You Are Your Own Best Marketing Rep!

All our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas.
Wallace Stevens

Two-Steppin’

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Candy always gets my attention, so I thought it might get yours as well. If I have gotten your attention, take a moment to think about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Remember that old commercial- One person bumps into another, and one of them says, “Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” And the other says, “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!” And then the little jingle started: “Two great tastes in one candy bar- Reese’s Peanut Butter cups”?

So you remember the commercial, and now you’re probably thinking, what in the world does that have to do with marketing?! Actually, it has a lot to do with marketing- and thinking about marketing differently. Or thinking about ideas differently...As in putting two ideas together to create one new, fabulous marketing idea!

Let’s go back to Networking, the marketing tip from November 28 (in the, oh, not-so-long-ago year of 2005). The little catch-phrase I used in that tip was the Beatles’ “I get by with a little help from my friends”. I also threw in the idea of thinking about “friends you haven’t yet met”.

Networking is probably the most essential ingredient when it comes to self-promotion. But if you couple networking with another idea, you’ve got yourself a dynamite meal (or a whole new candy bar- however you want to look at it)!

Networking + Marketing Idea= Successful Self-Promotion

This is two-steppin’ at its finest. Think of all the people you know. Perhaps you have many of them in your email contact list. That’s a great start- friends, family, colleagues. What about other people you know- entrepreneurs, merchants, coffee house owners, editors of newspapers & magazines (online or traditional), someone at the local library or college, people who work at theatre companies, or people you know who know these people? Make a list (or merge the list[s] that you already have with a new list).

Then, make up a list of ideas for marketing your book. Here are five:

1) Public readings of your work

2) Articles and essays about the kind of writing you do or about your book itself

3) Flyers (paper)

4) Flyers (email)

5) Hosting a party, tea, coffee klatch, dinner with your book as the theme or showcase

Next, match up one or more people from your list with one (or more) of the ideas.

For example: perhaps you, or someone you know, knows the owner of a coffee house, or someone at the local library or college. You could match that person (or people) to the idea of a public reading of your work, and at the reading pass out flyers about you, your book and where to buy it.

Or perhaps you could host a party, or have a friend host a party to celebrate the publication of your book. The party could have a theme, you could talk about your book, do a reading from your book, and pass out flyers with information about you, your book, and where it can be purchased.

Or maybe you know someone, or are willing to go meet someone, who is part of a theatre company that is doing a play that has some kind of connection to your book- its subject matter or the genre. If they’re willing, you could create paper flyers that fit into the production’s program that promote you, your book and how to buy it.

Of course, an email flyer is a fast, easy way to go without ever leaving your house. Create one, send it to your entire email contact list and ask everyone to pass it on to as many people as possible. Voilá!

Keep mixing and matching up people with ideas and see what you come up with- there are endless possibilities.

I am sure that some of you may have thought of these ideas already and, perhaps, have already implemented them. But if you haven’t, give it a go. Who knew that by mixing chocolate with peanut butter you’d get one of the most popular-selling candy bars of all time!