Who Is Your Target Audience? part 2/3
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Free Book Marketing Class for Self-Publishers - Day 1 of 3
Who Is Your Target Audience? (part 2 of 3)
How To Make Them Want To Buy Your BookIdeally, you want to market your book in such a way that your customers (in this case - parents) will want to buy.A good example is a book I have on my shelf called, "Father Loves His Little Ones".
Who is the target audience? Fathers. The word fathers is more specific than just parents. The book makes fathers feel good about buying it, because it says in the title that if you buy this book, you are a loving father. To me, that is an example of great marketing in action. What Happens If We Don't Get Specific?What if the book had been called, "Parents Love their Little Ones?" Do you think this would be more or less effective? Why or why not? To me, it would be less effective. I can think of many reasons why. For example, some children have two parents and some have only a single mom or dad. But even if kids have two parents, they both don't usually read a book to a child at the same time. Only one parent reads the book at a time. So the title would be less specific in terms of targeting the exact audience if the word Parents was used instead of Father. Also, you can double your sales by making one book for dads, and one for moms. And don't forget: there are a lot of single dads out there. They want to be included in the group of dads who love their kids, so they will buy the book with the word Fathers in the title but maybe not Parents. Another sales opportunity is when a friend of the Father (maybe the Mother or Grandmother) comes across the book, and they buy it as a gift. A Huge Success We Can Learn FromChicken Soup books are another great example of marketing to a specific target audience. The authors were self-published authors -- just like you and me -- and they eventually sold enough books that a publisher wanted to work with them. To date, they've sold millions and millions of books. The authors are extremely rich because of their success with targeting niche audiences. If you visit their web page -- type Chicken Soup books into Google -- you will see the Chicken Soup series has dozens of different titles, for every possible target audience. For example, they have, "Chicken soup for the Golfer's Soul." Does that title sound funny to you? It did to me at first. But now I realize that the authors are marketing geniuses. They are targeting golfers and the people who love them. To me, the Chicken Soup books are intended to be given as gifts. For example, if your spouse loves playing golf, it means they can identify with a book for golfers. Women love chicken soup books and men love golf, so there will be a lot of women buying this book for their husbands. It's an effective strategy to sell millions of books. We talked a lot so far about targeting a specific niche. Because getting to know who your audience might be the most important tool for effectively marketing your book. Do you think the Chicken Soup authors just randomly choose their titles by throwing darts at the wall? I don't think it is random at all. I believe they get very specific about who they are selling to. In other words, they know who their target audience is. How You Can Find Your Target AudiencePlease take this opportunity to ask yourself: (1) Who will benefit the most from reading my book? (2) How can I make that audience even more specific? The people who will benefit the most from reading your book is your target audience. For example, if you believe your target audience is parents -- try to make it even more specific, such as Fathers, Mothers, Grandmothers, or Grandfathers. |