Surprising benefits of launching a book — for the whole marketing funnel
When I wrote a book, I expected it to generate leads for my business. This is also a goal for 30% of the business authors I surveyed, so it’s not unusual.
Even though the book has only been out for a few weeks, it’s delivered benefits for my consulting business that go far beyond book-generated leads. If you write and promote a decent book, you can likely expect many of these same benefits, even if your book is not a hot seller.
I’ll analyze these benefits based on the classic marketing funnel, which tracks prospects from awareness to consideration to commitment.
Leads beyond the book
Book promotion expands your visibility. You’re going to be posting bylined articles, getting interviewed on podcasts, making TV appearances, and giving people all sorts of excuses to share your perspective and your content.
Do this right, and you’ll appear to be everywhere (at least for people in your target market). That means more people know about you, even if they don’t read the book.
I’m starting to see leads based solely on the halo of the book promotion effort, not the book itself. That expands the flow at the top of the funnel.
Content marketing from within the book
Writing a book forces you to nail down your perspective on the problems that matter to your audience. Your book will include “set pieces” on many topics of that type.
For example, my book includes sections on how to conceive an idea, how to choose a publishing model, and how to write a chapter.
Now, when a potential client has a question on those topics, you can just say “Read Chapter 5.” Or point them to a blog post that covers the same topic clearly and powerfully, because you refined the concept for publication in the book.
This moves people from awareness to consideration in the funnel. They think “Ah, this person has just the knowledge I need.”
Credibility that radiates from the book
Three times in the last month, I’ve closed deals with prospects considering working with me. These deals will generate more than $100,000 for my business. And that’s after the book has been out only one month.
The book didn’t necessarily bring these clients to the table. But when I pitch them and interview them, I say, “I literally wrote the book on this. It was endorsed by 50 successful business authors and has 31 reviews on Amazon, all five stars.”
Even if they never crack open the book, this is powerful proof that I know what I’m doing. It helps them feel like working with me is the right decision.
Your book’s focus and quality make all the difference
Unless your book is aimed at specific audience that has a specific problem, these dynamics won’t work. “I wrote a book” isn’t what generates leads and consideration and credibility. “I wrote the best book about how to solve your problem”: that’s what works.
The effort you put into the quality of your book’s content — and how you market it — is what makes books effective at driving business. It’s a lot of work to get it right. But it pays off for a long time.
I’m a novelist. My ‘process’ for writing is quite different from most other writers’. I’ve toyed with the idea of cleaning up some of the 600+ blog posts I’ve generated since 2012, and doing MY book on ‘How to write novels.’
But I will have NO ultimate purpose, no workshop to publicize, no classes or Youtube videos to promote.
The ONLY thing I want to promote is the first two volumes of my mainstream literary trilogy – and create a bigger audience for the finished version (which may take me five more years).
Well, that, and a general unhappiness at other people telling me how to write, edit, publish…
I’ll figure out how NOT to do that, and I’m wondering if it would be worth the effort of producing yet another book on writing, even if the perspective is different, so that I can inhabit TWO tiny niches instead of one.
Thoughts on whether it’s worth the considerable effort?
Beyond the obvious one of a side project for the long dark nights of writing and polishing fiction.
Regarding your plan to write a book on how to write a novel: what do you know that no one else knows, and what qualifications do you have that will add enough credibility to make people want to read it?
Those are the key questions that would determine whether this side project is worth doing.