By Lisa Norman
Do you hate marketing?
Great! I have good news for you: everything we know about marketing is changing, except for one thing: the core best practices. Things that have always been true are still true. All the hacks and elaborate technological hoops are moving and shifting, but I’d like to suggest that this is the best thing that could happen for writers.
I’ve watched too many writers spending valuable time and energy trying to do the things they feel they “should” do for marketing, while at the same time they tell me that they wish they could just write.
What if writing was the best marketing you could do?
What is successful marketing?
Successful marketing is giving your fans what they want from you. Writers and fans make connections that transcend technology. You need to understand what your true fans want. Create a memorable and engaging experience for your fans, one that makes them feel valued and appreciated, and they will love you and tell others about you.
But how do you do that? How do you know what your fans want?
If a shoe company discovered that their fans wanted jackets, they would have a choice: provide jackets or get new fans.
This sounds overly simplistic, but we need to remember: You want fans who love what you write.
Not everyone will be your true fan. You want to get your writing in front of those who will love it. For this to work, you’re going to need to showcase your writing.
Advertising, search, and email marketing are tools that we’ve used in the past to get eyes on our work. These tools are undergoing huge technological changes that we need to stay on top of, and that may change the way you decide to spend your marketing resources.
The Changing Landscape of Advertising, Search, and Email Marketing
Paid ads (Facebook, Amazon, etc.), search engine optimization (blogging!), and email marketing (newsletters!) are some of the most effective and widely used tools we have. They help us reach readers, bring them to our website, introduce them to our books, and turn them into loyal fans.
But it is important not to forget that your most powerful tool is writing brilliant books.
Other marketing tools change based on how people are interacting with technology, but readers’ connection to story and their desire to connect with storytellers is only growing stronger. People value connections with authors and stories they love.
Major changes to watch:
Changes in Advertising
Each new privacy law impacts the ability of advertisers to target specific people to sell products to. Have you noticed the shake-ups in social media channels lately? Most of them make their money through advertising. As people shift their behaviors and cut back on advertising, these platforms are struggling to survive.
Meta is testing an ad-free subscription model in the EU after the changes in privacy laws. Social media platforms make money from advertising. If they can't advertise effectively, they need to find a new way to make money.
Have you noticed the death of magazines and other spaces that were supported by advertising? People are cutting back on their advertising spending and many venues don’t have the subscriber base to survive without advertising revenue.
Review the Effectiveness of Your Ads
Is your paid advertising profitable? If not, maybe the problem isn’t you. Maybe you don’t need to learn the latest tricks in order to make money. Maybe you need to explore other marketing options!
I want to be clear here: some genres are still doing very well with paid advertising. If you’ve cracked the code and you’re making money with ads, just keep one eye on your profitability and continue to explore other marketing options. Don’t base your entire career on paid ads.
But if advertising isn’t working for you, I want to suggest that it is okay to not put your energy there. You have a guilt-free pass to stop.
As a writer, the takeaway here is that your paid advertising may be decreasing in power as privacy laws and ad-free subscriptions change the algorithms. Remember that the content you share on social media is only as effective as your connection with your audience. This means that focusing on connecting is not only more important, but it may also become more effective!
Everyone’s mileage with paid advertising will vary, but if you aren’t making money at it, this may be a great time to stop doing it entirely.
Changes in Email
Both Google and Yahoo have also introduced “new” requirements for bulk senders, those who send more than 5,000 emails per day. These requirements include:
- Using your own custom domain name
- Authenticating your domain with SPF, DKIM, or DMARC (link to my article)
- Making it so people only have to click one button to unsubscribe
- Keeping your spam complaints below 0.3% (meaning that the people on your list don’t complain)
These changes turn long-standing best practices into mandatory standards. The goal is to reduce spam.
I’d like you to consider this: if you are sending out something that people don’t want to receive, you may actually be sending spam.
Let that sink in.
If your only reason for contacting your fans is to sell them something, stop and think before pushing send: Would you like to receive that email? This applies whether you are sending 5 emails or 5,000 emails.
Now, think about the kinds of email you do like to receive, and apply it to the emails you send out.
- Only send messages when you have something to say.
- Only send your emails to people who want them.
- Only send emails your fans want to read.
Changes in Google’s Accounts
Google has begun phasing out inactive email accounts, those that have not been logged into or used for over two years.
What does this mean? You may find that you have old addresses on your subscriber list that need to be removed, but be careful because, due to changing privacy practices, your system may not accurately be tracking who opens and reads your newsletters.
Changes in Privacy Protection
New privacy protection options from Apple and others are affecting the statistics from our websites and our newsletters.
If someone has privacy enabled on their email—and many people don’t even realize that they have turned these features on—you may not know that a reader has opened and read your email. I’ve had authors send emails to people saying, “I’m going to remove you because you haven’t been reading…” only to get angry emails back saying that they’ve been reading every one.
