Head Back to School with Fresh Marketing Ideas

As summer comes to a close and temperatures cool, it’s time to hit the books­—the audiobooks! The start of a new season brings the opportunity to reset your marketing efforts, so today we’re giving a quick study on some additional ways to promote your audiobook using your new Bounty Referral links. With that, class is in session…

Lesson 1: Data is your most powerful marketing tool

Estimating, then measuring the success of your marketing efforts, is the number one guide for helping you decide what’s working and what’s not working when it comes to audiobook promotion. That’s why we enhanced your Sales Dashboard with data about the performance of your Bounty Referral links. In addition to the ability to see clicks and Bounty conversions on your dashboard, you can leverage the date range function to examine clicks, sales, and Bounty performance on a day-to-day basis. Match this data with your promotions calendar and calculate the return on investment (ROI) of your efforts, in terms of cost per click and cost per conversion. For example, if you see an increase in clicks on a day that you promoted your audiobook on your blog, consider how you can replicate that success in future posts.

Lesson 2: Collaborate to succeed

The marketing Rule of Seven says potential customers need to “see” your message seven times before they take an action and buy your product. But you can’t just scream “Buy! Buy! Buy!” all the time without burning your fans out. Good thing your author/actor network can help you spread the word. Working with a promotion partner, consider trading Bounty Referral links and promoting your peer’s work to your fans and vice versa. Choose a fellow author or actor in your genre–or even a related genre–and form an alliance to cross promote each other’s audiobooks. Beyond Facebook and Twitter, consider hosting each other for a Blog tour or featuring each other in your respective newsletters.

Lesson 3: Paid media can be a smart investment

When you’re trying to expand your following, investing a small budget in ads on search engines or social media can be a good way to recruit new fans. When placing paid ads, you have the ability to target potential clients based on geography, interests, and past shopping habits, and when combined with your Bounty Referral link, you can recruit new audiobook fans. In addition to strategically targeting your ads to your audience, be sure to use specific, meaningful keywords in your advertisements to quickly and clearly convey the benefits of your audiobook. This tip dovetails especially well with our first lesson, as you’ll be able to tweak your audience and keywords, then refer back to your Sales Dashboard to determine which worked best.

Lesson 4: Create a connection with your fans

These days, authentic connections are happening online with increasing frequency. This means you can get the word out about your audiobook directly to your fans using innovative livestreaming tools, such as Facebook Live and YouTube live streaming. Consider hosting a weekly discussion with your fans to answer questions, give updates, and provide exclusive content related to your (audio)books. As you set up these discussions, include your Bounty Referral link in the metadata and description, then be sure to mention it during your stream to direct users to your audiobook edition–and earn those Bounty Referral payments.

Lesson 5: Include links for your eBook readers

For authors, your front and back matter (the pages that precede and proceed your story) are a great opportunity to advertise other works. Readers who finish your eBook edition are likely to be looking for even more great work from you, and you can use your backmatter to alert them to the availability of your audiobook edition. Be sure to use your Bounty Referral links to point readers directly to your title on Audible.

Lesson 6: Combine and conquer

Think of the tips above as ongoing efforts that you can combine for maximum efficiency. For example, you can invite your promotional partner to appear on your Facebook Live stream and boost that post with a dollar amount that fits your budget. A few days later, visit your Sales Dashboard on ACX to see how that effort performed. From there, schedule another broadcast, tweaking a single aspect like hosting it at a different time or fine tuning the audience. Once you've completed the test, refer to your Sales Dashboard again to learn whether your tweaks moved the needle in a positive direction. Rinse and repeat until you’ve landed on a promotion that resonates with your audience.

Pencils down. We hope you’ve learned some valuable lessons on audiobook promotion. We’d also like to learn from you: How have you found success promoting your audiobooks? Tell us your favorite ideas in the comments. Now, class dismissed!