Email marketing is one of the most effective means authors have at their disposal to reach out to their readers and readership base and sell books. However, as opposed to social media, where the algorithms shift all the time, and posts might go unnoticed, emails are courteous and effective at reaching potential and current readers. Through the Email Marketing for Authors, you’ll be able to establish a long-term marketing plan that would actually help propel your book to the market and at the same time foster a good rapport with your readers. In this article, I’ll take a look at 10 best practices for promoting books via email marketing that authors can make use of.
1. CREATE AND SEGMENT YOUR EMAIL LIST FROM DAY ONE
Some of the best email promotions can be initiated way before the book is in a condition for a launch. One of the objectives that any author should long to acheive is the creation of an email list way before the book is published. It enables you to build a personal relationship with your potential readership that will keep them waiting for your next release.
Steps to build and segment your list:
- Offer valuable content: Make people sign up on your email list by appealing to their self-interest, give them something they would like; a chapter from your upcoming book, a short story or sneak peek into your writing style.
- Use social media and your website: Fill your social media profile or website with calls to subscribe to the email list, putting the subscription forms in easily visible locations.
- Segment your list:With the increase in the number of the people on your email list, there will be a need to subdivide it depending on reader interests, age or other attributes like previous purchases. This enables you to share with your followers messages that you know they will be interested in.
Therefore, when you start constructing your list and segment them correctly, you are in a position to develop your campaign to target your audience.
2. Welcome Email Series Tips: How to Write Your Welcome Emails
Welcome email series: For a long-term relationship of trust and discrete communication, it is necessary to start with a few emails. The first few messages to recipients can determine their perception of you as an author, and whether they want to remain on your list, or reject it, unsubscribing.
Key elements of an effective welcome series:
- Introduce yourself and your brand: Introduce yourself as an author; your experience, and what to expect from your emails to the readers.
- Set expectations: Ensure your subscribers understand how frequently you’ll be contacting them and exactly what message you’ll be delivering and that is weekly with the book’s progress and pending issues, information about behind the scenes work done, and occasional special offers.
- Provide value right away: To increase the chances of your post being liked, shared and commented on from the onset, consider giving your readers/followers a reason to value your content – this can be in the form of a free gift or pledge to offer a code for a discount on your book.
- Include a clear call to action (CTA): No matter if you would like your readers to follow you on social networks, write a review for one of your books, or use the pre-order option for the new book, every email in the series should have a specific objective and calls for an action.
A good welcome email campaign can create the perfect base for a dedicated audience willing to invest in your content.
3. Unlocking The Privileged Information
Another great benefit of subscribers on your email list is the fact that you’re offering content that is not on your blog or other social media platform. It does so in a way that gives your subscribers the feeling that they are some sort of privileged group.
Types of exclusive content you can offer:
- Sneak peeks of upcoming books: Time after time, let your subscribers be the first to take a sneak peek into the snippets, cover reveals, or the first chapter of your new release.
- Bonus material: Include additional options for subscribers, enclosing additional scenes, history of characters, or another ending to the show.
- Exclusive interviews or behind-the-scenes access: Reveal aspects of preparing the text, interviewing characters, or can tell stories related to the topic to make readers familiar with you and your creations.
- Free resources or discounts: For subscribers that have been loyal to your books, you can now offer them other books for free or post writing tips, eBooks or even offer some of the future books at a discount price.
Not only do you keep your viewers interested and constantly coming back, but you also will have them open your emails for the long term because you’re feeding them unique stuff.
4. Build Your Own Email Marketing Campaign
People love to receive communication that suits them which means this is a way to establish good relationship with your readers. This kind of message is no longer acceptable where once upon a time a “Dear Subscriber” would suffice. Nowadays, people’s audience expects to receive personalized emails, and personalization can make a huge difference to the open and click through rates.
Ways to personalize your email campaigns:
- Use the subscriber’s name: The easiest form of Personalization is using the subscribers’ name in your subject line or start of the email.
- Segment based on behavior: If a reader has once bought one of your books, then you can send them emails informing them of similar books or free delivery on the next order.
- Tailor content to interests: If a segment of your audience likes a particular genre or theme, share with them content that fits the bill – recommendations, insights or the writing tips in a given genre or theme.
- Personalized calls to action: Instead of having a general category of CTA, take time and create a call to action that directly corresponds to the needs of the reader. For example, “Mystery thriller lovers meet your need here” or “Read mystery thriller novels here.”
This means by targeting people with those specific, original messages, you will be promoting better response rates.
5. Use Automation on the Next Steps with the Leads
Email marketing automation is useful and particularly of interest to authors who wish to build a readership that they can engage even as they continue to write. E-mail autoresponders are a great tool to keep subscribers engaged with no need of you sending each e-mail individually.
Examples of automated email sequences for authors:
- Lead nurturing sequence: Once somebody opts-in to your list, you can create a sequence of messages which introduce a person to you and your books and at the end of the series complete the message with a call to buy your new book.
- Abandoned cart sequence: If you do the sales direct on your website, there can be set a notice with an automated email to be sent to the reader who put your book in cart but did not proceed with the purchase of the book.
- Re-engagement sequence: If subscribers have been inactive on your list, using re-engagement emails should help you reconnect with them and explain to them what they’re missing out on.
It takes time, strengthens the bond with the audience base while guaranteeing that no moment to pitch readers your material is wasted.
6. CTAs: More Than A Call to Action
The major purpose of using email marketing for authors is to sell books and therefore, having clear calls to action. A CTA directly informs your readers what you want from them and this be anything from purchasing your book, signing up for a webinar, or following you on social media.
