Biz Tips Blog: Internet Marketing Tips

Direct Marketing Techniques to Sell Your Book

Using Direct Marketing Techniques to Sell Thousands of Copies of Your Book
Wednesday, August 24, 2005, 8:30 p.m. ET
Guest Expert:  Bob Bly of bly.com

One out of three hardcover books distributed to bookstores is returned to the publisher unsold, but you can still make your book a best-seller by selling it through ads, direct mail, and the Internet. In this interview, author and direct response copywriter Bob Bly shows you marketing techniques that can boost your book sales.

Guest: Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter specializing in direct marketing and the author of more than 60 books including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Direct Marketing (Alpha Books)

Register:  www.ConversationsWithExperts.com

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Internet Marketing Strategy

Just read an article on WebProNews about marketing your website (blog) using offline strategies.  I addressed this a few posts ago in a discussion about using postcards and direct mail.  The end of the article specifically states:

On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the card right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site. Brilliant!

I have seen the greatest success in off-line web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically direct mail postcards.

I mailed my first test direct mail postcard last week and received my copy yesterday.  Now, we'll see if any sales result.  It may take a few more touches and I only sent out 24.

Offline Marketing for Your Online Business

"The times they are a changin'."  If you've been marketing online for any length of time, you know it's becoming more and more of a challenge to get your message to your clients and prospects via email.  Fewer emails are being delivered thanks to over-aggressive spam filters, and fewer messages that do make it to your client's inbox are actually being opened.  What's a diligent business person supposed to do to keep reaching new prospects???

I'm taking a class from my mentor, Mike Jay, called Marketing 2.0 Intensive where we are exploring offline marketing tactics.  Specifically, we are learning about direct mail and how to create small, targeted postcard campaigns to create online sales.

Today we created and mailed a postcard campaign to a targeted list of prospects and we did the entire thing online through the United States Postal Service.

First, I downloaded a targeted list of prospects from my database marketing system on Ecomincs.  These are 24 people who attended a free teleclass on blogging, but did not upgrade to the fee-based class and did not buy my Build a Better Blog System ebook, yet.

Next, I wrote the copy for the postcard using copy from the sales page from the ebook and a quote from the recent article in business week about business blogs. For the postcard I used a template from the USPS.  You can see my postcard here.  Feel free to use it as a template for your own postcard campaign.

I set up my account on the USPS website and followed the easy steps to upload my mailing list in a .csv file format and my postcard template in a word doc.  It took me about 15 minutes to set up, upload, review and pay for the card.  I'm sending a test mailing of 24 targeted cards and it cost me $7.02.  That's pretty darn cheap to reach people who most likely still look at their "snail mail."  If I sell only one ebook to this group it will have been well worth the time and investment.

Anyone, anywhere in the world can use the USPS to send a mailing using this technique.  The only caveat is that you can only send to US postal addresses at this time, but apparently they are going to expand to international mailing options soon.

I'll keep you posted on my results.