Write A Book

Few things can enhance your credibility more effectively than authoring a book. Authors are frequently perceived as subject matter experts in their fields. This notoriety leads to a range of opportunities to generate leads and close new business. Most books provide only modest revenues, but they can help launch a speaking career and get you in front of audiences ripe for your message.

For most people with something to write about, the only thing standing between them and writing a book is time. The best way to get started is simply that: get started. Set aside a few minutes each week for writing. Thirty minutes, an hour, a morning each week. As much time as you can afford. The key is that you start today, and make every effort to keep the writing dates you set with yourself.

Perhaps you want to write, but you really don’t think that your writing is up to snuff. You can always have a book written for you. This is known as ghost-writing, and it is more common than many people realize. With your guidance, a competent ghost writer can research and write a book in your subject area in a relatively short period of time. Prices and terms can usually be negotiated. Most ghost writers will quote a flat fee for their work. You set the prices and keep any monies from selling the book.

Although it can take months or years to find a publisher who will work with you, you can always go the self-publishing route. This means that you will not automatically end up on the shelves of your local bookstores, and you will have to manage the distribution of the book yourself.

You do not have to print hundreds or thousands of copies of your book at one time. Some printers will print your book on demand, one copy at a time. An example is Café Press (cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/books.aspx). For just four-and-a-half cents per page for printing plus a $4 binding fee, you can get your work printed and saddle-stitched. This means that a 150-page book will cost $10.75 to produce. What you charge your customers over and above that price is completely up to you.

Set Up A Web Site

The Internet’s role in promoting and enabling commercial activity is undeniable. And it’s power grows with each passing day. For example, Internet use has recently surpassed TV as the media with the greatest number of hours used per week, for the average person.

Especially if you’re trying to reach a younger audience, there are few media better to make sure that you hit your mark. Statistics released in early 2004 show that 8.8% of girls and 12.2% of boys aged eight to 12 years old have their own web sites. Even more remarkably, according to a BRANDchild study, 22 percent of tweens (kids eight to 14) have already purchased online!

Without question, the Internet will play an even more important role in commerce as these kids grow into income-earning consumers with a full range of interests and responsibilities. Whether your business sells to consumers or other businesses, you can’t afford to ignore the Internet.

There are five basic steps you must take as you put your web site together:

1. Develop a Site Strategy

• Figure out who you’re trying to attract
• Script out the steps you want prospects to take
• Plan how to move prospects through these steps

2. Prepare Your Web Site

• Choose and register your domain name
• Set up a visitor tracking system

3. Use Search Engines and Directories

• Do keyword research
• Optimize your web site
• Submit your site to the major engines
• Deploy a pay-per-click campaign

4. Build 1-to-1 Customer Relationships

• Drive traffic to your site
• Show off your products or expertise
• Get permission to contact them by e-mail
• Promote to them regularly

5. Continuously Test Various Traffic-Drivers

Change the Channel

Though it may seem counter-intuitive to the uninitiated, a strong customer relationship is often much more important than a good product or a low price. If you don’t have the relationship yourself, you may be able to “buy” it using channels.

Effective use of channels – distributors and resellers of your products or services – can open the door to sales that would be impossible to reach on your own.

There are three generic points on the distribution continuum: intensive, selective, and exclusive. Generally, intensive distribution is for commodity products, selective distribution is used where there is moderate differentiation between competing brands, and exclusive distribution is used for specialty goods, where a high-quality image is supported by limited product availability.

Select channel members carefully. Remember that your ultimate customer often sees your partners as an extension of your business. A manufacturer or service provider that prides itself on providing products or services of the highest quality must be very careful about the kinds of channel members that it chooses to sell its offerings. If its products were to be represented by low-status channel members, there could be long-term consequences for its reputation. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but how good could a Porsche be, if it was bought off a Chevy lot?

In evaluating potential channel members, consider candidates’ credit and financial condition, sales strength, product lines, reputation, market coverage, sales performance, management succession, management ability, attitude and size.

Your channel strategy must be compatible with your product, price, and promotional plans. And these must be compatible with your overall goals and objectives. Achieving this kind of balance is what professional business management is all about, and also what makes resounding success such an elusive target.

