More and more mainstream advertisers are cutting back on their advertising and PR budgets, not so much because marketing is deemed to have no value but because “these media make targeting specific buyers very difficult,” according to bestselling author and marketer David Meerman Scott.

Of 5000 corporations surveyed in a 2007 syndicated Persona study, 89.2% are “adjusting traditional advertising and PR budgets down due to lack of results and high cost.”

What is Traditional Advertising and PR?

Traditional public relations and advertising was defined in The Persona Principle book by Armstrong and Yu as “Everything you do that your audience sees,” a definition well ahead of its time. Code 52 in The Persona Principle, The Code of Advertising, emphasized the key phrase “that your audience sees.”

The classic mistake advertising agencies and traditional PR agencies make is to assume that the creative drives the success of advertising. This is only valid if “advertising awards” is the measure of success.

“That your audience sees” can be interpreted widely, but in its fluid sense it anchors the core value of advertising and PR in a simple concept: be seen.

“The medium is the message.”

Media planners at ad agencies have always practiced Marshall McLuhan’s important mantra, yet remain highly undervalued. Today, for the first time, media planners are more relevant than ever — but also less qualified for today’s media than they should be. Ad agencies make little to no income on “non-traditional” media, as it’s often derogatorily referred to.

Non Traditional is Now Traditional

Recent statistics from various surveys — including Persona’s own syndicated September 2007 survey of 10,800 consumers — indicates that online is now traditional media. Online has long ago eclipsed television, the movie theatre and print media by wide measures as the most “indispensable” media, the place where the majority of Americans and Canadians spend their time. Ad agencies and PR firms avoid the most popular media due to complexity of implementation and low return in terms of fees or commissions.

The 2007 Landmark Research Study

The syndicated Persona study indicated:
•  INTERNET — 36.4% "Can't live without internet" — 23.7% "LOVE Internet surfing" — 22.5% "regularly Internet surf": totaling 82.6%
• BOOKS — 30.6% "Can't live without books" — 23.4% "LOVE books" — 20.9% "Read regularly": totaling 74.9%
• TV — Only 18.4% "Can't live without TV" — 29% "LOVE TV" — 30.5% "Watch regularly totaling 77.9%

If we look at the topline indicators, the “can’t live without” ratings, internet is the most important with 36.4%:
• 36.4% “can’t live without internet”
• 18.4% “can’t live without TV”
• 16.3% “can’t live without newspapers”
• 16.1% “can’t live without magazines”
• 10.6% “can’t live without television sportscasts”

To see more detail,click on the image to the right or here. 

Advertising — The Money Pit

“For Millions of organizations… traditional advertising is generally so wide and broad that it is ineffective,” wrote David Meerman Scott in The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

“One-way advertising and PR media is quaint and antiquated,” I wrote in a recent article on Suite 101. “Savvy marketers focus on two-way relationships, social marketing, blogging strategically, and increasingly the more animated forms of online interaction such as podcasts, both audio and video.”

Media Fragmentation and the Cost of Traditional Media

Long before it became clear that online was statistically valid, accountable and effective, many brands and companies turned to online simply because of cost factors. Traditional media, especially television, has become highly fragmented and difficult to plan effectively. Print media is rapidly declining as a valid choice for advertising.

Online targeted reach comes in at pennies per thousand reached rather than dollars. Since larger advertising agencies and traditional PR companies, the realization has come slowly for some larger clients. Smaller companies have always worked with targeted online media due to the low cost.

Blogertizing — or Total Blog Marketing

“Content on the web is the best form of marketing there is,” David Meerman Scott wrote in Cashing in with Content. Blogertizing takes this concept to the next level. Two-way reponse-driven content is the actual goal. A response mechanism designed to build relationships with audiences — and as a secondary goal to measure response — makes online Blogertizing methods the most effective in terms of realizing marketing goals, growing brands and selling products.

 

Let’s call it Web 3.0 — The Cure-All For Book Sales Horror Stories

How do publishers and authors beat the odds—that terrifying Nielsen Bookscan report that nearly 80% of books in the market sell less than 99 copies in total?

One of the key reasons authors bury Kunati Books in submissions—8,500 submissions per year is pretty much a “drowning in manuscripts” scenario—is our “marketing-first” approach to publishing. Quill and Quire profiled Kunati Books as “what a publisher looks like if the marketing department runs things.”

A How-To: Web 3.0 from the Experts

Step-by-step I’ll cover the top-line tactics that we’ve proven work, starting this week with our own killer applications: book/novel trailers and the author marketing group. Next week, I’ll reveal our Web 3.0 Social Marketing Program.

Bear in mind these are methods we’ve proven to work, beating the odds with all of our released titles—by a good margin. It’s not Quantum mechanics, and anyone can do it, but I’ll warn you—these methods require talent, hard work, long hours, commitment, discipline, planning and heart. Heart, because that’s what keeps you going seven days a week during launch phase. If that sounds like too much, stop reading now. You’ll get nothing from this how-to.

The Author-Publisher Partnership—Your Online Marketing Group

The most important anchoring strategy I can offer, fundamental to that all-important author-publisher partnership, is the Author Marketing Group. Every publisher who works with more than one author should have one. We set ours up as a free private Yahoo Group, inviting all our authors to participate by email.

Everything from author ideas to tips to events are discussed, topic by topic in this private “forum.” Our authors get to know each other. They buzz each other’s books and events. They tell everyone about their friends. They link their blogs to each other.