You can't accurately track how many of your subscribers open your emails. You also can't use email open rates as a guide for other actions, but they are still effective as general trends. Instead, you need to actively engage your readers, encouraging them to reply, comment, or click on something to send you a signal that they are there.
Sure, you can encourage your subscribers to add your emails to their VIP list, to ensure that they receive and see your emails, but that's asking your readers to take a technical action. Better to create emails they want. Emails they will read and respond to. (Spoiler: the trick is the superpower of your writing.)
Yes, I just told you that it is okay to not worry about those statistics and to focus on interacting with your readers!
Changes in Search Engines
Another trend that is shaping the future of search and email marketing is the rise of voice search and artificial intelligence like Bing’s Copilot, Google’s Bard, and many others. How people search is changing from keyword-focused to topic- and content-focused.
What does this mean for you? It means you have an advantage!
Writers write words. That may sound overly simplistic, but work with me here. Natural language is not just your native language, but your superpower. As a writer, you can write engagingly about topics that will interest your readers. This gives you a tremendous advantage over non-writers who own websites.
Keywords vs Stories
Search engines have never just looked for keywords, but that has been an easy way to study the results. Search engines are only as useful as their ability to provide people with the search information they’re looking for. If a search engine can’t do that, people will go elsewhere. Here's just one article about this change.
For years, businesses have focused on writing with a goal of being the best for specific words, specific topics they want to rank for. This is a highly competitive and technical skill.
Now, with “generative search experience” (GSE—the AI approach that is predicted to replace conventional search engines) those articles focused on words are losing ground fast. Hang out in the search engine optimization space for long and you see people freaking out over lost traffic. Writers do not need to panic, but they do need to notice that the world is changing.
Writers write words that tell stories.
Did you know business people are trying to learn how to write stories so they can score better in search engines? (Seriously—look at how many businesses are trying to hire writers these days.)
Don’t get distracted by all of the marketing aimed at helping businesses write keyword-focused stories. Writing stories is what you do naturally.
However, this only works if you are writing what your fans want to read. So, if you are filling your blog with random posts because you feel you should, here is your free pass to stop.
Yep, I just said that. If you aren’t going to blog about stuff your readers want to read and share about, don’t waste your time or energy. It won’t work. More about blogging next month.
How to Give Your Fans What They Want
The key to successful marketing is to understand and cater to your readers’ needs, preferences, and expectations. You need to create a memorable and engaging experience for them, one that makes them feel valued, appreciated, and entertained.
Here are some tips and best practices:
Know Your Audience
The first step to giving your fans what they want is to know who they are, what they want, and why they want it.
There are many tools out there to help, but most of them don’t work well for creative writers. Again, I’d like to suggest that your writing is and has always been one of the best ways to connect to your fans!
Create Valuable Content
How many times have I heard writers say that they just want to write? They don’t want to spend so much time marketing; they want to write! Guess what? Your readers want the same thing! They want you to stop trying to sell them stuff and just give them more stories!
Blog posts can include cut scenes, backstories, even flash fiction. Blog posts can become newsletters so that your true fans don’t miss out on any of the juicy story bits. And all this content can even feed into new stories, books, and other products!
You can figure out what connects with your readers in blog posts or in books. I think it is easier to experiment with a blog post! But there are authors who prefer to experiment by writing books. That’s an option. For authors who wish they could “just write,” a blog can be a powerful tool, if they are willing to keep at it for a long time.
I’d like to suggest that if you don’t have valuable content to put in your blog, you may want to consider not blogging. Look at the different types of websites. A business card website may be more appropriate for you if you don’t want to share engaging content!
Engage and Interact with Your Audience
The final step to giving your fans what they want is to engage and interact with them regularly and consistently. Foster a sense of community and belonging. You need to listen and respond to their feedback, questions, and comments. You want to acknowledge and appreciate their support.
You also need to encourage your fans to tell others about your stories.
There is a marketing principle that people won’t do what you don’t ask them to. So ask them! Ask your fans to communicate with you. Ask them to leave a review or tell a friend about your story.
Create experiences based around your stories that people can’t wait to share. Examples: backstory, surprise alternate endings, a chance to name a character, even maps of the fictional places you write about. The key here is that both you and your readers should have fun. Then ask them to invite their friends to the party.
What if the most effective thing you can do as an author is to step back from a lot of the marketing techniques and tricks, and instead focus on writing stories and getting them into the hands of your fans?
The Good, the Bad, and the Obvious
- Your readers love you for a reason.
- Your fans want to be entertained.
- You’re in the entertainment industry. (If this comes as a surprise, embrace this truth right now.)
- If your emails aren’t entertaining, then you are failing.
- It is better not to send out any email than it is to send out one that isn’t wanted. Stop sending boring newsletters!
Need inspiration? Check out my 2-part series from last year on shareable newsletters!
How does this hit you? Have you seen some marketing techniques becoming more or less effective? Does this give you any ideas for how to find and interact with your true fans?
About Lisa
Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.
Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.
Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter or check out her classroom where she teaches social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors!
Top image by Deleyna via Midjourney.
