Increase Book Sales of an Author - OMSETGO Case Study

Omsetgo.com - There is a new book being published every 30 seconds. Currently, more than 32 million books are available worldwide. The book industry is indeed a very competitive space. The most famous books will be sold in the quantity of millions of copies. While the rest will only be sold in the number of hundreds or thousands. How much income does an author make?

A research has shown that the median income for all authors worldwide is below $5,000. There are of course exceptional authors like J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter. 'Hybrid' authors who distribute their books with traditional publishing method and also self-publishing make more sales from the rest.

A survey shows that traditionally published authors making a median annual income of $3,000–$4,999, and independent authors a median of $500–$999. So-called hybrid authors, however – those who publish in both ways – did best, earning $7,500–$9,999 a year.

1. Traditionally published authors: The book is published by a publisher.
2. Independent writers: The book is self-published.
3. Hybrid authors: The book is published by a publisher and self-published.

So, how do we actually increase book sales of an author? Digital marketing is the key, whether self-published or published by a publisher.

Imagine an author publishes a book and then expect someone to discover his/her book in a bookstore. It is tough and unlikely for someone to actually be very interested in the particular book when they see it. There are thousands of books in every store. It is unlikely for many people to choose to pick up your book if they do not know you previously.

However, a book has its own advantage. As an information product, it is searchable online if people talk about it in forums or mentioned by bloggers in their posts.

Amazon.com has become a giant e-commerce company and it started with books. Why? People actually search for books online, because looking for a specific book in the store is tiring.

So if you are an author and you are not leveraging on online marketing channels, you are missing out a lot.

Moving on, we will discuss on how authors can improve their book sales.

Increase book sales of an author with more sales and marketing channels:

1. A website is the most important channel an author can have.

A website is customizable according to what the author is all about. It can also be filled with the identity, the story behind the book, blog posts, and a way for readers to directly purchase the book from the website. It is a presence online that an author can control. It is also the place for an author to gain subscribers, loyal readers, and communicating with them time to time. A website is a place where people can know an author better and understand deeply who he/she is, provided the author writes blog posts regularly to share his/her thoughts and updates.

Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup has been raising an awareness about the book through startup community and getting subscribers on its website. Lean startup is a method for developing businesses and products first proposed in 2008 by Eric Ries. Based on his previous experience working in several U.S. startups, Ries claims that startups can shorten their product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and what he calls validated learning.

As of now, The Lean Startup's website has about 100,000 visitors every month, constantly giving them hundreds or thousands of potential buyers every single month.

Now let me ask you a question, does a book without a website can have 100,000 interested viewers per month? Maybe yes, maybe no.

2. Social Media is the way to engage with your readers or potential readers.

Social media is one of the best ways to gain loyal fans and followers. This is the place where an author can talk to their audience and builds a personal brand. Gary Vaynerchuk is the author of the books Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook and CRUSHIT! He uses almost all channels of social media to engage with his audience. Channels include YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

He currently has 180,000 subscribers on YouTube alone.

Gary Vaynerchuk's social media channels are being updated daily.

With all these channels, Gary has created a personal brand that represents entrepreneurship, hustle, and straightforward truth.

Gary's total followers as of 9 April 2016: 2,270,626++

1. Facebook: 554,867 likes
2. Twitter: 1.24 million followers
3. YouTube: 180,759 subscribers
4. Instagram: 295,000 followers
5. SnapChat: ???

Authors have to constantly post updates and engage with their loyal readers with social media, or someone else will do it. Authors are in the business of attention. If you are an author and you have not built a large engaged audience, you are missing out a lot.

3. Sell everywhere: Online stores and offline stores.

If an author has been selling his/her books in a bookstore chain, that is really great. However, there are still many places he/she can sell the book. Look at where The Lean Startup is being sold online: Amazon, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Powell's Books, Borders, Random House. It is even sold in ebook format. Followers have many options to choose from!

Gary Vaynerchuk also sells his books in many channels, you will always be able to find it by a quick search in those online stores.

The idea is to make it very easy for a reader to find the books. The process of finding the book has to be seamless for a potential reader. If it is very difficult to find a book, it will indicate that the book is not famous enough. People believe in famous books, fame indicates value. The more people talk about a book, the more valuable it seems. The more stores selling the book, the more popular it seems.

