Effectiveness of advertising to sell books

Following on from my earlier post on selling my book, Romancing The Sale, here are my experiences of using on-line advertising to promote awareness and ultimately sell copies of my book.

This was an experiment and I enjoy measuring the results of experiments so here are my findings.

Well it look like advertising is a waste of money and completely ineffective - at least when it comes to selling books. If you you are an author, I wouldn't recommend advertising as a vehicle to promote your book!

I set up a Google AdWords advertising campaign to display adverts to potential prospects for my book based on carefully selected keywords.

I had a selection of different adverts to measure which adverts achieved the best response rate.

My adverts were displayed a grand total of 58,000 times and I had 97 people click on the adverts. Just a 0.16% click through rate at a cost of £28 (approx £0.29 per click). My best advert has a 1.25% click through rate which is very high.

As my book is on Kindle I wanted to measure the conversion rate. The sales process by using advertising is:

Advert is display -> Attracted to the advert -> Clicks on the link -> Views Amazon page -> Decides to buy -> Add to cart -> Pays for shopping cart -> Purchase complete

Amazon doesn’t provide statistics on how many people have viewed your product page. The only stats are for purchase complete. I had heard that Amazon have an 80% shopping cart abandon rate and they are one of the better performers in the industry. Well my experience seems to back that up.

In order to measure the stage from my advert being clicked and eventually being purchased, I set-up and Amazon Affiliate account.  This enables me to see a little more detail once my prospect clicks on the advertising link.

So my 97 click throughs translated into zero sales on my book but interestingly it did sell other stuff which I will cover shortly. I'm currently selling an average of 1 copy of the book per day so these sales are clearly not coming from advertising but other activities such as social media and word of mouth. I have a big campaign sheduled for the end of November so I will be able to compare other marketing vehicles and their effect on sales.

I had originally assumed a 1 in 4 conversion rate to purchase. Let's assume my 97 clicks through is actually 100 click throughs.  I assumed of this 100 that 25 would decide to buy the book. Deciding to buy and actually buying are two very different things. Amazon's 80% shopping cart abandon rate means only 20% of people that decide to buy actually buy (good old Pareto yet again).

Based on my numbers, it would mean that I should have had 5 sales but I had zero.  Interestingly with an Affiliate account you can see what people did buy and I had 4 consequential sales - someone bought a nice sofa and the other 3 bought books (not mine). One person bought a how to book on murder which is a little different to my Romancing customers.

Although it is interesting that I created consequential sales it doesn't achieve my primary goal of selling my book.

So what would it take to sell one book through advertising?

I think my original 1 in 4 conversion rate should be 1 in 5 (20% again) since this would match the 4 resulting sales. However the additional sales step is important. There is a decision to buy something and there is a decision to buy my book.  I think Pareto kicks in again and only 20% of those that decide to buy decide to buy my book - the rest decide to buy something else like a new sofa.

So to sell one copy

1 @20% = 5 people who actually buy something
5 @20% = 25 people who  decide to buy something
25 @20% = 125 people who are looking to buy something
125@0.16% = 78,000 adverts need to be displayed

So I need 125 people to click on links in order to achieve 1 sale. Assume 30p per click, this means spending £37.50 to achieve one sale! I need to increase the price of my book to make this viable!

I'm now abandoning my AdWords campaign since it is clearly not effective.

I am now experimenting with the LinkedIn advertising to see if that it more effective. It wasn’t very effective in the past on other campaigns I've run.   I'll share the results in the near future.  So why LinkedIn.  Google doesn't have user profiling - the adverts are displayed based on keyword triggers. LinkedIn has excellent user profiling so my adverts can be displayed to my target audience.  In this case I am restricting it to show to people in the UK and North America that have the word sales in their job title and have specified a skill of either complex sales, professional sales or relationship based selling. 

I'm not selling anything

Have you ever had someone ring you or knock on your door and one of the first things they say is "I'm not selling anything to you".  This has got to be the most stupid things to say.  I can only think of a couple of scenarios  where this might work:

1/ the person  has been living in a cave all there life and never ever been sold to and so believes you
2/ the person is totally thick and believes you
3/ the person is too polite to tell you to f*#$ off.

As I enjoy studying people's sales techniques I  recently let the sales process run it's course when I was  cold called in this way.  The technique usually switches to some no obligation survey or promotion. To me it is clear that the survey will find something wrong giving them the opportunity to sell something.  On this particular occasion I let them feel secure and then started asking questions about once the survey is completed would anyone try and sell to me. OK the face told me the answer was yes even if the words had switched to "there is no obligation to buy".

