9 Tips for Your Author Email Marketing Strategy [Boost Sales]Are you hoping to increase sales of your books? An effective email marketing strategy can not only boost your sales, but requires just a moderate amount of time and money to be effective. In this article, I give you 9 tips for an author email marketing strategy.  1.) Attract future buyers as email subscribers Having a massive email list won't help you if it's filled with subscribers who don't typically buy books in your genre. When readers first join your email list, rarely will they buy anything. Though you shouldn't try to sell via email right away, you should eventually. Before you spend time on your email marketing strategy, be sure you've identified your target reader. You want to bring in these people. How do you attract potential book buyers to your author email list? The most effective way to get email subscribers is via a lead magnet, which is a digital item of value you give away for free in exchange for an email address. A lead magnet for readers is often referred to as a reader magnet. If you create a reader magnet that your target reader would want, then your email subscribers will align with potential buyers. For example, if you're looking to sell science-fiction novels, a free science-fiction short story would be a good reader magnet. How do you get people to know about your reader magnet? Most reader magnets are featured on a dedicated page, known as a landing page. If you already have a social media following, you can drive traffic to this URL via social networks. If you don't already have a social following - or do, and want to increase traffic even more - you can buy online advertisements. How do you deliver a reader magnet? You deliver a reader magnet via an automated email, ie, a message that's automatically sent to someone based on a pre-defined trigger (in this case, the trigger would be signing up for your list). To send an automated message, you're going to need an email marketing software. This tool will not only handle lead magnet delivery, but all of the other operational elements needed for email marketing. These systems are priced on how many subscribers you have. In the beginning, they're very affordable, often even free. Even if you drastically increase the size of your email list, the cost is still relatively low, just a couple hundred bucks a month, which you can easily make back with an increase in email-based sales. What is a good email marketing platform for authors? I recommend the tool MailerLite . 2.) Automate an email nurture sequence Email marketing shouldn't be looked at as a standalone initiative, but a part of your broader marketing funnel. Email is particularly helpful at the middle and bottom of your funnel. At the middle, you want to set up a series of automated messages known as a nurture sequence. This sequence - which typically consists of about 5 emails - starts going to subscribers right after they receive their lead magnet. Each message is spaced about 1-3 days apart. The email marketing tool you use can take care of delivering the messages. The main purpose of this sequence is not to sell books, but to build trust and credibility with your new subscribers. If you can successfully establish trust and credibility at the middle of your funnel, when you do eventually pitch your books, at the bottom of the funnel, the likelihood of a sale goes up. What should you put in your nurture emails? Here are some guidelines to follow:
3.) Automate an email sales sequence After your nurture sequence is done, and your new subscribers hopefully view you as trusted and credible, you can move to the bottom of the funnel, promoting a book. Build up excitement around one specific book. Link to a landing page for this one book. In a few weeks, have a second sales email go out, for a different book. You can keep this going, across all of your books. 4.) Give over email more often than you ask You should surround your sales sequences with additional emails that do not ask for a sale, but instead, give things to your subscribers for free. Your ratio of giving emails vs. sales emails should at least be 1 to 1, ideally, 4 to 1. What sort of non-sales content can you send to email subscribers? Some content types to consider:
5.) Send segmented emails So far, we've been discussing automated emails, which are triggered to individual subscribers on an ongoing basis. However, your email marketing platform will also give you the ability to send a broadcast email, which is a message to all recipients at once. An email may be relevant to certain readers on your list, and not at all to others. Whether you're setting up an automated or broadcast email, you should only send it to the relevant group. You can do this with list segmentation. How do you segment your email list? Any high-quality email marketing platform will make this process straightforward. You'll have access to various data points on your subscribers' activity, such as:
6.) Create curiosity with subject lines You can have excellent email bodies, however, if hardly anyone opens your messages, your sales won't go up much. To avoid this, your subject lines need to be catchy. A subject line is a critical factor in whether or not your email is opened or ignored. And curiosity is a critical factor in a quality subject line. Some guidelines for creating curiosity with subject lines:
7.) Feature a single CTA in emails A call to action (CTA) is a behavior you'd like readers to do from your email, usually clicking a button or link. Including many CTAs in one email might seem like a good idea, since more links/buttons would increase the chance a reader is interested in one. However, this is not the case. Instead, I recommend you structure each email around a single CTA. This way, the body can be filled with detailed marketing copy urging people to click this singular button/link, plus, complete any follow-up actions after the click. For example, imagine an email with 12 links. The body would feel cluttered. Recipients wouldn't be sure which link to click. And if they did click a link, they'd have no reason to be particularly motivated to take a follow-up action (like buy a book), since the email didn't have enough space addressed to creating excitement around any of the 12 links. Now, imagine an email with a single link. The body would have plenty of space for text to build excitement around the benefits of clicking the link. This would increase the likelihood of a follow-up action. 8.) Make emails feel personal Some tips for giving your emails a personalized feel:
9.) Tap into past performance for future emails For every email you send, keep an eye on these three metrics:
You want a high open and click rate, and a low unsubscribe rate. If you notice a certain email has a particularly high open rate, and/or click rate, try to figure out why. Does a pattern emerge across other emails? If your readers seem to have responded well to a certain element within your emails, consider including a variation of it within future emails. On the other hand, if you notice low open and click rates associated with a certain element, consider avoiding it in the future. Unsubscribe rate works the same way as open and click rate, just in the opposite direction. For instance, if a certain email has a high unsubscribe rate, try to see why and avoid the cause in the future. Author email marketing strategy - frequently asked questionsWhat is an author email marketing strategy?An author email marketing strategy is a method used to attract readers to an email list, and the type, content, and frequency of emails sent, optimized around increasing book sales. How do I create an author email marketing plan?To create an author email marketing plan, first consider your target reader. You'll want to offer these people something of value in exchange for their email address. You then want to send emails to build trust and credibility, and, eventually, send emails promoting your books. How do you increase sales through author email marketing?To increase sales through author email marketing, get target readers onto your list with a relevant reader magnet, then build excitement about your books with emails. Can a company help with my author email marketing?Yes, you can partner with a book-marketing company to help with your author email-marketing strategy. Galdi Media, a leading book-marketing company, can configure an email list for you, integrate it with your website, and help you gain subscribers. This post contains affiliate links.
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