After the channels are all ready to be used. The next thing to consider is to build an audience or traffic to come to the website, social media channels, and online stores.

Increase book sales of an author with digital marketing campaigns:

1. Search Engine Marketing: Make sure potential readers can find you.

Imagine when someone searches for a particular book and cannot find it in Google. What would he/she think? "The book is not that famous", "Is the book really good?", "Why doesn't it have a website?"

Those are the thoughts that would appear if someone can't find a book when he/she searches for it. The purpose of search engine marketing is to make sure that people can find the book.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the first result is an advertisement by a company called LivePlan that leverage from the search traffic of people looking for The Lean Startup book. The next 3 results are links that actually bring visitors to the right website about The Lean Startup.

LivePlan is selling tools for entrepreneurs, which is the same audience that searches for startup books. By using a simple search engine marketing. LivePlan gains high-quality traffic of entrepreneurs that might be their customers.

LivePlan's landing page targets entrepreneurs

This is just an example of how powerful search engine marketing can be, if we use it well. Search engine marketing is one of the best ways to deliver our products/services when people need it. People usually search for something because they want to know more about it, need it, or want it. All of the three are awesome for business.

2. Social Media Marketing: Get new readers and sell to website visitors.

If a search engine is a place where people look for something, social media is where they hang out. Social media is where they see new stuff and develop a demand for something. Social media marketing is a must-do strategy in 2016. We can now target very specific audiences that might be potential readers such as:

1. Gender: Male
2. Age: 20 - 40
3. Location: San Francisco
4. Interest: Entrepreneurship, startup, business.
5. Education level: College, MBA.
6. Placement: News Feed
7. Many more

Rick Mulready is selling me his course through Facebook Ads

From the example above, we can see that people are showing ads in my Facebook news feed. They know what I am interested in, I learn about various digital marketing strategies that can help people to increase sales with online media channels.

With social media marketing, we can get new prospects that might be interested in our products/services with our own customer personalization, or target market we want. We can also show ads to people that have already visited our websites before, or those who almost bought our books.

3. Content Marketing: Write blog posts or articles that matter to the target market.

Blog posts can be a good way to generate traffic to a book's website. A blog post can be a little bit of information about how valuable the book is. It can share the fundamental idea of the book, and if people like it, they can purchase it!

Ash Maurya, the author of Running Lean, has been writing blog posts to generate relevant traffic to his website.

The blog posts have done a really great job considering the 200,000 website visitors the website gets every month.

The blog posts share stories about how Ash Maurya develops the Running Lean book using its lean startup principles. Yes, the way he develops the book is included inside the book itself. That's a very interesting way to market a book.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is the key to increasing book sales of an author. As of now, there is almost no better way to get the results like how search engine marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing can deliver. Utilizing various channels like a website, social media, and online bookstores are also ultimately important to make sure people can know about an author's book, know about the author, love them, and purchase the book.

About OMSETGO Digital Marketing Specialist

OMSETGO is all about increasing your sales. OMSETGO is a Digital Marketing Specialist with expertise in Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Data Analytics. We have seen many businesses that have spent huge budgets in various media without being able to really understand the success rate of their campaigns.

We believe there must be a better way. OMSETGO utilizes the best technologies to assist our clients to gain high Return on Investment (ROI) for their marketing campaigns.

Reach us now: [email protected]

Reduce Cart Abandonment for Fashion E-commerce - OMSETGO Case Study

Omsetgo.com - E-commerce industry has been growing rapidly for the past few years. Amazon.com in the United States, Alibaba.com in China, Tokopedia.com and BukaLapak.com in Indonesia have been one of the pioneers in respective countries. The growth is supported by growing consumer demand to purchase products online. In Indonesia, Instagram is booming as a platform to buy and sell products and services. Out of various products and services, fashion products such as clothes, shoes, and accessories are the most popular. In Indonesia, we have thousands of online shops selling these products whether in Instagram, Facebook, or their own website.

The main problem a Fashion E-commerce is usually Cart Abandonment. 

Definition (from Webopedia): Abandonment is an electronic commerce term used to describe a visitor on a Web page who leaves that page before completing the desired action. Examples of abandonment include shopping cart abandonment, referring to visitors who add items to their online shopping cart, but exit without completing the purchase.

