Crafting marketing plans based on a few simple frameworks. Examples and student feedback on outreach pitches. Week 2 assignment: Writing a marketing plan

1. Pub600: The Marketing Playbook
Presented September 12, 2012
In-Class Assignment / Demo
Break
Review Past Assignment
Next Assignment

2. Last class ...
I just read this great book ...
1. Audience: Who is it for?
2. Hook: What makes it great?
3. So What: Why should people care?
4. Goals: Will they care enough to do X?
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5. Strategy: How will I nudge them to do X?
6. Tools: What tactics, technology or tools will I use?
7. Metrics: How will I know if it is working?

3. Do I have a Twitter
volunteer?

4. Tweets that resonate
Useful (promised msg is valuable to reader)
Ultra-specific (know what’s being promised)
Urgent (need to take action now)
Notice the @, RT and #tags
Notice short codes, bit.ly
140 characters

5. My inbox

6. My inbox

7. Write a good subject line
• Imagine that you work for Raincoast Books and are sending
out the weekly newsletter to subscribers.
• Subscribers are trade bookstores.
• This week’s announcement is the launch of Louise Penny’s
new title The Beautiful Mystery. You are offering a 20%
discount on her previous titles.
• Write the subject line (5 min.)
• You’ll hand this in at the break: Name please!

9. What makes a good tweet
• 125-130 characters to allow for Retweets
• Should include a link
• Uses @ and # where useful
• Same fundamentals as good subject line:
• useful
• ultra specific
• urgent

10. What makes a good press release headline?
• Same fundamentals as good subject line or good tweet:
• useful
• ultra specific
• urgent

11. Newswire.ca > Book

12. What’s wrong with those examples?
• Nothing. We’ve written releases this way for years.
• But they could be better:
• useful
• ultra specific
• urgent

14. What makes a good pitch letter?
• Dear Name (Name is spelled correctly, Name is the name of the blogger. It’s
personalized, never Dear Blogger)
• You’ve checked the About page and search for “Pitch Policy” or “Review Policy,”
PR, publicist--confirmed the person is open to pitches. If not, be prepared to be
embarrassed online with a rant. See Beauty in the Ruins blog.
• The title is spelled correctly, i.e., The Beautiful Mystery, not A Beautiful Mystery.
The author name is spelled correctly. The author is a she, not a he.
• You’ve included a link for more details: publisher detail page, author website, press
release link, etc.
• Call to action: You have included the “ask” or clearly articulated what you are
offering and how you want them to respond.
• You have provided a closing and signature with your contact details.

15. Building the Hook
• Have they reviewed the previous title or this author before?
• Do they review mysteries or mainstream fiction at least?
• Does their About section provide contact details? Are they reachable?
• This is an award-winning author! She’s a big deal, you can play that up.
• Play up the Canadian angle. National Pride.
• Look for their social media presence in particular GoodReads and Amazon as
they’ll likely post multiple places.

16. Ways to Find Bloggers
• Tell me what you searched for? What was the process?

17. What I do...
• Go cross-platform: Search on Goodreads reviews of the previous title or Twitter
• Twitter Advance Search with location, hashtags, keywords
• Google Advanced Search Queries
“keyword” site:twitter.com
intext:bio* [keyword] location* [city] site:twitter.com
intext:bio* books* vancouver site:twitter.com
intitle:"[keyword]* on twitter" site:twitter.com
• Follow Blogrolls. TheNewCanLit.Blogspot.ca

18. Persona Worksheet
Each pitch requires a mini-persona in order to find the hook that will resonate
with the blogger
1. Know your audience
2. Positive in tone
3. Authentically true (rings true, no false praise)
4. Minimalist
5. Contrast (What is, what could be--it’s the promise)

19. Break

20. Marketing Plan Example

21. 7-Sentence Marketing Playbook
1. Strategy: In general, what is it you need to do/accomplish?
2. Audience: Who is the audience?
3. Niche: How to position the book? So What? Hook?
4. Goals: What business goals do I have to achieve?
5. Tactics: What exactly do I need to do?
6. Branding: What adjs will the audience associate with this?
7. KPIs: How will I track my progress?
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22. Assignment: 2-4 Pages
Choose one of 49th Shelf most anticipated fall 2012 titles, write a marketing plan for it.
In general: you want to get coverage for the book online and offline; you want sales
Figure out who audience is for the book in order to figure out what sales channels are
best.
• Do persona worksheet
Goals: sales and things that lead to sales, be specific in your plan
• Take a guess at how many copies you want to sell.
Bestseller fiction 5K, nonfiction 10K
• Times that number by the retail price to get the top-end of your marketing budget
• If it’s enter contest, # entries
• If it’s media outreach, list the publications/URLs, est. # articles.
Random got 15 articles on Hazlit announcement.

23. Document Structure
• Title and Author
• Publication Date if specified. Retail Price.
• Estimated marketing budget based on 10% of retail price x estimated sales
• Summary of description = pitch letter (so what, hook, key details)
• Summary of audience (key bullet points)
• 1 paragraph Overall Strategy (big picture what are you going to do and why
does it make business sense to do that)
• Sketch out the plan in as much detail as possible: Prior to Pub, Launch Date,
Post Pub
• Clearly identify the sales channels or tools you’ll use (online/offline)
• Bookseller / Media / Reader
• Estimate cost for each tactic (stay w/in budget)

24. Assignment & Readings
Most Anticipated Fall Titles for Assignment:
http://49thshelf.com/Blog/2012/08/13/Most-Anticipated-Books-of-
Fall-2012
Olivier Blanchard Basics of Social Media ROI
http://www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-blanchard-basics-of-
social-media-roi
3 Book Marketing Case Studies
http://www.conversationagent.com/2012/05/book-marketing-3-case-studies.html
Idea Resource:
http://www.casestudiesonline.com/

25. Questions?
Contact Info
Monique Sherrett
monique@boxcarmarkting.com
604-732-6467