Important Tools for Booklet Authors

Depending on your personality style, you're drawn to particular methods of promotion and sales for your booklets. Email and the Internet have presented easy, endless, and economical possibilities to reach a broader audience of targeted decision makers. That's become so much the case that now the very "yesterday" approaches have turned into the more effective ways. Here's two cases in point, from among the many possibilities you can consider or re-consider:

* Telephone - when someone emails a question or comment to me about booklets, and their phone number or website address is in that email, my immediate reaction is to pick up the phone and call them. This has brought more sales and loyal followers than I can tell you. First, it shocks the living daylights out of them that I called, especially when the call was 2 seconds after they hit "send" on that email. The call personalizes the interaction and allows us to explore what it is that best suits their want at that time. Sales often happen, either immediately or sometime later.

* Face to Face
<> Workshops and seminars, either as an attendee or as a speaker, allow an interaction that's even better than telephone sometimes. People are there because of their interest in the event, which says something right away. And they paid something to be there, even if it was connected to the transportation.

<> Add food or drink into the mix and it makes the connection stronger. You also have the opportunity to show and tell with booklet samples in hand.

<>Formal in-person presentations to large quantity decision makers, without food or seminar involved are also warranted at times. You've probably done these, as have I. The conversation usually starts by phone or a face to face somewhere and moves on to the formal meeting.

<>And then there are the endless number of networking groups, which require great focus to accomplish the outcome you want.

While I love email and the Internet, and I'm likely to keep those as a mainstay of my marketing, it makes no sense to ignore the results that come and will always come from that more personalized one on one approach. Pick up the phone and see what happens for yourself!

Until next time,
Paulette - noticing how the old becomes new again

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Describe Your Booklet

If/when you describe your tips booklet, what do you say? Do you talk about the size of it in pages or dimensions? Do you use words that focus on how it will be helpful to the reader? Does it really matter?

Yes, it does. How it helps the reader/buyer is all that matters, in fact. Who cares if the cover is white and the title is in purple ink? And so what if it's 16 pages? The reader could find something important on one page, or on no pages!

Think about this the next time you describe your booklet. Say how it will be helpful instead of how it was constructed. That's how you best serve your buyer and how you best serve yourself with more sales.

Until next time,
Paulette - reminding you (and me) that it is always about how it benefits the buyer

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklets and Other Stuff - Why Don't They Buy?

You may know I'm a huge fan of Marcia Yudkin and her work. This week's Marketing Minute hit the nail on the head so precisely on an issue you've probably had that I couldn't help but bring it to you. Here's her Marketing Minute from this week, in full. Subscribe to it yourself. It's one pearl after another each week.
=============================

          ** The Marketing Minute **
    brought to you every Wednesday by Marcia Yudkin
       Marketing Consultant, Author, Speaker
         http://www.yudkin.com/marketing.htm
            http://www.marketingformore.com
            http://www.pressreleasehelp.com
              http://www.namedatlast.com
               mailto:marcia@yudkin.com

                *******************

If you've ever wailed "Why don't they get it?" because
people who clearly need your services don't flock to buy,
try this typology on for size.

Group 1:  They have a problem but do not realize they have
a problem.

Group 2:  They realize they have a problem but understand it
very differently than you do.  For example, you'd diagnose a
midlife crisis, but they consider their wild behavior and
anguish a marital problem or career dilemma. 

Group 3:  They know they have a problem and understand it
roughly as you would but call it something else.

Group 4:  They know they have a problem and understand and
name it as you do.

Members of Group 4 are the easiest to get in the door as
clients.  Group 3 are also easily snagged as long as you
discover and use their words.

Group 2 require more imaginative educational outreach, as
they are looking for a different sort of solution or tool
than you offer.

Stop trying to reach Group 1, the oblivious, as they will
never seek you out or respond to your marketing.

                *******************

RESIZZLE YOUR BUSINESS:  Last week's Marketing Minute
prompted several emails from readers wondering how they can
revamp their business with a more current rationale.  I'm
putting together an intensive "rebrand your business"
coaching program this summer for a limited number of
participants. 

To receive the description of the program in a few days,
press "reply" and tell me your marketing challenge.

Missed last week's Marketing Minute?  You can find it at
http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm .

                *******************

IMPLEMENT A PLAN:  If your business is properly positioned
but you're flailing (and therefore failing) in marketing it,
my mini-marketing plan gives you feasible, coherent to-do's
tailored to your goals and target audience.

