#302: Marketing Minute: 5 Holiday Sales Strategies

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelli Hitz.

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As the holidays approach, I thought it would be just fun to kind of give you a few ideas for holiday book sales strategies. So I recently hosted a holiday book sales strategies workshop and I created a ton of templates to make this super easy for you to implement. So if you're interested in that, check the link in the description and come join us because there's still time for for you to use these strategies for this holiday season. So number one I wanted to share is Bogo Deals. So this is buy one, get one. And what I've done in the past is I've offered an ebook or an audiobook version if someone buys my print book. And so that way I always like would say buy one as a gift for a family or friend and then you get the audiobook or ebook version free. The second option is to offer an extra digital bonus for those who buy your book during a certain time. Now this could be a two to three time or two to three day window and this can be at any time. You know, it could be, you know, right leading up to Christmas. It could be in New Year's, you know, after a lot of people have gotten new Kindles or gift certificates or money, you know, they're wanting to spend it on books. So you can offer something and you know, you can give them some sort of digital bonus that relates to your book and it gives them a reason to buy. Now now I go much in more detail on this in the workshop as well as I have some email promo templates that you can just edit and use as well when you purchase the Holiday Book Marketing Kit. But you can really do this with any kind of digital bonus that you have. Idea number three is to put together a gift giving guide for your target audience and then have all of the authors who are featured distribute it as a PDF. So I have been sharing this idea with writers for several years now and I have not seen very many really do it. And I realized this year I think the issue has been the technical part like creating this in Canva or Indesign or hiring a designer. And so I actually had my graphic designer create a gift giving guide template in Canva and it's all set up for you. You just have to Change out, just put in like the different book cover type or book covers and then the links and all of that. And I share a video on how to do that already several of the people have put together gift giving guides and are doing this this year. Now you don't have to use this just for Christmas. You could also do something like this for Mother's Day. You know, if your target audience is women, you know, a lot of people are buying gifts for their moms and for women on Mother's Day. Or if you write and publish children's books, a lot of people will be getting gifts for kids at Easter for their Easter baskets or an Easter gift. And your book might be a good fit in the gift giving guide. You want it to be for a specific target audience. And it's like you're curating the best of the best. You want these to be giving know books that you highly recommend. And then you can also add in some other products, maybe you find some products on Etsy or on Amazon or whatever and you maybe include some other things that your target audience would like. So again, I've included templates and a lot more information on this in the book marketing. The book in the book Holiday Book Marketing Kit. That's a mouthful. But you could just do this on your own too.

The fourth thing is to put together a book bundle. So this is where you would take your print book and you would bundle it with other items and you would only have a certain amount available. Or you could do pre orders and just pre sell it and then you know exactly how many you're going to get. And I have done this successfully and one of our Christian Book Academy members, Jennifer Wattle, has done this successfully. You can listen back to one of our previous episodes on book bundles as well. Number five is to sell bulk orders. So this is a great time of the year. People need gifts for all sorts of people, for teachers and dentists and, you know, chiropractors and, you know, all the people. So they might want to buy a bulk order of your books of 10 or more. And this is something that you can also offer, maybe some digital bonuses to sweep sweeten the deal. You know, just, just consider, you know, how this might fit in with your book and with your audience. But again, we have another podcast episode that we shared, how CJ and I sell bulk orders and we do this year round. We offer discounts anytime somebody wants to buy directly from us, bulk orders for their groups or for other things as well. So which will you choose? Number one? Bogo deal. Number two, offer an extra digital bonus for a certain period of time. Number three, put together a gift giving guide specifically for your target audience. So whatever your specific audience is and get some other authors involved and then just ask all of the authors that are featured to send that out and it's a great way to have a strategic partnership and, and to get your book in front of different people. Number four, put together a book bundle and that's more of like a print book bundle. And number five, sell bulk orders. So I hope this has gotten your wheels turning. If you want more information on this and templates and everything, check out the Holiday Book Marketing Kit. The link is in the description. I am just so thrilled that you are moving forward one step at a time. Keep keeping your eyes on Jesus. You know, ask God what is going to be the best promotion for you to do this holiday season and then do it. We love you all and we're cheering you on.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers.

Like you to not only tell your.

Stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.

Sam.