NOTE: This is part of a series I am doing here, which explains how I am marketing my new book, Ask, Believe, Receive - 7 Days to Increased Wealth, Better Relationships, and a Life You Love. If you enjoy the "behind the scenes" info on this promotion and feel the book would help you, please purchase it. :)
If you've been online and in the "IM" or "make money" circle for any length of time, you've probably gotten an email from somebody, promising you a bunch of free bonus stuff if you buy a book on a certain day. The purpose is two-fold.
1. Sell enough books to get a #1 position on Amazon.com. - As Amazon calculates its sales rankings every hour, if you buy enough books within a certain time, it's pretty easy to get a really good position on their chart. If you're good at organization, even a small list buying during the 3am hour can throw off even the hottest books...for at least an hour.
2. Build a mailing list for the parties involved. - This is list building at its finest... In order to get each of the free bonuses, the buyer must sign up for a list. In other words, if you want 10 of the bonus items, you'll have to sign up for 10 different lists.
As a marketing guy, part of what I do is try new things. I did a similar campaign for a book I did a few years ago with good luck, so I wanted to try it again, in a new market. So, a couple of months ago, I announced right here that I was looking for people who wanted to build a mailing list.
As you can imagine, a lot of people were interested. Again, this is a great way to build a mailing list. It's not uncommon to get thousands of people added on a single day.
So why didn't I do it?
First of all, I've already done it. And I like conquering new territory...
But there were a few more reasons:
1. A huge rush of orders throws off Amazon's stocking system. - When you've got a new book and Amazon gets a ton of orders for it within a few hours, the automated inventory system thinks you've got something hot. And because Amazon doesn't want to keep customers waiting or lose customers who might pass on buying because of a "currently out of stock" note, they order a ton of books from the publisher/distributor.
Now, a lot of the books in these best-seller campaigns are print-on-demand (POD) books, which aren't printed until there is an order for them. But what if you're a self-published guy who is printing your own stuff at a local print shop and selling them via Amazon's Advantage Program?
For you, Amazon will need several hundred (or thousand) books to fill perceived demand...
That means you have to get the printer/binder to create more product and you've got to ship everything to Amazon's warehouse. Easy right?
Yeah, it's easy enough, but if you're a smalltime player, the expense could really hurt your cash flow.
And it gets worse...
What happens when the perceived demand turns out to be just that?
When that happens, Amazon ships the books back to you...at your expense. They're not going to warehouse hundreds (or thousands) of books when the title only sells a few copies each month, right?
So now you've got to warehouse them. Another expense...unless you want to live among thousands of unsold books.
2. A huge rush of orders throws off Amazon's recommendation system. - When you visit a product page at Amazon, you'll see a section which says, "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" and displays similar books.
But how similar are they?
When these choices are created organically, they're very close. For example, when you look at my new book, which is about the Law of Attraction, you'll see people have purchased other "Law of Attraction" books, including this book, and this workbook, which are both by me.
But when you've got something from a "best seller campaign," you're likely to see other "best seller" books in this section.
Why? Because there are people who only buy when they're getting a free bonus. Because of this, Amazon treats your book and the previous books which were promoted via similar campaigns, as similar.
So your "make money" book might be up there with some weight loss book, or one of these "compilation books" where about 20 people each write a chapter, or even worse, an audio interview that has been transcribed and bound.
There are a lot worse things in the world, but the beauty of Amazon is that you're able to get recommendations on books which you might not have known about. And since this is how the system figures out how to recommend things, you're losing out on this in a big way, because your "make money" book is being recommended with something totally unrelated.
3. A "best seller campaign" doesn't create a die hard, long term fan. - Let me take this one away from books and give you an example from a business which I am closely related, the music business.
Let's say you're in a band and get a hit single on the radio, or a reality show on MTV. When you've millions and millions of people exposed to your stuff, it's pretty easy to get a number one record.
And while a number one record isn't a problem, the way you go about it when you come out of nowhere with a radio single, or you're all over MTV for a couple of months, doesn't exactly create the type of buyer who has any loyalty. They may have liked the song, or that particular moment, but they know nothing else about you and who you are as an artist.
So what happens when the radio play isn't there and MTV no longer returns your calls?
Nothing. Literally...
The "best seller campaign" model does not create the type of buyer you want. Again, look at the listing for Ask, Believe, Receive and notice how many of the people who bought it are also buying my other books. They're not looking for the "single" or a "moment in time." They're looking for certain information, which they're trusting me to provide...not buying because of a free bonus.
Yes, selling a ton of books is great, and the money spends well, but you'll make so much more money in the long run by doing a promotion that is longterm and through, rather than a flash in the pan email campaign with a ton of free bonuses.
One more thing...
Can you remember any of the authors who has done a big single-day Amazon push?
