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Hang On To Your Wallet – by Brinda Berry

We talked a little about marketing and book swag last time. I chose one of the least expensive items in marketing when I went with my romance trading cards for a giveaway item. As a reminder, I paid $59.10 total for 2000 cards from http://www.gotprint.com. I’ve used them for giveaways and sent them to two author/reader conference for bags.

I’ve given away larger items for marketing purposes. During my blog tour in April, I offered a grand prize of a Kindle Touch eReader or Nook Simple Touch (approx. $100) . I also offered romance trading cards from my books to 20 winners. Using the Rafflecopter widget, I was able to track my return on investment (ROI) of this giveaway.

I had a dozen friends help roll-out the blog tour with an announcement the week my book released mid-March and some put the contest info with Rafflecopter on the blog post. Then in April, I had a blog tour at twenty book blogger/review sites where the Rafflecopter and contest were displayed.

I had the following results:

  • 146 people ENTERED the contest in total. Multiple entries were accepted by the methods listed below.
  • 93 of the 146 entered by LIKING me on Facebook
  • 89 entered by LIKING the blog post
  • 102 entered by COMMENTING on the blog post
  • 10 entered by PURCHASING a book from the Whispering Woods series (extra points awarded for this type of entry)
  • 104 entered by FOLLOWING me on Twitter
  • 79 entered by TWEETING about the Whisper of Memory giveaway

Was this worth the cost of the eReader? It’s hard to say. I did get some good exposure that I probably would not have without a prize. Let’s face it. We all like to win things. Even when I open a fortune cookie, I secretly wish for a good one like, “You will have the best day of your life very soon.” Instead I usually get the fortune  that says, “Your luck will change tomorrow.” How cryptic is that? Back on track… I do believe my prize could have been smaller with some of the same results.

I recently had a contest to win a paperback book from a list of my favorites reads (approx. $12 value). This contest has given me the same number of results on Facebook and Twitter as the one for the eReader mentioned above. Of the results for the eReader giveaway, I’m most pleased that some folks purchased my books to enter. I didn’t know if that would actually work or not. And honestly, I hope some purchased my books later only because of the exposure to the blurb and cover.

Let’s look at some other choices for book swag. The things I’m showing you would be considered larger prizes (unless you have a lot more in your marketing budget than I do).  Word of mouth is a great tool. If you give away items that will be seen and become conversation pieces, you generate word of mouth advertising. Since my books are YA, imagine a student using certain items at school. The marketing team for the Twilight series has done a great job of making T-shirts, journals, and posters available for their fans. These are things I considered:

Let’s get back to the discussion of my Whisper of Memory eReader giveaway in  April results and word of mouth. When Rafflecopter chose Justin Bieber as the winner and he tweeted about it and wrote a song….Okay. That’s a lie. Justin didn’t win. Sher A. Hart, a YA author won the contest as chosen by the Rafflecopter widget. She asked me if she could get a gift credit and make a decision about an upgrade. I agreed. Then Sher blogged about eReaders and winning HERE. It’s a terrific post if you are trying to decide which eReader to purchase. She thanked me and referred to my book at the beginning of the post. I’m not sure of how many readers subscribe to her blog, but Sher has 665 friends on Google friend connect alone and is active on multiple types of social media like Facebook (262 fans) and Twitter (2,310 followers). This is great exposure (AKA word of mouth) for me via Sher A. Hart.

This post is not to convince you that I know all the answers. I’m only sharing my experiences this year with my marketing adventures. I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point on audiobook several times last year and believe that everyone should read it. If you can’t read it, check out this Wikipedia summary. Gladwell postulates that there is a stickiness factor (making it memorable) for certain products. He also talks about the virility of certain ideas and products.  Our goal as a marketer is to have people talking about our books. All the information is compelling and food for thought.

Any thoughts to share? Read any good marketing books lately? Wish you had an iPhone cover with a book image on the back?

BIO: Brinda lives in the southern US with her family and two spunky cairn terriers. She’s terribly fond of chocolate, coffee, and books that take her away from reality.

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Whisper of Memory Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/PbZ_cjGsjA8

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Thanks for filling in for me (again!) Brin. Never, ever leave your regular every-odd-Wednesday guest spot on my glob.

[That kind of sounds like water-restricted yard maintenance schedules, doesn’t it?]

Do you suppose guest bloggers would be offended if I ‘themed’ Wednesday posts Odd Wednesday Guest Glob?

Get back to me soonest. Before it becomes a theme I can’t live without. Whoop! Too late. Sorry.

Glob followers, I continue to write like the wild woman I am on the first draft of my WIP. But, Great News (?), I plan to write a post of my own in the near future. Yes. It will be this month. Yes. The day will still be in the teens.

Oh! Oh! I so want a journal with Whisper of Memory on the cover. Go forth and order them, Brinda.  I’ll wait.

[Clicking pen until you get so annoyed you do this for me.]

Okay, readers, you know the drill. Please leave a comment, so I can write a novella disguised as a comment in reply. Brinda is in charge of the sane and informative comments every this week.

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