Ten Ways to Know if Your (Internet) Marketing is Paying Off
Reprinted from Author Marketing Experts NewsletterSo you're out there marketing. You're doing all the right things (or so you think). You're following the book marketing advice of some leaders in the industry. You've got a checklist and you're methodically checking off your goals. But how do you know you're doing everything right? The fact is, most of us don't. Yet we forge ahead, keeping pace with our marketing plan, without ever knowing if it's paying off. We don't see it in sales.
Does that mean it's not working? Not at all. You could be seeing the effects in other places but just aren't keeping track of it.
I find that especially in social media you need to keep a close eye on what's working and what's not. If you've spent *any* kind of time online you know that you can be in front of your computer for what seems like 20 minutes and yet three hours have gone by. If the three hours of marketing is paying off, then it's fine to spend the time. But you need to know the difference. Here are a few things you can review to measure the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of your marketing.
1. Jumping in without a plan: Set clear, measureable goals because most marketing is invisible. Let's face it, you send an email and wonder half the time if the intended recipient got it or if it ended up in a spam filter, never to be seen again. That's the power behind goals. You need them and you need to run your campaign by them. So what are your goals? And no, you may not say sell books. Yes, that factors in - but there are a million small steps along the way before you even get to sales. Consider these goals and see if any of them fit your book, topic, and future:
a. Establish yourself as an expert or get known in your particular field. Hey, maybe you just want to be known as the go-to person for everything related to paranormal romance. That's great and it's a realistic, attainable goal.
b. Increase the visibility of your brand. OK, sort of the same as the bullet before this one but more geared to the non-fiction author.
c. Increase traffic and incoming links to your website. This is a great goal. Whether you are fiction or non-fiction, it's a great focus.
d. Do what makes sense for your book: If your followers aren't on Twitter then why have you spent the last month or so promoting yourself on there? Mind you, Twitter works for most of the books we manage, but there are a few that don't make sense. Twitter skews older than most people think so don't be surprised if your YA reader isn't on there. Before you launch head first into a campaign, make sure it fits your demographic.
2. Neglecting other marketing: I know it's easy to get all a-twitter about Twitter, but what else are you doing to promote yourself and your book? If you're good at events and speaking, are you still focused on that? Don't get too myopic on doing just one thing for your marketing. The truth is, you need to do a lot of different things, balanced out over a week or a month for your marketing to really make sense.
3. Set goals - be clear on what you hope to achieve in social media: What are your goals for Twitter? If it's just about gathering followers then you are missing a big piece of this social networking tool. For many marketing people it's all about the number, but numbers don't make as much sense unless they are driving interest to you and your book. If the numbers keep growing, along with traffic to your website, then you're on the right track. But if you're just growing numbers for the sake of being able to say that you have 10,000 followers then it makes no sense. That's like buying a fancy car you can't really afford. Eventually the debt of it will drag you down. It's the same with Twitter and Facebook and any other social media site. It's not about the numbers. It's about the activity.
4. Be clear on who you are trying to reach: Many of you say you're trying to reach readers, but is that really true? We all want to sell books, but who are you really going after? In all likelihood you will have a variety of different targets you are going after. Consider these: booksellers, speaking opportunities, interviews, bulk sale targets, reviewers, and readers to name a few.
5. Measure effectively: In order to know if stuff is working you'll need to measure effectively. As I pointed out earlier on in this article you may not want to do that by fans or followers - instead consider these ideas as ways to measure your success:
a. Retweets on Twitter: The best sign of success on Twitter is the amount of retweets. Are you getting them and if so, how often? If your tweets are good and your followers are active, you should see a few a week at least (depending on the amount of followers you have). If you're curious about the amount of Tweets that get RT'd - check out retweetrank.com. Twitter Analyzer (twitteranalyzer.com) is another great tool for determining how far tweets have traveled.
b. Site hits: Are the hits to your site increasing? Are you watching your analytics to be sure? If you're not, you should be. Watch your site stats closely and monitor the increase in traffic and where it's coming from.
c. Inbound links: How many new ones are you getting? Did you do a vanity search before you started this campaign? If not, do that now. Make sure you know how many new incoming links you're getting as a result of your efforts.
d. Sign-ups to your mailing list: Are they increasing? If you're doing the right stuff in your social media they should be increasing weekly.