Currently, the average cart abandonment rate in the world is 67.91%. It also means that 2 out of 3 online transactions are not successful. (Source: Wikipedia)

These abandonment does not just happen in website e-commerce. It also happens in Instagram, Facebook, and other channels. There is a lot of cancellations in Instagram's purchase online. This causes a lot of E-commerce shops to create rules such as "CANCEL = BLACKLIST", to hinder potential customers from asking questions if they are not sure. This may be good to filter only serious customers, but this would also cause the shop losing many potential customers.

Here are the top 8 things to focus on to reduce cart abandonment in an E-commerce website:

1. Clear pricing

Most E-commerce shops using Instagram do not show their pricing. There are reasons behind this. Sellers do not want competitors to know their pricing nor they want potential customers to compare price with other shops. Sellers allow potential customers to directly chat them via LINE, WhatsApp, or BBM. This way, only the most interested prospects will directly chat the sellers. Directly chatting has a high commitment to buying.

However, this filter has made sellers lose a lot of potential customers. There are many people that would love to know the price before chatting for inquiries.

Especially on a website where users and the platform interact freely, clear pricing is very important for users to able to make a purchase decision. Without clear pricing, users will doubt the legitimacy of the website.

2. Product descriptions

Product descriptions such as available sizes for clothes and shoes are very important. Even if the users are interested, they cannot make a decision to purchase before they are convinced that they can wear the products.

Other than size information. Potential customers also want to know what the products are made of, why it is different and worth buying, what the story behind the product is, etc.

3. Stock availability

It is important to clearly tell users about the availability of a particular product. If a user doesn't know it, he/she may continue doing actions that give him/her no results and waste time. That is a bad user experience.

4. Shipping cost charges and duration

Shipping charges have to be clearly stated and easily changeable to other currencies (for international buyers). Users do not like hidden charges that occur when they are going to pay for something.

Shipping information is important to tell users when it will arrive at their homes. Sellers can also mention how long it will take for products that are out of stock to be sent to the customers if they want to purchase it.

Offering free shipping can be a very good way to persuade users to buy. Everyone loves free stuff. About 58% of potential customers abandon the cart after seeing shipping charges. This is especially true for low-priced items, customers would feel that the shipping charge of 7 dollars does not worth their money for a 15-dollar product. FREE Shipping is king. Sellers can offer free shipping if customers purchase at a minimum amount, such as 80 dollars total purchase value.

5. Photos

Photo Credit: Bro.do

Photos with models wearing the products are effective to present the appearance of the products. High-quality photos represent high-quality products. People love to see visuals before they buy. Photos from multiple angles are also useful to make customers understand how they will look if they wear the product.

6. Offers and discounts

Photo Credit: Forever 21

Users love to get value. Offers and discounts with limited time are effective to make customers purchase immediately. However, sellers need to make sure that the offers and discounts procedures are clear and seamless. Sometimes promotions are not straightforward and require customers to do certain things such as sharing an image with certain hashtags or mentions. Many potential customers might not understand the procedures and become disappointed when they find out they are not eligible for the promotions. Simplicity is the key to creating a successful promotional campaign.

7. Video tutorial for innovative products

Video Credit: Darcy George

For sellers with relatively innovative or new products, showing a video tutorial is the best way to demonstrate how to use the innovative product.

Photos of the steps are good enough for printed media. However, a video is still more effective to communicate methods to the audience, especially in a website and social media platforms.

8. Website load speed

Users expect everything to be quick and seamless. If an E-commerce website loads slowly. Users will feel that the website is not powerful enough and assume the store is not professional.

Slow website load speed also lowers trust and momentum for potential buyers to purchase. It is important to test the load speed of an E-commerce website time to time, especially after adding many new products to the website.

We can test our website load speed with Pingdom Website Speed Test Tool or  GTmetrix Website Speed and Performance Optimization (It also provides recommendations on how to improve it).

About OMSETGO Digital Marketing Specialist

OMSETGO is all about increasing your sales. OMSETGO is a Digital Marketing Specialist with expertise in Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Data Analytics. We have seen many businesses that have spent huge budgets in various media without being able to really understand the success rate of their campaigns.

We believe there must be a better way. OMSETGO utilizes the best technologies to assist our clients to gain high Return on Investment (ROI) for their marketing campaigns.

