Authors: Use E-mail to Promote Your Books
Editor’s Note: This article was written for businesses—but it works very well for authors too. Author Marsha Egan added a comment. Read it and see how it applies to ways authors can use email to promote their books, etc. Then read the rest and learn a lot of helpful things about email–a technology we can’t live without that however has also become a tremendous consumer of time and productivity.
Interruptions for an author can mean that a brilliant idea “went out the window.”
See our review of Marshal Egan’s book.
The Inbox Detox: And the Habit of E-mail Excellence—reviews.armchairinterviews.com/reviews/inbox-detoxand-the habit-of-email-excellence
The E-mail Marketing Advantage
By Marsha Egan, celebrated author, keynote speaker, facilitator, and ICF certified professional and career coach, Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC, CEO of The Egan Group, Inc.
Especially for Authors:
Email is an effective tool to help authors market themselves and their writings.
• As an example, it is an inexpensive way to announce the release of a new book.
• Emails can be sent regionally to announce book signings and tour engagements.
• Some authors have used email to successfully poll readers for information contained in their writings.
• The opportunities are endless – email is an efficient, effective, and inexpensive way to communicate.
Great marketing can take many forms.
The technology gift of e-mail is an opportunity great marketers should not miss. E-mail is very inexpensive. It is efficient. And when managed correctly, it can be a very effective marketing tool.
In days gone by, marketing via mailings, billboards, radio, or TV were expensive. E-mail is not. Comparatively.
The use of e-mail, in combination with a database management program, can be a boon to any business’s marketing efforts. Using database management software, such as Act or GoldMine can enable personalized e-mailings, diaries, and maintenance of records of contact with your clients and prospects.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many authors fine a simple email “group” works for their uses—but be sure to always use blind copies. Do NOT show the emails of everyone you are sending to.
Here are a few examples of how you can use these technologies to your marketing advantage:
Categorize contacts: I recommend to my clients that they categorize the contacts in their database into different levels, such as A, B, C, and D. Your A contacts are your top priority contacts – these are contacts who you may want to stay in touch with on a monthly basis. Your B contacts could be those that you care to write on a quarterly basis, and so on. With a database manager, is very easy to sort and identify the contacts who you have not touched, or to set follow-ups to assure that you don’t miss an opportunity.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: For authors, this concept works too, dividing out personal friends, business, media, etc. so you can vary your message if desired.)
Personalized mail merges: Using your database manager in combination with your e-mail system, you can insert personalized fields into a mail merge so that the e-mail has a personal touch, using the person’s first name, town or place of business. Many of the database managers automatically record the subject of the e-mail into the contact’s record, without you having to enter it separately.
Sharing your contact information: By having all of your contact information in your e-mail signature on every e-mail correspondence, you in able your customers and prospects to easily transfer your information into their databases. I recommend to my clients that whenever they meet a new prospect, and receive a business card, they send an e-mail – not a letter – to the contact within 24 hours. This not only assures that that person’s information is now in your database, but you have just given them a very easy way to do the same with your contact information.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Same thing for authors. Capture the names, get the emails on your list and be ready to communicate with them quickly, easily and often.
Negative Side: While e-mail and database technology can be a real advantage, beware of the traps and the negative side of using e-mail.
1) Foremost, never spam your prospects or clients. It just isn’t right. If you do it, it will hurt your marketing efforts – not help them.
2) Proactively manage your e-mail, rather than having it manage you. One of the biggest challenges in dealing with e-mail is the mishandling and mismanagement of it.
While the e-mail technology itself could be the best thing since sliced bread, the people side of misusing e-mail has become a real challenge. People have developed nasty e-mail handling habits that have severely sabotaged their productivity, and truly gotten in the way of their ability to achieve their business goals. And that includes you and your marketing efforts.
Examples of those nasty sabatoging habits include:
• Allowing yourself to be interrupted by an individual e-mail as it is received–reacting instantly to whatever sound you hear when a new email arrives. Hearing and reacting to “You’ve got mail” is only cute as the title of a Tom Hanks romantic comedy.
• Holding a large number of e-mails in your Inbox, forcing you to review and sort through these items many more times than necessary.
• Surfing your e-mail for “quick hits,” items that can be handled quickly, regardless of their importance.
• Spending an inordinate amount of time trying to find e-mails
• Sending e-mails to yourself as reminders to get things done, rather than using the technology available in your e-mail system.
If any of these sound familiar, you more than likely have an opportunity to make space for more important efforts – including marketing your business.
The reality is that many of these actions have turned into habits we have brought on ourselves. And we have a choice of ingraining productive habits instead of energy-sapping habits. So, the better we can manage ourselves and the way we manage our e-mail, the more our marketing efforts can benefit or even flourish.
Here are some of the tips that are contained in my popular e-book, E-mail Self – Management Solutions:
1. Turn off “Automatic Send and Receive.” This is a feature that is available on most e-mail systems, and it allows you to control when you receive your e-mail, rather than notifying you every time an e-mail is received in your system. We recommend that you set your “Automatic Send and Receive” to a minimum of 90 minutes.
2. Keep your inbox clean. By viewing the inbox only as a receptacle to receive work, and taking all items received and filing them in places that you can access to determine your daily, weekly, and/or monthly plan, you will take control of your work – rather than it controlling you.
3. Set times to work your e-mail. When you schedule time to handle your e-mail in your daily schedule, it becomes part are of your work, rather than an interruption.
4. Work your e-mail into your daily planning process. Instead of viewing e-mail as a task, view e-mail as a deliverer of other tasks to be done. Meld the tasks you receive by e-mail into the tasks you receive from other sources, whether it is your boss, the telephone, US Postal Service mail, etc.
5. Believe that you control your e-mail. Too many people take a reactive approach to e-mail, and have become romanced by reacting to and handling e-mails that may or may not be important or significant. They get their jollies by checking them off the list, rather than by dealing with what is important. When you take control of your e-mail, you have taken back your life.
By making space for, and working on what is truly important, you will be able to take your business to the next level. Obviously, you believe that marketing is a key aspect to your business, or you would not be reading this article. Therefore, making the time to market your business is key to your success.
Use the technology. Invest in database management software. Creatively use that software to market to your clients and prospects. And build effective, proactive habits that will help you manage all that e-mail you will get from interested clients and prospects!
About the author:
Celebrated author, keynote speaker, facilitator, and ICF certified professional and career coach, Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC, CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., is an expert in maximizing email productivity for individuals and organizations. She is author of the Inbox Detox, Acanthus Publishing, 2009, http://eganemailsolutions.com/inboxdetox.html and regularly blogs about email productivity at http://inboxdetox.com . Named one of Pennsylvania’s 50 Best Women in Business, Egan is a leadership development expert who helps her clients achieve their lofty goals.
Egan can be reached at mailto:marsha@marshaegan.com