6. Increasing the contacts in your industry: Remember that social media marketing is just like going to a networking meeting. You want to expand your reach and get to know others in your industry. If you're not increasing your reach and contact base, then you need to be. This is another great way to gauge how effective your marketing is.
We always want to make progress in our marketing but we're not always sure how to do it or if what we're doing is making a difference. Follow these steps and see if it doesn't help your marketing momentum. If it's paying off, you'll know sooner rather than later and you can keep doing the good stuff, and punt the bad.
Bonus: additional tools for tracking marketing
Bit.ly: This site serves as both a URL shortener and also as a measurement tool. Bit.ly can help get you real-time results on clicks to links you are posting to Facebook and Twitter.
Google Analytics: If you don't have any back end web analytics (and even if you do), Google gives you a lot of valuable data.
Trackur: This is a great monitoring site to see what's being featured on you online and off. It's not free like Google Alerts, but much more comprehensive. Their basic package is $18 a month.
Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com
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Karen Cioffi
Multi-award Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter, Editor, Online Marketing Instructor, Affiliate Marketer
Writer’s Digest Website of the Week, June 25, 2012
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I write young adult. As Jessica stated, you can't market a book to a young adult audience AND a middle grade audience. They are not the same audience.
YA readership are for ages 12 and up. Certain other YA (which may be racy, more adult themes) is sometimes labeled as 14 and up.
YA is usually not read by 18-25 year olds. They are reading adult books by then, and really, most 18 year olds, not to mention 25 year olds have lives that involve dating, jobs, and college, because of which will not be interested in the teen angst of a 15 year-old main character.
READ in your genre. It is a must for anyone writing YA. Also, be very aware that the YA market eschews "lesson" books. I'm not saying bullying can't be a theme, but many people new to the genre want to "teach" a young adult something. Those are the kind of books that don't get published.
Good luck. Read, read, read!
This raises a question that has been floating around in my head as I become closer to querying. How important is it to get the genre spot-on in the query letter? Specifically, if you are writing a paranormal fiction book, is it life or death to tack on 'romance', 'fantasy', etc.? Thanks for all your great posts, Jessica, they are more valuable than you know!
I like to read what my daughter does, it keeps me on the literary up and up.
I recently read "Numbers" by Rachel Ward. It was posted in the Scholastics book order form from my daughter's school. The grade it was offered to was 6th—that's 11 or 12 year olds.
I liked the idea of the story, but as a parent, I truly was disappointed by it. The middle school target market was unbelievably inappropriate. Honestly, with the violence, the propensity of dark/morbid/suicidal thoughts and sex, it was far from being acceptable for 11 year old hands where the onset of teenage confusion & identity are difficult enough.
Young adult is where it should have been.
I think because it wasn't in the right target market, as a parent, I just didn't appreciate what the author wanted to say.
In my opinion, I would venture to say that if the story sits on the line between genres, it should probably be knocked to the higher one. And if it was meant to be read by the younger age level, it will happen in its own way, possibly via teachers.
Tougher to know age group than genre. Best to visit bookstores and search the shelves for "like" books for age group.
I know a few authors that will vary the genre or sub-genre to the agent queried. Have no idea how that has turned out for them.
I do know that getting genre or age group wrong isn't a killer if your book is strong. It may be a stop read line for some agents, based on a need they are trying to fill, but if the book is well written, they will find room.
My personal advice, don't mention age group in query. In your synopsis, mentioning similar books is oft times acceptable to suggest possible audience.
Douglas--
If you write kidlit and are querying agents, you are expected to know the group you wrote the book for. Especially since lots of agents rep YA but not MG, you need to know in order to target your queries.
