Using Gravitational Pull to Master Your Promotional Role

By Michael Drew - Oct 15 , 2008

Your ability to out-market competing authors depends on your ability to bond with potential readers. Similar to a new parent, you want to build familiarity and establish trust early on. By responding to your target audience’s collective cry for content, you can establish trust while drawing them deeper down the gravity well to book sales.

That’s where you want people. Way down deep at the bottom of your gravity well, where the pull is strongest. Get them there, and they can’t help but buy your book. It’s the rational next step. But you can’t just expect them to take a leap of faith into the waiting arms of some unknown author they’ve never heard of. You have to create a path that feels safe to descend by providing them with a trail of enticing content along the way.

Using a syndication service to distribute audio recordings, video presentations, or blogposts to popular social media sites is a good start. There’s no dangerous commitment there, just the small investment of time it takes to view your content. If they find you interesting, perhaps they’ll click the link back to your website, where there are more goodies to entice them.

Can you feel the pull getting stronger? Now people are browsing around your ‘online store’ to see what you have to offer. Do you think maybe some of them would be willing to sign up for your free e-newsletter or attend your free webinar? If so, you most likely have converted a future book buyer or even a word-of-mouth evangelist.

Hopefully, I’ve given you the big-picture perspective on how to create a subtle, yet inescapable, gravity well to book sales. The idea is to pull your target audience one step at a time into that well by responding to their collective cry for content in a variety of ways, with gradually deepening levels of commitment. Each step they take is an indication of the growing familiarity and trust they have in you as their primary content caregiver.

Now grab a shovel and start digging that well. It’s time to bury the competition.

PS—You might be interested to know that I have just started one of those syndication services I talked about here. It’s called Promote a Book Media, and it uses a proprietary methodology to broadcast your promotional content to a HUGE audience—faster and more consistently—than any other online syndicator. Check it out. It just might turn out to be the smartest thing you’ve done all day.

Questions about creating a gravity well for book sales may be directed to Michael R. Drew at the Austin, Texas, headquarters of Promote A Book: 512-858-0040. You can also contact Michael via email at michael@promoteabook.com.