Understanding Free Plus Shipping Model of Marketing
“And so the real money is made on the back end of selling the book. You’ve taken them through a customer journey and the email sequences and you give them additional offers. That’s where you’re gonna make the bulk of your money.” — Chris Benetti
Chris Benetti has been in the marketing industry for over six years but has recently narrowed his focus to helping authors market and sell their books. He found that plenty of people helped authors write and launch their books, but no one offered a service to do the “boring stuff” to help sell books. He positioned himself in the market to help business and nonfiction authors with sales funnels and conversions.
In this episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk with Chris Benetti about sales funnels, free plus shipping, and other ways authors can market their books.
What is a funnel?
Chris tells us that a sales funnel is like a webpage where there is only one place that the creator of the funnel wants you to go. You either do the action when you get there, or you don’t. If you are selling books, a funnel would send you to a place where you either buy the book or not. There are no other options, and you’re taken step by step through the sales funnel.
The benefits of having your own sales funnel versus just selling books on Amazon are that you get to retain the information of the people who purchase your book or widget. This way, you can send them through an email funnel where you can send them free items or upsell to a course or audiobook. You can stay in touch with these people and connect with them about other future opportunities. Most authors make the most money from upsells such as audiobooks, courses, or trainings rather than their book sales.
Plus Shipping
Another great marketing strategy that Chris talks to us about is plus shipping. This is where you find a printer and distributor for your book, then offer your reader a free book and they just pay for the shipping costs. This is an excellent way to introduce new consumers to your product.
Some people may feel giving away their book or product devalues it, but it is a great way to get more sales. Everyone loves free stuff, so paying for shipping is a low-cost way for them to sample your product when they might not have paid full price for it. This gets more of your product to more people creating more sales, reviews, and upsells.
As authors, we find creative ways to write, publish and launch a book. When it comes to marketing them, we need to be just as creative and positive. Whether it’s figuring out marketing for ourselves or hiring someone like Chris Benetti to do it, our books will only get into the hands of readers if they know about them and have the opportunity to purchase them.
In this podcast, Chris also shares with us:
- How to use the e-book version of your book to upsell
- The many ways you can use your book as lead generation for your business
- The approximate costs of using plus shipping
- That reviews can help Amazon algorithms sell your book
- The steps for a sales funnel
- The approximate cost of running a marketing campaign
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Are you struggling with marketing your book? Have you thought of using free plus shipping? Share in the comments below!
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside of you that needs to be written, today is the day to start. Don’t delay — take action.
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