When I first heard about this new way of connecting with readers, I was more than hesitant to even consider it. It sounded…complicated. And even though the cost was negligible, I really didn’t want to have to go through some difficult learning curve just to test something out.
So, do you know what I did? What every other stubborn person does!
I did nothing. I let other people test it out, spend their time and money on it while I continued to work in the same way I always had.
The problem was that my book launch and content marketing system was incredibly time consuming. No matter how hard I tried to find shortcuts, I always felt as though I was trying to beat the clock just to stay on schedule.
Just think about how many things we have to do every single day in order to keep our books selling!
Writing (or outsourcing) the book is the easy part. It’s the rest of it that sucks up all our time and energy. And sadly, for many authors, it drains us of our most valuable asset – our creativity.
Well, the day came where I couldn’t ignore just how exciting the idea was that I could automate even a small amount of my marketing. It was my husband who finally convinced me to consider this new automated resource that my writing circle had been using for the last few months.
He said something that just made sense.
“How many other books could you write with the time you spend promoting them?”
He was right. I was spending so much time promoting my books and building my author brand that I was left with little time to actually write. And if you’ve been in self-publishing for any amount of time then you already know that the only way to make more money is to publish new books so you can stay visible on the charts.
So, what was this secret automation tool that so many of authors can’t stop talking about?
Bots!
What if you could have entire conversations with new and existing readers without even being present?
Imagine if you could set up a system that would automatically respond to questions and feedback even when you’re off relaxing with your family or miles away from your computer.
Well, you can! And it’s through the power of a BOT.
I know what you’re thinking, but I promise that using bots to automate part of your marketing is easier than you may think. In fact, I set up my bot in just a matter of a couple of hours, despite never having even heard of this before.
To start, let’s take a quick look at what a bot can do for you and why it’s such a valuable component of a successful marketing strategy.
What a Bot Can Do for You
With a bot, you can easily build a following, connect with your audience and provide value without even being present!
Think about the profit potential if you had an automation tool at your disposal that could engage with readers and send them free chapters of your upcoming book, add them to beta or street teams or even encourage them to like and follow your page!
A bot can:
- Help you during a pre-launch promotion by informing readers of upcoming books.
- Encourages fan-based engagement. You can have full conversations based on user prompts. It’s one of the easiest ways to grow your author brand and establish your tribe.
- Generate valuable feedback. All of the answers and questions provided by users is retained in a database so you can log into your account and gain access to information that can help steer you in the right direction.
- Grow your mailing list! An author’s mailing list is one of the secret weapons of bestsellers so you’ll want to start building a list right away if you’ve yet to do it. A bot will automatically add people to your mailing list every time a conversation ends (if you set it up this way!)
Here’s the tool I personally use: http://www.ManyChat.com
You can try out ManyChat for free and while there are limitations, such as not being able to automatically transfer people to your mailing list, it’ll give you an opportunity to test the waters and create your very own customized bot.
I’ve used ManyChat to create surveys that ask my readers what they’re looking for next. This helps me figure out what my next project should be.
It also helps with building my Facebook page by not only keeping visitor’s engaged for longer periods of time, but by consistently reminding them about my page and other groups I’ve created such as my “New Releases” group and “Street Team”.
You can also run contests, giveaways or provide discount codes to potential readers as well as offer them a sample of a book (such as a short story or novella) – all set up on complete autopilot.
I use “Growth Tool #4” which is the Facebook comment bot. I set it up so that whenever someone responds to a specific post, my bot kicks in and engages that person.
So for example, I publish a post that notifies page subscribers that I’ve recently updated my blog. I link to the article on my website. Each time someone interacts with that post (either by liking it, commenting on it, etc), my bot will pick up the conversation and keep things going.
I’m still playing around with bots and feel I have so much to learn as the possibilities are endless but so far I’m having a lot of fun with it and am already thinking of new ways to implement bots into my marketing strategy in order to grow the Writer’s Hustle page.
Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments below! I look forward to hearing from you.
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