Tips for creating effective CTAs:
- Be clear and concise: Avoid vague language. However, as per the best practices, the links should not say things like “Read more”, “Click here” or “More information” and phishing links like “Buy Now”, “Pre-order Your Copy”, or “Download Your Free Chapter” are preferred.
- Create a sense of urgency: Promote response by adding phrases which tell a reader that the offer is only valid for a limited time such as: “For the First 100 Readers Only” of “Act Now – Limited Time Offer Only.”
- Highlight the benefit: say what is to be gained by the reader Interests of the reader should also be addressed. For example, “unlock these features for a one time charge, buy today” or “20% discount on your next purchase of a book.”
- Use buttons: Again here, when compared with some text links, buttons are more twenty-four attention earning and likely to be clicked more often. Choose the colors and design that fit into your email template and use bright pop colors for button.
CTAs correctly placed in conjunction with properly designed can considerably enhance your conversion ratios and therefore sales of your books.
7. Be Billing Customers Limited Promotions
Buying incentives for your email subscribers can lead to increased engagement rate and sales. Subscribers always enjoy the feeling of being on the receiving end of that special offer, and applying this technique can help foster the cult like faithful following of your projects.
Ideas for exclusive email promotions:
- Discount codes: Entice your subscribers with an exclusive offer that no other customer will get to know about; the discount on the latest book or the series you are promoting.
- Pre-order bonuses: Offer an autographed copy, special bookmarks, or early access to your next book to those people who pre-order with you.
- Giveaways: Invite your email list to join a lucky draw to win the author’s autographed copy of the book or merchandise or anything associated with your brand.
- *Flash sales: Use basic techniques such as informing your list subscribers of special sales that will last for only a few hours.
Through such offers, which are personalized for a reader who subscribed to your emails, you are not only improving their engagement with your content, but also promoting your books.
8. Maximise The Impact Of Your Emails
Email marketing is managing an art and a science, There is massive proof which shows that consistent and strategic emailing can magically transform business and can even become an essential strategic business tool. If you’re looking to get the most out of your campaigns, you must make necessary changes to several aspects of the campaigns to distinguish which aspects appeal most to your target market. Using A/B testing or split testing you get to divide the audience that you are sending the email to and then test two different versions of the email out on the recipients.
Elements to A/B test in your emails:
- Subject lines: Try out different subjects on your emails to understand which subject attracts the most opens.
- Email layout: Choose a specific email design, for example, a single-column layout and not a multidimensional layout or plain text emails instead of the more flashy and vibrant rich-media HTML emails.
- CTAs: First, try out various CTA buttons, their colors and positions in order to gather data on the results.
- Send times: Introducing the habit of sending your emails during different times of the day and / or week might help you choose the hours when the audience is more active.
With sending out emails regularly, and making certain adjustments to the already sent messages, there are better chances of enhancing the open rates, click through rates and overall conversion rates.
9. Promoting Reader Reviews / Testimonials
Word of mouth and more specifically, the current view and recommendations can impact a reader’s buying decision of your book. Email is a good way to request for review the readers who have purchased your work and they enjoyed it.
How to encourage reader reviews via email:
- Send a follow-up email: Finally, for example, using an autoresponder, email a reader who has bought your book expressing your gratitude and politely asking for a review.
- Make it easy to leave reviews: This must contain URLs to other review sites such as the amazon. The plugin will automatically sync with Goodreads, or your website to make the process as smooth as possible.
- Offer an incentive: As a general rule, you shouldn’t directly ask readers to give you positive feedback for reward since this contradicts most TOVs but you can encourage readers to leave any feedback whatsoever by rewarding them with something like a chance to win a big giveaway or you can give them a discount on your next books.
- Highlight reviews in future emails: Use reader testimonials in your newsletters and request that your subscribers do the same to help create a word-of-mouth effect.
Notably, positive reviews will not only enhance your reputation as an author but will also help to draw attention to, and propel the sales of, your book.
10. How to Review Your Email Marketing Strategy
Organic email marketing – no campaign ends forever. For one to ascertain that his or her hard efforts in email marketing are bearing fruit, he or she should at times analyse the metrics of the email campaigns and modify as may be deemed necessary.
Key metrics to track:
- Open rate: Those who make it to your inbox to even get a sneak peak at the message you’ve prepared for them. Hence if your open rate is poor, it could mean that the subject of your mails require enhancement, or the emails are ending in spam folders.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The number of people who moved from the inbox to the web page by clicking a link within the email. A low CTR may mean that the content of the landing page or of the CTAs you placed is not engaging enough.
- Conversion rate: The proportion of people that actually did the intended action, which could be to buy your book. This one is the most critical, and through which, you estimate results of conducted campaigns.
- Unsubscribe rate: If you see many readers unsubscribe, you might have set too high expectations regarding your emails or you are sending too many of them.
By reviewing these aspects of your campaigns and making necessary modifications to the ways in which you’ve been implementing your email marketing campaigns, you will be able you make steady improvements in your general performance.
Email Marketing for Authors: Conclusion
Through the ability of email marketing to directly target consumers through email notification, the authors can be able to form good relationship and sales of their books. Here are ten successful ideas to help you create your email marketing strategy that will engage your customers and generate sales;-б Collaborate and segment your list, develop an impressive welcome sequence, offer customers a limited content piece, customize your emails, utilize automated campaigns, use great and provoking CTAs, run exclusive special offers and promotions, perform testing on your emails, encourage customers to provide reviews, and analyze their results. It therefore goes without saying that consistency and seeking what really interests your readers, email marketing can significantly boost your authorship endeavours.
Finally, by learning your readership and dedicating time to ensure that you are churning out great articles, you will not only be making more sales but also developing a group of people who are waiting for your next piece.
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