Create An Audio Program

If you can speak for an hour about a topic related to your business, then you can create an audio program.

Putting your words on tape can help build your business in a number of ways. First of all, it provides a low-cost way to promote your business to potential customers. Once the program is recorded, it costs very little to make additional copies of the tape. Many businesses use tapes as a bait piece to get prospects to identify themselves. It stands to reason that anyone who requests your tape has an interest in its subject.

Another benefit of developing audio programs is that they are an easy cross-sell to customers who have just purchased other products or services. For example, someone who enjoys your seminar might easily pay an additional sum to buy an audio tape that discusses additional points on a subject of importance to them.

The first step in creating an audio presentation is to decide for whom you will create it. Audience selection is of paramount importance, for it influences everything from topic selection to program length to the creative approach employed. After you have chosen the audience, you must select a topic that is of sufficient interest to that market.

Once you’ve selected your audience and nailed down an appropriate topic, create a program outline. An outline is essential to keep you on track and within the time you have selected for your program length. Without one, it is far too easy to start into a rambling, directionless monologue that fails to deliver the impact you intend.

Don’t rule this avenue out just because you don’t think you have the voice to make an audio program. There are plenty of resources around to help produce a quality tape. And it makes no difference that the voice your prospects hear isn’t your own. What matters is that they get to know a little bit about you, you establish credibility, and they think of you when they have a need for the services you provide.

Launch An E-mail Campaign

The Internet has changed a lot of things. The most dramatic among them is how we communicate with each other. Although the Internet is used for research, gaming, and a wide variety of other purposes, the leading Internet activity for both personal and business users is sending and receiving e-mail.

Done right, e-mail marketing can be a highly effective way to get new business. Done poorly, you can quickly alienate an existing customer base, discourage new prospects from ever calling you, or even end up in very expensive lawsuit!

Like any direct marketing approach, e-mail marketing depends upon three fundamental components: the list of recipients, the promotional text (known as “copy”), and the offer. Of these, the most important aspect by far is the list. A bad offer to a good list will always draw more response than a good offer to a bad list.

A mailing list that you compile for your own business’s use is referred to as a “house” list. Because the names on your house list are familiar with your business, house lists are more likely to contain good prospects than rented lists.

One issue of e-mail marketing that you must address is SPAM. In the pyramid of permission marketing, the pinnacle is double opt-in. This is the level to which all professional marketers should strive.

Building a house list through double opt-in permission e-mail marketing consists of the following steps:

• Potential respondents are offered an opportunity to join your list, and voluntarily elect to join (opt-in)


• Respondents receive an e-mail confirmation stating that they or someone else have requested that they be added to the mailing list (confirmed opt-in)


• The confirmation e-mail also asked respondents to reply to the e-mail to confirm their intent to join the list (double opt-in)

Sponsor Someone Else’s Web Site or Portal

One of the keys to successful promotion is finding ways to get in front of prospective customers. With enough money, you can force your way in front of them. If you’re like most businesses, however, it’s not that easy. You’ve got a budget you’ve got to stick to, and it never quite seems to be enough.

Rather than trying to go to them, why not let prospects come to you? In other words, find out where your prospects go when they are looking for information related to what you have to offer, and be there! One way to do this is to sponsor a web site or portal.

A principal advantage of this approach is that you can take your time and review information about a site’s visitors before you select which sites you sponsor. As a result you have complete control, and can literally choose the prospects you want to reach.

Start by determining exactly whom it is you want to reach. If you are a consumer-oriented company, how old are your typical prospects? Are they male or female? Are they married or single? If you sell other businesses, what sort of company is your best prospect? What is the typical title of the person who makes or exerts significant influence over the buying decision?

With this information in hand, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes. Think about where they go when they are looking for information related to what you have to offer. If you sell supply chain management systems, for example, you may be able to sponsor the e-commerce portal on E-Commerce World (ecomworld.com). Many sites such as this allow companies to pay to sponsor e-mails, pages, or whole sections of the site. Doing so not only gets your message front and center before your prospect, it can also lend an air of credibility.

