While some might say that October is too early to put out your Christmas decorations, I’ve found it’s the perfect time to get your holiday book marketing campaigns started!
Last week I hosted a Holiday Marketing for Author Workshop where we walked through all the steps to setting up a holiday marketing campaign for your book(s).
Holiday Marketing 101
There are many challenges in 2020 that make holiday marketing more difficult. With more people than ever discovering books and shopping online due to the pandemic, digital marketing has become even more essential and competitive. Companies everywhere are ditching their traditional marketing tactics, swapping billboards and holiday displays for larger email and social media campaigns. This means that more people are bidding on the same gift-related key words, driving up cost-per-click and reducing reach for your holiday advertising.
You may be wondering how you can get your book to compete, but don’t worry! I’ve got some tips and tricks to help you get all your ducks in a row. Here’s a few of my go-to tactics I shared in our Holiday Marketing for Authors Workshop.
Go Through Your Holiday Marketing Checklist (and check it twice!)
I always recommend that my clients perform a platform and SEO check-up at least once every year. Before starting your holiday marketing campaign, make sure you update the following:
Title info on your website and social media
Author bio updated and optimized
Amazon and Goodreads page/bios updated
Book descriptions optimized for online shoppers
SEO & mobile check
Defined target audience for holiday promotions
Updated and cleaned email list
Do Some Digital Decorating!
This is my favorite part of holiday marketing! There’s so many ways to approach digital decorating to connect with holiday shoppers in a way that is authentic and on-brand for you. From understated and elegant banners to quirky and fun graphics, YOU get to decide how to celebrate your book this holiday season.
Start with some (light-hearted) cyber-stalking and gather inspiration for your holiday designs! Surfing Pinterest and building boards is one of my favorite ways to start the creative process. From there, you can play around in Canva or any design platform of your choice to deck your (virtual) halls.
Stay On-Top of Pricing and Deals
If you are self-published, try to plan out pricing specials ahead of time so you can promote them. If you are traditionally published, check daily for pricing specials and have a post prepared for when the book goes on sale. This is a great place to plan promotional countdowns or convince indecisive shoppers to buy your book while it’s on sale!
Market to Existing Fans & Followers
If you take anything away from this course, let it be this: Know who this book is a perfect gift for.
Holiday shoppers need all the help they can get when it comes to gift shopping! Make it easy on them by knowing who your book is the perfect gift for and tell them why.
Advertise to Reach New Fans & Followers
During the holidays, your goal is to get shoppers to buy your book, not to increase brand recognition! In the workshop we talked through this distinction more in-depth (click here if you want to learn more), but long story short, create ads that focus on conversion, not awareness.
Create Content to Attract Holiday Shoppers
Finally, my last tip is to make your holiday marketing fun. It’s the best time of the year! Your holiday promotions should be fun for you and fun for holiday shoppers. This is a great time to create fun campaigns that include things like:
Giveaways: Create a book-bundle giveaway, or a giveaway of products that are related to your book.
Gift Guides: Create a gift guide for your ideal reader. Include products that relate to your ideal reader, that are included or related to the subject of your book, and of course, include your book in the list. This is a great way to boost your SEO and drive new shoppers to your site that are already searching for products your ideal reader would love!
Holiday Events: Although we can’t host in-person events, there are so many options for virtual events! Check out the slide below for some fun ideas.
I had so much fun with everyone who showed up to nail their holiday marketing this season. If you missed this session, don’t worry! You can get access to the full workshop replay and the bonus downloadables here.
And get your holiday campaign out to even more readers with targeted advertisements! Sign up for my live session December 10th 5-6:30pm ET on Book Advertising to find out how you can target readers with your ads.
