketing platform for ROI.
You can send holiday greetings via email to your subscribers, as well as holiday updates about discounts, gift guides, and reminders about where to buy your books.
Of course, you should keep in mind that most brands up their email marketing during the holiday season, so ensure that your emails are relevant and attractive.
Discounts and freebies will make your emails more lucrative to subscribers—highlight those in your email subject lines and you will see better returns.
If you’re wondering how to build your email list, Nicholas has written a special series on email list-building techniques. You can also check out this exhaustive guide on building an email list by Outwit Trade.
SEO and SERP
No matter what time of year it is, you should be focusing on your SEO—search engine optimization—so that people can find you while searching online.
This is particularly important for people searching for your book titles and author name. Users rarely—if ever—visit the second page of a Google page.
If you are ranking on the first page of Google, a ranking drop during the holiday season could diminish your sales and brand awareness.
Ensure you continue using the right keywords—your book title should be included in the titles and subheadings of blog posts, and at least 2-3 times in the body copy— so your potential customers can find your books on search engines during the holiday season.
If you wish to find out more about SEO, here are some SEO strategies to help you increase your website’s rank.
Holiday Gifting
Holidays are all about gifting and you should be using that as part of your marketing strategy for the holiday season.
According to these blogging statistics, creating relevant blog content is a great way to boost sales during the holiday season.
Which is why you should create a gift guide on your blog, or vlog, as well as on social media, and for your newsletters.
Use an infographic template to create an attractive gift guide that you can post on your blog or social media.
Users are looking for gifts to give their friends and family, and you have the power to make it easier for them by making a gift guide.
Festive Book Sales
You will need to involve your publisher for this marketing strategy, but with a little bit of effort and investment, you could seriously boost your sales during the holiday season.
Ask your publisher to publish your books with festive covers or bundle them in a holiday gift set. If you’re self-published, even better! You can do this yourself.
If not, you will need to bring your best negotiation skills to the table for this strategy, but the possible sales boost should be incentive enough!
If, for whatever reason, this is impossible, speak to your local retailers. Ask them to add your books to the festive sales section, or to add festive sticks or bows on your books.
Making your books more attractive for holiday shoppers is a great way to improve your sales, even though it does take some effort.
Conclusion
The holiday season is an excellent time to sell your books but it does take some marketing to see success.
You can follow the above tips to boost your holiday sales and improve your followers and digital reach into the next year!
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Some great tips and advice, Nicholas