Reach us now: [email protected]

Online Lead Generation for Insurance Company - OMSETGO Case Study

Getting people to join insurance is not an easy task. The current way of getting leads has been about persistence and network.

The current ways to generate leads for an insurance company:

1. Cold call: Get phone numbers and call directly to offer.

Cold calling is a technique whereby a salesperson or in this case insurance agent contacts a prospect that has not been informed about the product or service before. The phone number is not given by the prospect himself/herself. The salesperson or insurance agent is a stranger for the prospect.

2. Referral: Get to know someone from someone you already know.

Reference from a previous customer is a powerful tool to generate new leads. Word of mouth is one of the best marketing tools a company can have. This is achieved with high-quality products and services delivered by a company.

3. TV, Radio, and Printed Media (Magazine, Newspaper): Marketing efforts to help  insurance agents in selling the packages.

Media channels that have been successful for the past decades. These include TV, Radio, Magazine, Newspaper, and other media. It helps in building brand awareness for an insurance company.

Problem

1. Cold calling is good for those who are interested in buying an insurance. It is uncomfortable for people that have no interest at all, potential customers want privacy. Cold calling may harm a brand, which is not a good thing as insurance is in the business of trust.
2. Referral is the most effective way to generate qualified leads right now. An approval from a friend of the prospect means a lot in the closing process. However, this process sometimes still requires a long time. There are too many information that a prospect does not know. A prospect can't decide when he or she does not understand enough.
3. TV, Radio, and Printed Media (Magazine, Newspaper) have been around for a long time. It is a good way to increase brand awareness of an insurance company. However, there are a lot of things that can't be measured with these channels. How many people actually see your advertisement? Who are they? What do they do after they see the advertisement?

Solution

1. Let customers commit their own information

We shouldn't do cold calling. It would be better to let prospects submit their own email and phone number to allow us to call them.

The insurance company's website has to have enough explanation about the selling point of the insurance products. It needs to state its unique value proposition.

There are often times when insurance agents need to spend a lot of time just to be able to arrange a meeting. It would really help the customers if they can read the information online in the website.

Once customers are interested, they would want to know more details about how much they need to pay per month, what are the interests, what benefits they can get, how long is the duration of payment, etc.

Photo Credit: CekPremi

This is the time we should allow them to submit email and phone number to get more information. An example above is a form that offers web visitors information to know more if they submit their personal information. An insurance company can create an email or a phone number subscription method to allow users get detailed information about certain insurance policy documents.

An insurance agent can then call / email the subscribers and arrange a meeting. This way, the customers have slight information about the insurance company and would welcome the insurance agent's call and request to meet. They have previously committed their personal information on the website.

2. Automated Referral System

Referral is one of the most powerful marketing tools for an insurance company. We can create a system to generate referral automatically.

Everybody that are looking for an insurance product or financial product usually compares several companies. Someone who wants to save money in a bank usually compares the benefits and interests of the particular bank with other banks. This also happens for insurance products.

Photo Credit: HaloMoney

An example above is a website that allows visitors to compare credit cards. An insurance company can let users compare their products easily. However, users need to share to their social media accounts such as Facebook or Twitter to be able to view the complete data and download it. By giving value to customers, we automatically gain referrals from the Facebook or social media shares.

3. Utilize measurable marketing channels.

The days of TV, Radio, and Printed Advertisements are over. Everyone is consuming online media more than ever.

Targeting customers using online marketing channels are more measurable and effective. The insurance company's website can utilize various marketing channels such as Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, etc.

We can reach millions of specific audiences that match our potential customer's profile. All of these can be done through understanding data and utilize it. For example, we can target mothers with kids that are looking for education insurance for her children.

By increasing website traffic with relevant visitors, the insurance company can generate leads and gain referrals from the visitors. It also raises brand awareness of the company and helps insurance agents to close more deals. Eventually, increasing the sales of the insurance company.

About OMSETGO Digital Marketing Specialist

OMSETGO is all about increasing your sales. OMSETGO is a Digital Marketing Specialist with expertise in Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Data Analytics. We have seen many businesses that have spent huge budgets in various media without being able to really understand the success rate of their campaigns.

We believe there must be a better way. OMSETGO utilizes the best technologies to assist our clients to gain high Return on Investment (ROI) for their marketing campaigns.

Reach us now: [email protected]