Marketing Maestro

We have done our share of book marketing but today a book ad caught my eye.  The title of the book How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis (founder of Maxim magazine) just comes right out and says what the book is all about.  The ad's headline is You'll Never Get Rich Working For Your Boss.  Who wouldn't stop and read that ad?  It is very direct and to the point and hits at the heart of the subject matter. This book like so many of the others in our industry shares the author's secrets on how he made his fortune.

The question remains whether or not people will choose Felix Dennis's book over a Trump book.  What do you think?

Last week I wrote about a book marketing effort that utilized social media to create a buzz across the internet while forgoing all other marketing. Today I am writing about a second unique approach to book marketing. 

A couple of weeks ago I was researching marketing blogs (more on that in another post) when I was directed to Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing blog. I guess timing is everything since one of the first posts that caught my attention was about his new book Personality Not Included. He is also forgoing traditional marketing to promote his book and instead issued a challenge to his readers which I accepted. He was looking for 50 bloggers to interview him via email and to post the interviews on their blogs. His marketing plan comes down to 50 blogs with 5 questions each to help spread the word about his book.

With the ‘pressure’ of his marketing plan’s success partially relying on my questions here is my interview with Rohit. I figured I would add a sixth question to my interview to give him a little extra help...

Josef: You have some great reviews from well known business people and authors.  How did you manage to grab their attention to help you out?

Rohit: The interesting thing about doing research and getting authors and business people to help out is that they are all so accessible now with emails and commenting on their blogs.  It's a brilliant use of time now, because you can be so much more effective with who you reach out to.  Thankfully, I also had a unique idea for a book which several of the reviewers were quite intrigued by.
 

Josef: Your marketing this book using new media what goals have you set for book sales and how are you going to measure your marketing effort's success?

Rohit: The ultimate goal is to sell out all of my first editions so the publisher has to go back to print a second edition!  The first edition run was about 19,000 and more than half have already been pre-sold to bookstores and online retailers so progress is great.  I am very happy about where sales are and international distribution (including several translated versions that have just been approved and should be out later this year)
 

Josef: At Trump University we work with entrepreneurs and small business owners; how do you see this book helping smaller business grow and market themselves?

Rohit: I think this book fits perfectly into that role - what do I have to do to get it included in the syllabus for a marketing class? ;-)  Actually, small business was a key audience that the book was written for, because part of the concept is finding ways to stand out ahead of a competitor, even if they may be far bigger.
 

Josef: What advice do you have for companies that feel their 'target demographic' does not use social media?

Rohit: My first advice is to broaden your definition of social media.  You may not think they read blogs, and you may be right, but do they read Amazon reviews?  What about use Google?  Of course they do ... and chances are they have come upon a form of social media and didn't even realize it.  Of course, just launching a blog without a strategy would be equally foolish.  The point with social media has to be to understand what your customers are really doing and then find the right way to use it.
 

Josef: You refer to a "marketing backstory" which sounds intriguing.  Can you elaborate on what this means and how a company develops their story?

Rohit: Yes, the marketing backstory is essentially the foundation of the story that you tell about your brand.  In the book, I outline five key models for types of stories you can use, and then how they can be put into action to tell the story of your own brand.

 
Josef: So are all of us your contributing interviewers considered "accidental spokespeople"?

Rohit: I would love to say yes, however all of you haven't read the book yet, so I cannot really expect you to be spokespeople until then.  After you do, I'll be taking applications! ;-)

OK so that is my interview with Rohit and I hope to continue our dialogue in the future. If you think I did a good job please visit the Influential Marketing blog on Monday and vote for my interview.

If you are interested in learning more download the book’s intro.

· Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the number 1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847992994?ie=UTF8&tag= drewmclellan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325& creativeASIN=1847992994

· Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)

· Twitter Commentary - Join Drew and I as we give a Bum Rush play-by-play on Twitter. (Follow us: @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @Servantofchaos) We also ask that everyone saying anything about the Bum Rush to use the code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com

· Trackback or Comment on the post that I will leave here on March 29th at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.) 

· Digg the posts listed here & send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.

· Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same. 

· Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)

· Send an Old Fashioned email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.

· Keep talking - Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.

Are you going to get involved? 

Don't forget to check back next week to find out about the second book's marketing approach.

If you have been reading this blog for a month or so you will remember the launch of our new Trump Book Wealth Building 101.  It took a little work and networking but we were able to get a review on entrepreneur.com's blog.  One more achievement for our marketing effort.  Next stop, a place on the best seller list.  OK, it is a bit of a long shot but we are going to keep trying.

Hey, did you buy the new Trump book? Go ahead and help us hit our next goal... Thanks for reading - the blog and the book.

Josef

You are probably aware that Mr. Trump has two new books out, Trump University Wealth Building 101 and another b0ok titled Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life.  Here at TU we refer to the Think Big book written by Donald Trump and Bill Zanker as the 'other book'.  I find it interesting that their book which has been heavily promoted on TV, Print, PR, Online etc. is currently ranked lower then the Wealth Building 101 book on both Amazon and BN.com.  The interesting marketing lesson here is that because the Learning Annex book and the Trump University book are out almost days apart we are both seeing great sales numbers.  We are both benefiting from all the media (we might actually be doing better because of their marketing and promotional efforts).  I am sure the book sellers recommendations (people who bought this etc) is helping some but competition can be a good thing.  The race to the top of Amazon and BN.com is not over and we are not done promoting the book.  There is still time to take advantage of our offer.

Always open to your ideas and opinions.

Josef Katz

We launched the new Trump Book and we are off to a great start in driving sales.  The book is in the top 20 on Amazon (of course this will change by the hour), number two in business books and number one in personal finance.  We are making waves on the Barnes and Noble's site too.  Our publisher has even reported increased sales for some of our other titles.  I guess marketing works...

This was a real team effort to make sure all our marketing was executed just right.  The effort included online banners, email marketing, public relations, blogging, paid search and more. Lets see how long our marketing can sustain these top rankings. 

Wish us luck and if you have any marketing ideas you want to share we would love to hear them.

For the last few weeks I have been working on the launch of a new Trump University Book.  Wealth Building 101 is hitting the stores next week and we are planning all sorts of activities to try to make this our best selling book yet.   We have a very aggressive sales goal  so if you or anyone you know has helped launch a new book drop me a line since we can still use some help getting the word out.

If you want to help out you can order a book in advance - hey every order counts...