My logic is it's hard to buy something unless someone is selling some thing....

Conversation terminated.

I was tempted to confuse him by start selling my book to him given that he had inadvertently given me permission to have a face to dialogue.

Clearly "I'm not selling anything" is a lie or at best a half truth "I am not selling anything to you right this second, but I will very soon".

Lying is never a good technique in sales.  Why would I trust a company when their opening line is "I'm  lying to you so you don't slam the door in my face".

A far better approach for this particular door-to-door salesman that cold called me. "Hi,  I noticed you have a few broken tiles on your roof and lots of moss that could cause damage to your roof in a cold winter.  We have a team of roof surveyors in the area next week. I wanted to just let you know they will be putting an estimate card through your door and if I hadn't knocked you might wonder what it is. They will survey your roof from the outside and put the card through your door with an  estimate of how much we would charge to fix these issues. There is no obligation to buy - you decide. Thank you for your time"

No lying
No pressure
You outline a problem and some risks if the problem is ignored
Result - I trust these guys a bit more.

Lying gives sales a bad name and doesn't establish trust - why do it!

Selling business books on Kindle

Last week I launched my first business book, Romancing The Sale  and I have been busy learning how to sell books. Not my normal fare of sales - I'm more used to face-to-face encounters and selling complex stuff.

Selling books requires a different mindset. Without being able to see who you're selling to it's rather like attending an orgy in  a pitch back room - you're not sure what you're grabbing hold of. Retail selling is clearly about throwing enough stuff out there and hoping some of it sticks on the right people.

So after 1 week I can now state that I'm an expert on selling business books on Kindle.  I've read 5 or 6 books this week on book promotion. I've read blogs and of course thought about it and done some of my own things. This  puts me in the top 5% of knowledgeable people since most of the information out there is ill considered rubbish.

Let me share my new found knowledge with you.

1. Business books are not fiction
The vast amount of information out there on book promotion is aimed at mass market fiction. Business books are a niche and so the recommended websites are off target. Although my book might have the right title, announcing it to the Romance and Lovers book review club is not going to propel it to best seller in its category.  I have yet to find a business book review club equivalent.

The second observation is that  there are loads of  book review websites out there.  No clear market leaders. The Pareto principle tells me that 80% of the benefit will be delivered by 20% of the websites.  I've yet to figure out which ones I need to invest my time with.

I'm also dubious about book review clubs that want to charge me $49 per month for advertising my book before they will review it or even list it. Sure their website needs a business model but is their readership on target?  What is the conversion rate I can expect from their advertising - information which sadly lacking. Will readers consider them impartial when they know they are charging me for the privilege of being on this website?

2. Build a Promotion Platform. Not

The other advice out there is to build a promotion platform for your book. Blogging, social networking etc so you can promote your book through this channel.  Hmmmm. How long is that going take to realise sales?  Building a loyal following on a blog  takes time and lots of effort producing content. I've been doing this blog for coming up to 1 year and get a few thousand readers per month.   Say 1% of my readership purchases my book from this blog then I get a few tens of book sales.  Horrary I'll be able to retire on that (not that the intention of my book was to get rich quick anyway).

The problem with building a Promotion Platform is that it is yet another product which you need to promote. If you already have a large following (100,000+ followers) then it would be a viable vehicle. Building yet another thing in order to promote a book is ludicrous. If I was seduced into going this route I would think "Why not build a platform to promote all books rather than just limit it to mine?" (even though it is clearly the best).

Make a Killing on Kindle is one of the best books on book promotion I read this week. It's a no nonsense approach to promotion. Ignore the get rich quick title - there is some great advice in there.

3. Advertising

I've experimented with using Google advertising as a book promotion tool this week.  I wasn't expecting big results from paid advertising.  I was working on the basis that I wanted to build a readership therefore revenue from my book sales is being ploughed back into Google AdWord advertising.  I was expecting to come out neutral (the advertising cost generated sales which matched the margin from resulting book sales).Zero cash gain.  Sadly it is on-track to come out negative.

So a little explanation on how Google AdWords works. Google displays my adverts. The adverts display based on what the person at the other end is searching for. I declare which keywords I think are relevant for my book. Google don't charge to display the advert.  If someone clicks on my advert I pay. This is called click-throughs.  The industry average is 0.3% click through rate.  So in other words, the advert needs to be displayed 333 times before someone clicks on it.