Details:
http://www.yudkin.com/marketingplan.htm

                *******************
If you enjoy The Marketing Minute, please forward it to
friends and colleagues.  It comes to you every Wednesday
from publicity and marketing consultant Marcia
Yudkin, author of Web Site Marketing Makeover and
10 other books.  P.O. Box 305, Goshen, MA 01032.

For a free weekly marketing tip, subscribe: 
http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm

=================

So, do YOU get it?

Until next time,
Paulette - who loves learning from colleagues like Marcia

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklet Benefits

What's the benefit of your booklet to the recipient? That seems like a simple question, yet one that many booklet authors never consider. It does get somewhat complicated, too, when your buyer is a corporation or association or website rather than the end-user.

So let's back up here for a moment. You write your booklet because you have information to share, whether from your professional life or personal life. You write your booklet because you want it to market your business and/or to bring in new revenue directly by selling it. Okay, so those are the benefits to you, the author.

Back to the benefits to the recipient. The large-quantity buyer and the end-user do have some similarities in how the booklet benefits them, or rather CAN benefit them. It will make their life more, better, or different in some way. The booklet can make the large-quantity buyer's life better as a vehicle to help them sell more of their own product or get their own word out there further. The booklet can make the end-user's life better by bringing new knowledge to them that will enhance their life.

It is ALL about the benefits of your booklet. Keep that in mind when talking with anyone and you are very likely to benefit by selling a whole lot more booklets.

Until next time,
Paulette - bringing good stuff to better serve people

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklet on Tips for Parenting

Amazing grasp of the obvious alert: Some booklet topics have broader appeal than others. The breadth of the topic can be the good news or the bad news, depending on how you approach it. You've certainly heard about the importance of creating a niche, of narrowing your focus. Right now there is a Collection of Experts tips booklet forming, bringing together the respective niche expertise about parenting. It's a fascinating process for me to observe and to facilitate. The most obvious divisions are based on the ages they are discussing. Additional divisions are within those age groups, based on challenges to address. It becomes a matter of endless possibilities. Half the 14 slots in this booklet are filled, and going fast. If your expertise is about parenting, grab one of the places for yourself. And you get some freebie things for participating, too, along with 13 other people marketing you. Let me know any questions you have, or just jump right in through the link on Parenting Tips at the bottom of www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Until next time,
Paulette - grateful for the education my clients give me

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Tips Booklets - Who Turned Up the Volume?

The past two weekends have been unusual. It's been a lot of sensory overload, with tons and tons of ideas. Ok, so it's not possible to truly weigh ideas. That wasn't meant to be literal. Anyway, two weekends of multi-day events about marketing, attended as a student. The good news is the dozens and dozens of new connections (both nationally and internationally, by the way) and ways of looking at what can be done. Lots of "what," with some "how" thrown in.

Yes, I know I shared with you last week about the first of these two weekends. Read on to get the full dosage, though.

It's important to shake things up once in awhile, especially these days. One of several themes going on at these events was the importance, the requirement, of doing things differently than we've done before. It can take a lot to look objectively at what you (and I) do and have done for a long time. After all, I do booklets. That's what I do. Yeah, that's swell. And what ELSE do I do?

Years ago while doing my undergrad degree as a classical musician, the president of the college said "you go to a concert to hear two things -- what you like, and what you don't like." Same reason to get out of the office to events like these two. It's a golden opportunity to see some new ways to do things that I would like, and a great chance to see things I don't like.

I found contacts to explore doing international licensing of my booklet, and maybe act as an agent for some other booklets in that same vein. Another person asked if I was interested in customizing my home study course for two particular industries, in substantial quantity. Uh, hell yes! By the way, I had been all too close to that one for way too long to even see that possibility.

Then the Internet. Some of what was discussed has zero appeal to how I'm constructed and what appeals to me. Oher ideas were ones bearing more investigation because they initially resonated. There were speakers who were more and less appealing in what they offered and how they offered it. I went to one of the events because I wanted to meet some of the speakers whose names had been familiar for many years yet we'd never shaken hands.

If you're wondering whether I've decompressed from all of this yet, it's a resounding NO. Bits and pieces are getting done while savoring several of the ideas I want to implement sooner rather than later.

In a few weeks, I'll be in NYC for the week, presenting some workshops this time. You better believe you'll learn a whole lot more than the last time you were at one of my sessions! Here's the link to sign up today for the NYC workshop. You'll definitely want to be there.

http://www.tipsbooklets.com/nyc2009.htm

Next time you've run out of ideas or into a wall, go to a workshop. Meet some people. Get some new ideas. Then you can figure out what to do first!

Until next time,
Paulette - happy to have gone

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign