“While ‘everyone may find some benefit from your book, when you speak to ‘everyone,’ you actually dilute your message so much that it becomes effective to no one.”
— Ryan Mendenhall, Selling Well: The 5 Relationships That Experts, Authors & Coaches Use To Sell 1,000 Books In 21 Days
Get Personal
Pick one specific reader and get inside their head. This can be a real person, or you can even use your writing skills to create a fictions character and get inside their head. Actors use this method to better play their roles, sometimes even creating a backstory for their character.
For example, the fictitious person I’m trying to reach is a teenage girl (approximately age 14-15) who is doesn’t have a good sense of her identity, has low self-esteem and is constantly bullied. She is talented and smart but socially awkward. She loves horses, nature, fantasy, and can't see someone in pain without trying to help.
Most of us want to spend as little on marketing and advertising as possible, right? Then your goal is what we call "viral marketing". This is when your book or ad is shared from a single person or small group, and branches out, being shared with a wider population. The key here is that you are not having to pay for this exposure, and your book/content is spreading like a virus (see above image).
Knowing your target audience makes writing and marketing easier. Let your readers connect with your book so intimately that this viral process begins, and your book sales will rise.
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