Big news is conveyed seamlessly to authors. As long as the group remains dynamic and interesting, every post is read by authors. Our Kunati Authors Group now has an archive of 6,500 past posts, fully searchable by new authors who join and want to “catch up” on how-to manage a book signing, how-to approach a bookseller CRM or manager/owner, how-to set up a Facebook page, how-to use Widgetbox. It’s all there. Priceless.

The Author Brand—Everyone’s Secret Weapon

I write this without fear that our authors’ egos will suddenly inflate to unmanageable levels. I also write this as a publisher who virtually specializes in debut authors with no brand awareness. Ultimately, this is the “secret weapon” we wield, the key to beating the odds. Even a debut author must become a “name brand.”

Treat Every Author as a Celebrity and a Friend

Celebrities can be friends, too. We hope to make our authors celebrities. And we hope they’ll stay friends forever. It requires hard work, a true partnership between author and publisher. Starting, of course, with the Online Marketing Group.

Step two is an innovation of our creative director Kam Wai Yu. Kam invented the book trailer back in the dark ages when 1 megabyte of Ram was too expensive for most designers—back before anyone even know what QuickTime was in the distant 1990. His innovation, an innocent one, would change everything online. Now, no one in publishing would think of launching a book without one, right?

Book Trailers—If Done Right, the Most Important Tactic of All

Pretty much everyone does them now, but hardly anyone does them well. Why? Because they’re too rushed, not thought out; they try to do too much.

To do a trailer that works requires time and talent. The trailer should be as good as the book. Remember, we’re building the author brand. The trailer is the 30 second stand-in for a book that someone is going to invest days in reading: reviewers, librarians, booksellers, readers.

It must build the author’s brand in two minutes. At Kunati, Kam spends weeks on each trailer, not days, carefully scripting, adding sound F/X, building it in proper animation software. And it shows. Each one is a priceless work of art. Each one is memorable. Each one is distinctly the author’s brand.

A Good Trailer Results in Reviews

With Kam’s trailers, every single one of our debut authors has received big trade and newspaper reviews that sold books. The credibility alone, of an apparently big budget trailer, overcomes the “debut author” stigma. I remember one magazine editor (it might even have been someone at ForeWord), commenting on how the “trailer DVD” sent with the galley made such a difference, especially since they’d never heard of either Kunati or the author.

The book trailer alone for The Last Troubadour directly sold thousands of books, and helped build my own author brand. If we had done nothing else, the trailer would have made the book a success and built a fan base. You can view it here: http://www.kunati.com/the-last-troubadour-historical/

Burn it to a DVD for Reviewers, Load it On Your Web, Watch the Sales Come In

Each prospective reviewer should receive your trailer with an author sell sheet, the galley and a nice presentation. The trailer should be right on top on the book web page—the first thing a visitor sees. They sell books! Every time.

Quick Trailer Tips

• Take your time and do it right. Hire the best if you can’t render the best. If you can’t afford to do either, skip the trailer altogether and find another way to impress reviewers, readers, librarians and booksellers (next week’s topics)
• Burn a DVD for reviewers. It can make a difference when a reviewer is deciding where to spend his or her valuable time. A typical reviewer or editor must choose which of the thousands of books in the pile to review. Stand out from the pile.
• Use YouTube to host your videos. Not only do you build a social network at YouTube, you can embed their code on your website, in your emails and in your blogs without uploading the video countless times.
• Do not use voices or actors. It’s doubtful you can afford a good actor. A bad actor can cheapen the author’s brand, turn away reviewers and readers. Even a good actor weakens a book video because readers want to visualize their characters for themselves.
• Use images, appropriate music and sound effects and—one long, run-on sentence, just a few words per screen sequence. Skip the punctuation and paragraphs. It’s just a teaser!
• Do it right, or don’t do it.

Three Examples of Correctly Rendered Trailers that Sell Books
I’ll share three we launched recently for three spring titles, two for debut authors. Almost immediately after the trailer launch, advance orders doubled. The only other tactic proven to hit advance sales so hard are good reviews. And trailers help there as well. It’s win, win.

Try these links out, and see if you don’t agree. These not only sell books, they sell author brands to reviewers, librarians, booksellers and readers. Take them for a spin. You’ll love them:

• The wild and wacky world of Alban Bane in MADicine: http://www.kunati.com/madicine/
• The DaVinci Code killer Hunting the King from Peter Clenott:
http://www.kunati.com/hunting-the-king-peter-clenott/
• The gripping and too-real “ripped from the headlines” story of Karen Harrington’s http://www.kunati.com/karen-harrington/
• Check out last season’s blockbusters here:
http://www.kunati.com/kunatis-famous-novel-trailers/?currentPage=2


Social Marketing for Books Taken to the Next Level

Almost every publisher and author these days claims to have a MySpace page, and if done properly, they have a few thousand friends, post a blog daily and update their friends with bulletins. This is Web Marketing 2.0, and it’s important. But to really make a difference, go Web Marketing 3.0.  Next week, I’ll cover how to do this.

Meanwhile, get busy with your author marketing group and your book videos and novel trailers. Post your trailer links here in comments. We’d love to see them!

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By Derek Armstrong<
Author of
• Blogertize: A Leading Expert Shows How Your Blog Can Be a Money-Making Machine
• The Persona Principle
• The Game, An Alban Bane Thriller
• MADicine, An Alban Bane Thriller 
• The Last Troubadour, Book 1 Song of Montségur
• The Last Quest, Book 2 Song of Montségur 

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