There was a band that made friends with a morning disc jockey by sending him custom song clips for his radio show. The songs were frequently silly, but the disc jockey used them and always credited the band.
Over several months, the band became well-known in their community, their shows started selling out, and they were booked more often. Interestingly, their own music was never played on that radio station.
There’s a similar dynamic at work when a reporter uses you regularly as an expert to comment on, and in, a story, as opposed to being the focus of the story. Rick Frishman explains how to become such a source in his article, It’s All About News.
Of course, it’s always a good idea to build relationships before you need them. Your book promotion efforts can be much more effective if you begin with a service attitude and help your reporter do a better job of thoroughly telling the story.
Bryan Eisenberg makes a good point in his article, A Land Beyond Usability: A smooth road to nowhere still gets you nowhere.
And no matter how many obstacles you remove to make your website easy for your visitors to use, you don’t want them to simply become more proficient users.
Bryan compares this to taking a road trip. Making your site more usable only gets rid of the obstacles to driving: the potholes, bad signage, dead ends. Usability makes it easier for your customers to go places comfortably and smoothly, with minimal interruption. (/span>
But it can’t help them go where they should be going—to buy something from you.
As Bryan says, just because users know how to purchase on your site doesn’t mean they’re going to. It doesn’t mean you’ve delighted them, or that they’ll ever buy from you again.
And isn’t your goal to sell something and create a new, delighted customer—as well as create an enthusiastic new follower, a fan, a member of your marketing platform?
In Bryan’s article, he tells you how to help your website visitors buy—instead of letting them choose to go bye-bye.
Can you teach greatness? Unfortunately, no.
It can, however, be learned. Anyone can observe greatness around him and be inspired by it. One must also be willing to risk ridicule in order to be different enough to draw attention to the brilliance of the performer.
Lucy was largely unnoticed until, at a turning point in her acting career, she reached inside herself to find the essence of comedic brilliance. In his article, Are You Willing to be Weird?, Roy H. Williams explores the greatness of Lucille Ball: “Excellence … can be achieved only by breaking away from the pack,” which he admits is also the way to fail in spectacular fashion. “Most people just walk the middle path and wonder what might have been.”
Perhaps avoiding that middle path is the key, whether you’re attempting to become a television star or trying to build a marketing platform for your book. If you’re not willing to be different, how will you even be noticed? And how will your book be noticed?
As a specialist in your field, you know a lot about your industry and about yourself. If I had a problem in your area of expertise, and I knew what you know about your abilities, I’d call you for help.
The problem is that most of us have never shared the things we know about ourselves. We’ve never even organized those things, usually. And that’s the topic Bryan Eisenberg addresses in his article, Uncovering Solid Foundations for Persuasive Architecture.
Bryan explains the “Uncovery” process and why the person who’s responsible for the outcome of the process (that’s YOU) must be the only voice heard at this early stage of the persuasion process.
The Uncovery process is frequently the first step in persuading your readers that you are a leading authority in your field. You are such an authority, aren’t you?
Making that plain and accessible is the first major step in the Uncovery process of Persuasion Architecture—and the first sure step toward increasing your marketing platform.
Most authors who try to get news coverage for their books come away disappointed.
Rick Frishman has written an article on learning the rules of news titled, Educate Yourself About the Media. They’ve found that reporters are always looking for story ideas, but that they respond better to story submission ideas that appear to come from professionals.
What makes a story newsworthy for an editor is that—
- the story is fresh enough to be considered news.
- a large number of people will be affected by it.
- the story happened close to where your audience lives.
- the story is about someone who matters to the audience.
- there’s enough human interest to generate emotion from the audience.
Editors also want reassurance that your story will “fit” the context of their publication or broadcast.
Book promotion stories don’t automatically make news, but learning the rules gives you a better chance to get the story told about your book.
Recording Vote ...