Buy Pay-per-Click Search Engine Listings

Search Engines are the number one way that people find web sites. A shocking 41% of Internet users find sites this way. They are used much more often than simply guessing the URL (28%), word of mouth (13%), online advertising (10%), or print advertising (10%).

A key aspect that makes search engines a "killer app" for marketers is the fact that people only use them when they are looking for something. When someone searched for "Chicago museums", it is pretty clear what they are trying to find. There is no better way to reach people who have a direct and current interest in what you have to offer.

But simply being listed on an engine isn’t enough. As searchers seldom scan down past the first page of listings, it pays to pay to be a top-ranked site.

Pay-per-click engines allow us to do just that. Simply put, pay-per-click let's us choose exactly how high we want to be in the search engines results listings.

The price we pay for the rank we want is determined by auction, and depends on how much competition there is for the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to our businesses. Whatever you do, make sure that you bid enough to be the first- second, or third-ranked site in Overture’s pay-per-click search engine listing. If you are, your site will be carried over to a number of other search engines as well, dramatically increasing your exposure.

To get started with a pay-per-click campaign, take a look at Overture (overture.com)[1]. They are the leading PPC engine, and an excellent place to get started. You will find clear instructions there about what to do first.
Here are a couple of web resources that every search engine marketer from the neophyte to the aficionado should know about: Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Watch (searchenginewatch.com), and Bruce Clay’s site (bruceclay.com). They both provide plenty of information about all types of search engine strategies.

[1] Now a Yahoo! company.

Negotiate Reciprocal Link Exchanges

If you have a web site, a fundamental goal should be to get more visitors. Although you should promote your site offline as well as online, it is often far easier to get someone to your site if they are already sitting in front of their computer and browsing the Internet. If you can make it easy for people to click over to your site without having to type in your web site address, you’re a step ahead of the game.

One way to do this is by developing a series of reciprocal links. Take a good look at other web sites frequented by your ideal prospect. In return for a link to your site, offer to provide one to theirs.

When other site owners create links to your site, they create opportunities for more visitors to find their way to your site. It’s really that simple. The more links that exist, the more ways there are for visitors to find you. Think of your web site as you would a physical store. You wouldn’t want to be the only business down a dead-end street, would you? Neither should you want to have only one way into your online store.

There are other reasons to seek out link exchanges. Some search engines - notably Google, the 800-pound gorilla - base their decisions about how high to rank sites on link popularity. In essence, the more links that exist to your site, the more likely it is to out-rank competitive sites that the search engines believe are not as popular.

Be judicious in your choice of partners, though. Just getting traffic isn’t enough. The key is to get links from sites that are visited by the people you would most like to have visit your site. Ask prospective partners for the nitty-gritty details on who visits their site, how often, where they come from and whether or not they buy. Only then will you be informed enough to make the best decisions you can for your unique site and situation.

Give A Book Review

From a book-buyer’s perspective, one of the best parts of leading online bookseller Amazon.com is the many customer reviews that accompany most book listings. An invaluable supplement to the authors’ own descriptions of their works, these third-party critiques add insights from others who have read the books, and often help buyers decide if the book will be of interest to them.

They also provide an opportunity for the reviewer to get a little bit of exposure. For example, at the time this Handbook was written, the following bio appeared as a book review for the book “Influence: The Science of Persuasion” by Dr. Robert Cialdini:

“Name: Michael Netzley
Reviewer Rank: 7906
About me: Michael is an independent communication consultant and management communication faculty member living in Asia and Europe. He currently serves as the President of GoldPoint Strategies, Inc. GoldPoint offers its clients an international perspective on communication strategy issues.
Michael also serves on the faculty of Singapore Management University, the Helsinki School of Economics (Finland) and the Bled School of Management (Slovenia). Michael specializes in communication strategy and persuasion …”.

You get the idea.

Book reviews build your credibility in two ways. First, your own words give you an opportunity to illustrate your critical thinking ability. Second, you gain credibility through your association with a good author or book.

Although any book review will get you some exposure, it makes the most sense to focus on reviewing books that are relevant to your field, and likely to be of interest to your target market. You can get started writing reviews today, and write as little or as much as you like in each review.