MG = Middle Grade, is generally for 8-12 year olds.
YA = Young Adult, is generally for 12-and up. (Most kids read regular "adult" fiction by 15 and up.)
All you have to do is say the book is MG or YA, the agent knows what that means. Clearly, you don't have to make these kind of distinctions outside kidlit.
I'm going to agree with Jessica's assessment. I'm 26, so not too much above what you're targeting as the "older end" of your market, and I would not want to read about these fifteen-year-olds. Or most fifteen-year-olds. The reason I'll read the Harry Potter books, and why I assume many older readers like Hunger Games, is because of the fantasy aspect. We like the elaborate world-building, sense of action and adventure, and so forth. Those things overcome any issues we might have with the young age of the characters. When it comes to books that are more realistic, though...it doesn't have the same appeal to adults.
Still, I think you'd do better aging your characters a year or two and making your book solid YA. That's the best bet for attracting MG readers as well, because many of them will read more advanced books. The reverse isn't as true. YA readers will seldom read down a level because they'll find the book boring or see the characters as childish or fear they'll look childish for reading MG. Remember when you were young, and the kids a few years older than you just seemed SO cool? That kind of sentiment applies to fiction as well; young readers will want to read about characters at their place in life or just a little bit ahead, in general.
Definitely YA, and I'd only change the main character's age if it works for your story. Your target readers are 12-15 years old, and yours isn't the kind of topic that crosses over into adult readership. Few contemporary realistic YAs do.
As the author of a YA historical novel that has crossed over to adult readers and is used in college classes, I can identify certain genres that have crossover potential--fantasy, science fiction, and historical come to mind. The reason is that those genres don't place their characters in standard teenage venues such as school (boarding school seems to be an exception) or parties, or if they do, the teenagers don't stay there very long. Bringing the teen characters into an alternative universe or into an exclusively adult world (as I did with my teen characters) significantly raises the potential that the YA novel will appeal to older readers.
Although I knew it had crossover potential, I chose to query my novel as YA, and my publisher, a small press that published in both, agreed. The book has been widely reviewed in print and online, and only a few blog reviewers have questioned its classification as YA, as opposed to adult fiction.
I'm not reading Harry Potter. I can't stand that stuff!
That level of violence is probably fine for a YA book. MG? Notsomuch IMHO. I was told my books were too light for YA...they were younger. I read YA and see a lot of things that I don't remember reading in YA when I was a kid. (Judy Blume being the exception!) Death, cancer, sex, unplanned pregnancy, and yes, lots and lots of violence.
Great question, and glad to read the answer. I've struggled with a similar situation. My protagonists are young adults (ages16/17) but they become involved in some very adult-level problems. I struggle to keep the book in the YA genre because I can't age my protagonists without destroying the entire premise of the story. So the question becomes, how dark can you go before you've gone past what's permissible for the YA genre. And the problem of readers being willing to read up and not down is key.
Thanks for this post today. It is interesting how a story about youth can be for adults. I think about Sweet Mister and Ellen Foster, two of my favorite books. Oh yes and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
Wow, thanks for the detail response to my question, Jessica, and what a great community you have here - thanks everyone.
From all this, I'm now more confident that:
- my book is YA and not MG.
- adding a year or two to the age of the characters would work and is a great idea.
- within the YA market, i'm not crossing any lines with the subject matter
- I've been careful not to make this a lesson book - thanks, Anon.
For me personally, youth can be for adults, even in a realistic setting (including school), and that this translates to other media such as film (e.g. I still love the movie Stand By Me even though I'm in my 30s), but maybe in the majority of cases it doesn't work.
Thanks again.
The best way to find out if your book is too mature for your audience is to test it on your audience. Get some kids from 14 to 19 to read your manuscript and ask them what they think. I've seen plenty of YA novels out there that toe the line, and they are popular. Readers like to be wowed, and to be taken on an emotional roller coaster. I for one would love to read something like that, even though I'm 22.
25 yr olds lol