Advertising Changes for 2013 - Can we increase your exposure?
Things changed quickly, though. When traffic picked up in the spring, I added book promotion to the line up, and through some experimentation, I figured out a few things: what has worked, and what has failed miserably. Some failures quietly disappeared. Other experiments didn't fail as bad, but I'm not happy with the overall results.
For instance, banner ads don't bring in enough traffic to make them worthwhile. I'm going to get rid of them for the most part, putting a couple of things in their place to hopefully increase exposure to the advertising authors and their books.
Ad Space That Is Staying
There are three types of ad space that is staying: left sidebar, right sidebar, and Kindle Free Day Banners. That means the only time there will be a paid large banner ad at the top will be when a book is FREE on Amazon. We'll see what happens with exposure when there's not always a book up there.
When not advertising a free book, the top banner ad space will be used to draw attention to some new features.
To make it less confusing (hopefully), the book covers on the left side will be changed to look like the ones on the right. In other words, Amazon buy now buttons will be added. Will this encourage blog visitors to check out the books? Only time and more experimentation will tell.
New Features: More Exposure?
The two latest features I'm working on are considerable projects, major undertakings compared to what I've done so far. It's time to take marketing with the Masquerade Crew to the next level. Because of that, I ask for patience from advertisers as we continue to experience growing pains.
I'll blog about each of these features in more depth in the coming days, but for now a brief description will have to suffice.
Book of the Week: I've referred to this in the past, and I'll continue to work on the idea in the coming weeks. Once the program is in full swing, there will be a different book each week that book club members will be encouraged to buy. Those that do will earn rewards points which will be turned in for other books in the program (and possibly other prizes as time goes on).
Since we advertise more than four books a month, we'll have to figure out how to feature books that aren't picked as books of the week. One idea is to have book club members pick from a pool of books which ones they would like to purchase as books of the week. This will ensure that every book gets some exposure.
I'll be expanding our blog tour capacity, so some books that aren't featured as books of the week may gain some exposure from some of our partners. Regardless of what happens, rest assured that my goal is to provide as much exposure as I can for each and every advertiser.
Audio Podcast: I'd like to put together a regular podcast featuring the authors and books we advertise. You'll get to hear the author's voice, excerpts from their books, and perhaps even some music. I've sent out emails to the current advertisers and have received some feedback. We'll see where this goes.
May 2013 be as exciting for you as I think it will be for us. In fact, this post just barely skims the surface of what I would like to accomplish this coming year.