I've done a lot with Google AdWords in the past so I know how to optimise it quickly to control costs.  My initial click through rate was 0.12% (833 ads per click) so worse than the industry average. Google recommended I bid £1.75 per click (guess what I didn't pay that). A click takes my prospective book lover to my Amazon page where they have the option of buying my book. Of course every single one of these prospective book lovers will buy it won't they?  Nope. I guessed maybe 1 in 5.

So lets do the business case.

5 x clicks @ £1.75 = £8.75 in order to sell a book priced  at £7.20 (with VAT) - negative case

I wasn't prepared to pay £1.75 so I bid 45p - it got me a top 3 ranking which is good enough.

So revised business case

5 x clicks @ 0.45p = £1.25.  This could be viable to promote it.

The reality is the conversion rate to a purchase is closer to 1 in 20. £5 to get one purchase. Into negative margin territory.

So lets do the math.  0.12% click through 5% conversion.  In other words I need to display 16,000 adverts to get one sale!  It looks like there are about 50,000 advert banners displayed per week so 3 book sales per week with negative margin. Horrary. 3 book sales per week is sure to make me a best seller!

I've experimented with my keywords and the average is improving.  Some of my keywords are now yielding an amazing 6% click through rate but the sales conversion is still only 5%. I'll keep you posted on how this works out as I experiment with this.

Advertising is therefore not a viable vehicle to get a best seller. I'll keep using the advertising since I want to get readership. Conclusion - it needs to be a part of my overall promotional sales strategy.

4. Free Download Day

The most successful promotional tool this week has been the free download day.  I dropped the price to free for one day! This proved a massive draw with hundreds of copies flying off the virtual shelf around the world.  Clearly the zero price eliminates perceived risk from the buyer and is an effective way to get a readership.

Free is a great way t get the book out there but not a great way to make money.

 And Finally

It's been an interesting journey this week learning about a whole new dimension to selling.

One of the statistics I've learnt is that 30% of new authors sell less than 100 copies of their book. How depressing would that feel.  There are plenty of books out there advocating writing a book as a way to generate  income so you can quit your job and live the high life.  Get real.

A book is a product.  Creating  a product is 10% of the job. 90% of the job is selling the product.  Why should books be any different to anything else in the real-world.

Selling is necessary for success.

My book is out on Kindle

I'm feeling guilty that I have not posted a blog for nearly 2 months. Particularly as I made a promise to myself to blog an article at least twice per month.

Hopefully my excuse is acceptable. I've been working hard in my spare time (the time when I would normally find time to blog) on my book. It's now out on Kindle!! Romancing the Sale, as the title suggests is about winning sales by making your customers love you.  It takes a fun look at sales by comparing the sales process with the world of dating.

Some of the things you will discover in my book are:

Find out why using the same sales technique on your mother-in-law, that you used on your girlfriend,  will get you a slap or unexpectedly into bed with her.

Why Mr Spock, the character from Star Trek, is useless at selling?

What's going on in your head and your prospect's head during the sales process?

I have a limited number of free samples of the book to give away. I need to read the Amazon documentation again as it wasn't clear how to give these away.  Ping me if you're interested in reading it and you have a Kindle (or Kindle app). The only thing I would ask is that you write a review. Once I figure out their system I'll

I enjoyed doing writing the book so much that I'm already thinking about my second (and third) book!

Romancing the Sale is available on Kindle now priced £7.20 in the UK and $9.99 in the US. The paperback version will be out  January 2013.

Change the Sales Curve

Change curves are a powerful tool – I think they ought to be taught at school since few people are well equipped to deal with all the challenges that relationships present. Change curve stem from how people behave when they experience a shock such as an unexpected death. The typical stages are something like Shock, Denial, Resistance, Exploration and Acceptance.

Many of these stages are common to sales. The cold call is where you'll hit Denial or Resistance. “We don’t need that”. “The problem isn’t that serious – we don’t need to fix it”. Using the change curve can help you in sales. By understanding where your prospect is on the curve, you can tailor your message and help progress the sale towards Acceptance.

Change curves don’t solve all problems – just like real life some people can get stuck on the curve for example not being able to accept and come to terms with a death which happened 20 years ago. 

So don’t expect all your sales to be magically turned around. Change curves can help you look at the sale from a different perspective - you'll be working on the sale not in the sale!

