At the end of January 2013, a friend of mine launched a new book, and I was intrigued by a marketing tool he used. I watched as it unfolded, and thought it well worthwhile sharing – you may want to use it too…
Peter Cook’s new book is called ‘The Music of Business’, and in the build up to the launch he used, as you’d expect, some marketing techniques to generate interest. He set a launch date of 31-1-13, which in itself had a nice palindromic nature that could be played on.
Also, he posted snippets in the run up about what would be in the book, plus testimonials, all over the social media landscape, and it’s here that we find the tool he used on launch day that I want to focus on. It wasn’t a new tool – nothing ground breaking maybe, but there was a touch of creativity involved. So what was it..?
Facebook.
You may be rolling your eyes as you read that, thinking that there is nothing new in posting about a new book on Facebook, because after all everyone does that, right?
Yes, they do, and with good reason, because it can get the word out far and wide, to people who may have Facebook as one of maybe only a couple of websites they ever visit.
What Peter did was slightly different, because when he set up a page to promote the launch, he sent out invites to a virtual launch party on that page on launch day. That meant that he wasn’t simply sending out Facebook invites to an event, the event *was* on Facebook!
That meant people could drop in and out at any time they wanted during the day, for free, at their own leisure. No in your face stuff, it was totally at the discretion of invitees, but Peter did something which gave an incentive to check in on the event not just once, but regularly.
That was to offer prizes. He offered free sessions of his consultation service to the first amount of people to reply to a request in the event, or free signed copies of the physical paperback to the best contributions to threads in the event. That meant it was worth people coming back to check on the latest threads.
As for those threads, as well as the competitions he used snippets from the book, links to videos made just for that day, and music related questions to create activity – your first concert, your first album, etc
It meant a long day for him as he needed to host/run the event in real time, but it allowed him to generate interest and engagement with people all over the world for hour after hour, and of course they could go and buy the book instantly.
That’s something else he did, ask people to buy the book! You can’t be afraid to ask people to spend money with you, and since he wanted a launch day push of sales to boost the book’s rankings, he certainly *wasn’t* afraid to ask!
Something you want to see at the end of an event like this, is results, so was there anything tangible to take from it? Well, yes, the book ended up in the Top 10 of leadership books on Amazon.
That’s a nice result.
This virtual launch was not all Peter did to promote the book of course, he’d probably started a month earlier. As the launch got closer though, he concentrated on promoting the launch event as much as the book itself.
It came across to me that this was a creative way to use a tool we all know about – it was free to set up, free to promote, free to attend, and that’s three free thoughts to consider (easy for me to say!)
You may have a launch brewing yourself, or maybe you have a service you’d like to promote. You could do worse than taking a leaf out of Peter Cook’s book (did you see what I did there!), and consider hosting a live event on Facebook too.
Ok, that’s it for this time, let me know what you think. You can also check out Peter’s site The Academy Of Rock.
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. You might also want to read the blogging secret the gurus don’t want you to know!
Awesome to know that as I am going to have a launch the end of the Month or the beginning of next with my social media membership and Facebook Course. Great tips.
I loved watching it in real time and thought it was something I could do – prompting me to get a launch ready for end Feb too!
Cheers,
Gordon
It was extremely energy intensive. That said, the party virtually ran itself Anita. The clever bit as in most things was in the preparation.
This is brilliant. Thanks, GGord. Hope to use this idea once I have a product (wince) to market. Not only does it sound like an effective marketing strategy, to me it sounds like FUN!
I think it’s prompted me to get ready for an end of Feb launch.
I reckon it would work well for a book of yours, full of your anecdotes (hint hint)
Cheers,
Gordon
Great post! I’ll be holding a List-Building Party next week to kick-off the free 60 Day Biztopia Challenge. I love using events to start my groups and programs. I think it’s a lot of fun, although it can be weird rerouting people from the event page into the ongoing group page. I’m trying to figure out a better way to funnel people through the sign-up process, but hey, a party’s a party!
Excellent!
How about having a competition/draw – people have to join the group to be entered.
That’s an idea I think I’ll be using for my coaching programme launch.
Thanks as ever for stopping by,
Cheers,
Gordon
Great idea! Thanks for the info Gordon. Best Regards, Wendy
Hi Wendy,
It really struck me as working well!
Cheers,
Gordon
I’ve heard of Facebook parties with events – and don’t quite get it. It sounds like a great idea. My question though is, if you do an “event” why not simply party on the event page with plugs back to the main page? Am I missing something?
Perhaps I will need to search one out and attend just to see how they work!
Hi Jan,
You’ve got the idea right. What Peter did was to invite people to the facebook event during the build up to the date. Then throughout the day he ‘hosted’ the event on facebook, but in the event. That meant as a user you had to have accepted the invitation to get access.
That access gave you potential to enter the competitions, participate in the threads, etc.
He also linked to the book’s sales page throughout.
I had never seen one in action before – I did like the way it seemed to flow.
Cheers, Gordon
You can find mine on fb under 31 1 13
Great post Gordon. Really exciting the way entrepreneurs are taking advantage of social media. It just gets better and better. Thanks for sharing it with us. Congrats to your friend.
Yes, the internet has been levelling the playing field for many years, but the recent rise of social media has kicked it on again. This can be seen by Peter getting the book into the amazon top 10 on launch day.
Thanks as ever for stopping by!
Cheers,
Gordon
This sounds like a great idea… Something that belongs in the arsenal of every self-published author.
Got into the Top 10 leadership books, I was impressed!
Cheers,
Gordon
It gathered publicity in the Guardian, across the US in some other outlets and the BBC are currently interested Roy – not bad for an indie effort http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics-blog/2013/feb/03/music-of-business-hmv-economy
Very clever move AND you’re right… alot of time asking for the sale is missed/avoided…
This was not universally successful. A lot of people clicked ‘like’ a lot but that did not necessarily translate into sales. We did well enough tho’
Yes, the sales that did come came because in amongst the fun and promo stuff, Peter put links to the sales page on his site and the amazon product page
This is so clever. Thank you for sharing.
I thought it was worth sharing because it struck me as such a good idea for him to do!
Cheers, Gordon
Wow, this is certainly an interesting concept! I may have to check out the book too, with my being a musician and also starting off in Internet marketing. My curiosity is definitely piqued!
Hi Glenn,
Funnily enough I was thinking of using a webinar to launch a coaching programme Dean Holland style, but watching this facebook event has got me thinking about doing this – (might do both of course!)
Cheers,
Gordon
I do thing you need to do a large variety of things to get traction on these things these days Gordon – trad media, online, face to face and so on. Awareness does not = sales in the AIDA model of marketing – same as it ever was
I guess it depends on the who is aware…the AIDA model should be changed to MAIDA with the M being for market?
Thank you Glenn – for a preview go to http://www.academy-of-rock.co.uk/Music-Biz/
There’s also an online learning programme available with a limited number of free places in exchange for a review and a small number of half price $49 offers as a starter offer http://www.udemy.com/the-music-of-business-business-excellence-fused-with-music/
Contact me for a voucher