Stop Waiting, Start Sniffing

Issue #927 June 23, 2015
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

Stop Waiting, Start Sniffing
A Tempting Digital Product
Publicity in Entrepreneur
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

I’m planning a fun weekend when my sisters visit from Ohio. We’re sailing on Lake Michigan on a giant-masted sailboat. We’re going to a fish fry, a strawberry festival, a cheese factory, a rib burn-off, and we’ll watch fireworks. It’s my way of thanking them for helping me plant lilac and hydrangea bushes, and potting annuals. Fair trade?

1. Stop Waiting, Start Sniffing

Don’t build a website and wait for traffic…and wait…and wait…and wait.

Be a smart Publicity Hound and use your sense of smell to find it.

Regardless of what you sell, you can sniff out your ideal target market in LinkedIn and Facebook groups, on Meetup.com, in Twitter directories, in Google+ communities, and in online discussion forums. Authors can find readers on sites like Goodreads.com, BN.com and AuthorsDen.com.

Share compelling content–a checklist, a cheat sheet, a video, a humorous quote, a story–and lead people back to your website.

That’s one of my five top tips I’ll be sharing when I host a free webinar from 7 to 8:30 p.m. this Thursday, June 25, on “25 Killer Book Publishing Tips from the Experts.” You’ll also hear from book shepherd Judith Briles, book distributor Amy Collins, book designer Joel Friedlander and virtual assistant Kelly Johnson.

Amy will share a tip about an important September deadline that all authors must know about. We’ll also give you the details on our Publishing at Sea cruise in January to the western Caribbean.

2. A Tempting Digital Product

Here’s a valuable product you can sell to those people who you’re leading back to your website.

Or give it away in exchange for their email address–a smart way to build your email list.

It’s a video info-product featuring a series of short tips on how to do something. (So much more tempting than a boring ebook, don’t you think?)

If you’re cringing because you hate the thought of learning video, relax little doggy. You can create this for free, using tools you already own or those you can find for free online.

Daniel Hall has made a killing selling video info-products. He has a simple step-by-step system on how to do it. He’ll explain it during a free webinar I’m hosting for you from 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow–Wednesday, June 24.

You can create this in about the same amount of time it would take you to create a 10-page Kindle ebook. Kindle ebooks sell for about $2.99. Daniel says you can sell this video info-product for as much as $97, depending on the topic.

3. Publicity in Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur.com is looking for companies that instill a high-performance culture in the workplace for its first annual Top Company Cultures List.

The list will be published on their website, where you can also find many of my columns.

I’m contacting all my clients to let them know about this. You should too.

Companies must have at least 25 employees and be headquartered in the U.S.

Learn more about this fabulous publicity opportunity and how to apply.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Who needs an alarm clock when you have a dog?

Thanks to Publicity Hound Theresa Thomas of Orange County, Calif., for this one. (She’s an etiquette expert so I’ll bet her dog would never do this.)

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