Today I’m excited to be back on the Female Entrepreneur Association website talking about how brands and businesses can become about more than just profit–how they can influence and change the cultural conversation about how we work, play, and live.
Category: Tips
3 Secrets to Convert a Casual Blog Visitor Into a Customer
Hey y’all! This week I’m writing for the Female Entrepreneur Association about what I look for when I scout blogs–and especially why traffic isn’t the most important thing when it comes to supporting a book (or other product) launch.
Blogs are a powerful tool for connecting with potential customers—haven’t we all bought something online just because we followed and loved its creator? But any authorpreneur can tell you that it’s no easy feat to turn a first-time blog visitor into a repeat reader. And then to turn a repeat reader into a book buyer? That takes something more than just marketing.
Part of my job as a Literary Agent is to scout for talent, and every month I look at hundreds of blogs, businesses, and brands, and try to determine which ones have a high “stickiness” factor. Without stickiness (which is a powerful cocktail of engagement, loyalty, and goodwill), it’s difficult to support a major product launch, such as a book launch.
Luckily, there are a few secrets to make your blog an online home for your brand that turns casual visitors into engaged readers. And they’re not the secrets you’re expecting—they have nothing to do with marketing, or social media, or advertising. Those will bring visitors to your site, but they won’t guarantee that they stick around.
As publishers, retailers, and other gatekeepers have figured out, strong traffic and impressive social media numbers don’t always translate into sales. Sales only happen when a dedicated reader loves you and your work so much that they’re willing to put their hard-earned money behind it. We all work hard for our money, so that’s a big deal!
1. Design a site that encourages lingering.
The Internet is full of beautiful, bright websites that offer stunning infographics, gorgeous product photos, and distinct, memorable logos. But the other half of the Internet is littered with generic website templates, poorly lit photos, and amateurish logos. Think of it this way: would you rather spend a couple of hours in an Apple store or a 7/11? Don’t overlook the value of creating a space where visitors want to linger and explore.
Action Step: Go to Pinterest, create a board, and start pinning logos and designs you find beautiful. Then carefully analyze each image and determine what makes it lovely and how you can recreate it for your blog. If you don’t want to build it yourself, you can also search sites like Wix.com for templates (but beware the generic templates we’ve all seen before!). Or, if you have the budget, you can share your Pinterest board with a professional designer who can turn your vision into the website of your dreams.
2. Write in an authentic, memorable voice.
Blogs are not textbooks (thankfully!) so make sure that, even when your post is meant to inform, it’s written in an exciting, engaging voice. This doesn’t mean ending every sentence with five exclamation points (don’t do that, please…). But it does mean writing in an authentic, natural voice.
Action Step: Dig up the last email you wrote to your best friend. Take note of your authentic voice—are you usually upbeat? Sarcastic? Totally nerdy? Go with that. It’ll be infinitely more interesting to both you and readers if your posts are chock-full of personality!
3. Be a real person, not a brand.
Bloggers and writers often completely forget that the most compelling part of their business and brand is them—the real, live person behind it. Readers and customers want to connect with you, the three-dimensional person, not you, the person who’s trying to sell them something. So be open, be real, share your struggles and your victories, and create a community that encourages two-way conversation. That’s why Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman was able to successfully crossover into other ventures–her readers really felt like they knew her as a friend. And friendship is much more powerful than marketing.
Action Step: Create a pre-publish checklist for yourself. Alongside checking for typos and adding in links and images, add a check for “You.” Before you hit publish, ask yourself if the post still has some of you in it. Is this a post anyone on Yahoo could have written, or is rooted in your real life and your unique perspective?
This article originally appeared on the Female Entrepreneur Association site. Their site is an endless source of inspiration for anyone who needs extra motivation to get things done (i.e. everyone). I especially love the Tips of the Day they share on their Facebook page, like this one:
The Hope in the Query Pile
We’ve all heard the hilarious stories about crazy query letters—the ones written from jail, the ones that start “Dear Sirs or Madams,” the ones that include nothing but 3 pictures of purses made from jeans and an assurance that “this book will sell millions.” (My personal favorite of the year.)
But I think sometimes agents don’t talk enough about the encouraging query letters. Not necessarily the queries that get a request for more material, or the ones that are ultimately picked up by an agent and sold to a publisher. I don’t mean the successful queries, but the encouraging ones—the ones that give us back a little faith in humanity.
Because I work in nonfiction, I see a lot of sad stories in my query pile, mostly from the memoir queries. There are stories of cancer, sexual abuse, drug addiction, human trafficking, divorce, death of children, infertility, homelessness—every horrible thing that can happen to us humans. But, without fail, at the end of every one of these query letters, there’s one word: hope. These memoirs are always about hope.
The very fact that these writers have suffered through all the crappy stuff life can throw at you, and then come out on the other side able to write about it, says a lot about the therapeutic power of writing.
That’s one thing I wish I could tell more writers: sometimes writing can be just for you. For the therapy, for the catharsis, and for the energy it provides. Getting all those words and emotions and memories out of your head can be its own reward, and chasing a book deal can be secondary.
Publishing is a crazy world, and it can be a full-time job to build the sort of platform necessary to successfully launch a book. But writing is, and will always be, just for the writer.
[Writers: I’m caught up on all queries through August 1, 2014. If you sent me a query prior to that date and did not receive a response, please re-send!]
3 Strategies to Help Creatives and Writers Be More Productive
I read an interesting essay this weekend about how the world is split into Makers and Managers, and why these two types of people work completely differently. The idea is that there are those of us whose job it is to make something—programmers, writers, creatives, artists, chefs, designers—and those of us whose job it is to keep the whole shebang running smoothly. (Here’s the whole essay; it’s written by Paul Graham, co-founder of the seed capital firm Y Combinator, found via The Nester.)
But I actually think more jobs fall right in between Maker and Manager these days. The job of an agent definitely requires a bit of Maker and Manager. We’re managing our author’s careers; we’re meeting with editors; we’re coordinating and mediating and generally making sure projects run smoothly. But we’re also creatives, particularly in the initial stages of a project, when ideas are still being molded and the proposal or manuscript is being revised and often rewritten.
I also thinks that most authors are all also part Makers and part Managers. Yes, a big part of their work—the writing—falls strictly in the realm of creative work. But the other stuff that’s just as important—the platform and brand building—requires managing designers and often employees, meeting with potential partners, crafting business plans, marketing, networking, etc. After all, an author who is building a platform is essentially a small business owner, and therefore wears many, many hats. And what does that lead to?
Hat hair. Oh, and burnout.