Dauntless Writing Podcast Episode 11: Leverage your Marketing
In Episode 4 I talked about the Lean Business Model, in this episode I expand on that concept and discuss what and what not to spend your money on initially.
In this Podcast:
The goal of spending money on marketing: Return on investment focus vs relationship focus
Always build relationships, and relationships are about caring not money and caring is free.
Spend money on tools that will help your business
Things to spend money on
- E-mail lists like Aweber and Mailchimp (maybe start with Mailchimp’s free package just to get into it);
- Hosting (but not web design, use WordPress templates);
- Cover design and editing for professionalism;
- DIY Book Covers; and
- E-lance Odesk (only if you have the cash and is short on time).
Things not to spend money on
- Facebook and Google Adwords (initially); and
- Buying likes on Facebook and Twitter.
Things to maybe spend money on:
Do this only when you have a budget for it (like a % of your income, but not before), this is marketing, and not sales.
When you have free ebook to give away in order to get new clients or names on a mailing list:
- Paid Facebook add is the best option;
- Bookbub; and
- But if you have a book to sell to people, then you’re going to lose money.
When you have a non-fiction book in a very specific niche
- research how to use Google ads and then split test the hell out of it;
- Internet marketers have been doing that for years. Income – costs.
A note on outsourcing
Simple math:
- Work out your income per hour;
- Monitor how long the tasks take you to do;
- Label tasks that you’re bad at;
- Don’t like;
- Is not your core business, like cover design; and
- See if it’s cheaper than your income per hour to outsource on elance odesk
Harsh truth: If your income per hour is 0, don’t outsource, do it yourself for the experience.
When you have an income per hour high enough, optimise by using outsourcing
Links
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