Getting Past the Bouncers

It seems getting the attention of prospective customers can be one of the hardest thing in sales. Once you've broken the ice things often seem to flow much better. The trouble is that people have night club bouncers guarding their brain – protecting it from unnecessary information. There's an almost automatic defence reaction - “Whatever you're selling, we dont need it”.

Why is that?

Interestingly you may think people are highly rational but the reality is the reptilian brain  (the oldest part of the brain which is separate from the left and right brain - it's job is to keep you alive) is usually in control. It's busy filtering out all the irrelevant messages. You might think getting past the over zealous secretary is hard – reptile brain can be far worse.

On the first encounter, the prospects' reptile brain is evaluating your opening message and deciding – fight, flight or ignore. If you're pitch looks like something else that's been rejected then guess where you're headed.

How do you get past security then? Just like stage hypnosis, you need a mechanism to get past this zealous protector of the brain. Stage hypnosis works by using shock or confusion – if your sales pitch causes shock or confusion , the reptile brain needs some help from the more intelligent brain since your confusing message is beyond the processing power of the dinosaur relic.

Examples of how to cause confusion. “We don't need xyz?”. “Abolutely. That's exactly why we should meet to discuss”. Here they are expecting you to argue but instead you agree! OK this was a simple example but it will throw them off guard for a couple of seconds. You need to use those couple of seconds before the defensive shutters come down again.

Other ways to get past security are to not be seen as a threat. If you are asking too much of them then you are a threat. If you are simply asking for a few minutes of their time to ask a few question to see if you MIGHT be able to help then you are not making too big requests and not making wild claims so there is more willingness to have a short exploratory conversation.

In summary using confusion (in a positive way) can create openings and making sure you are not seen as a threat are the ways to be more successful in the opening approach.

Sales partnerships

It seems fashionable to say your customers are your partners.

How many sales partnerships truly operate on a partnership basis?
I usually come back to the real world of relationships to validate concepts and this one is no exception.  A marriage is a partnership.  I'm  a bit hazy on exactly what I signed up to on that big day many years ago but I definitely remember something along the lines of "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health".  Pretty much it said "Hey guys you're entering into a partnership - it could be a roller coaster ride - are you happy to accept that the value of your relationship can go up as well as down?"

So back to our partnership selling - does it really extend to the same level of commitment?  The seller may think they are in a partnership but does the buyer?  What if the seller has convinced the buyer that they are in a partnership and then really call upon their "friendship".

Customer: Things are not going so well.  We need to invest in the factory to reduce our costs but haven't got any cash. Will you lend us the equipment for 1 year to see us through this tough time?
Salesperson: That's a big ask! I don't think we can swallow that.

I think most sales partnerships are fair weather relationships. I also think most sales  relationships are one sided.  The customer usually holds the power to walk away from the relationship more than the seller.

I think when most sellers use the term partnership, they are thinking about what's in it for them - locking in the customer. Some buyers do think of some sellers as partners - it's when the cost of walking away from the relationship is high - one that causes a lot of heart-ache and angst.

How people behave in parternships is also different to a classic transactional relationship of buyer-seller.

I recommend reading Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational.  It's kind of an economics book but he does some great real world experiments that are very relevant in sales.  There's one example which I think was fascinating. It revolves around a child day care centre that had a problem with parents collecting their children late.  So the care centre decided to introduce a financial penalty for late collection.

Interestingly this changed the social norms of this buyer-seller relationship.  Parents were in fact feeling guilty about late collection but the transition to one where it was financial had the unexpected effect of parents being even later collecting their children.  There was a social norm part of this "partnership" and the rules were changed. The care centre didnt want this so they changed it back but too late - the damage was done. The parents now had the benefit of a guilt free late collection and no financial penalty either !!

Prior to the rule change parents had guilt - they hadn't put a price on guilt.  Charging for late collection changed that - it now had a price and parents could weigh up how much being late was worth to them!

What's the moral of this story?  Well if you intend to run your sales on a partnership basis because you're following the fashion, understand what it is you're signing up to.  Once you operate on a partnership basis you are in this for the long haul - just like a marriage. Changing the rules mid way because things have got a bit tough can have unexpected consequences.

Marriage is a good benchmark for behaviour in a partnership.  What kind of change to your marriage relationship would you get if your wife presented you with a price list for sexual favours?

If you're inheriting an account make sure you understand where you are.  If the previous account manager had shown lots of good will and flexibility supporting the customer and you come along with a black or white approach to the account, the mood of the relationship will change - beware!