If you've written book, are you taking full advantage of Amazon as one of your marketing tools?  One of the things I love about Amazon Author Central is the fact that you can add your blog feed to your author page.  I know that the marketing is working, because I hardly ever market my books and get my sales report and love to see $ signs in it.  I believe that this is because of my blog feeds.  I have two blog feeds that I've added to my author profile page.  One is written blog post and the other is written and videos.  Now that being said, you can only get an author page if you are an author.  So the first thing you have to do is to publish a book or an ebook to add to Amazon.com.  

If you have no idea how to write a book, I suggest you start with an ebook.  Come up with your top 25 questions that your customers my need answers to and answer them in a word document.  Add some graphics to illustrate the questions and now you have a 50 page ebook. When I need great graphics I use www.Pixaby.com and www.Canva.com.  Make sure to design a really nice cover and you can do this in Canva as well.  Add your cover to your word document and save it as a PDF.  Use www.CreateSpace.com to upload to Amazon.  Make sure to fill out your authors page completely and if you have a blog include your blog feed so that it will be visible on Amazon.

I hope you found this article helpful.  If you need help publishing your book or ebook pick up a copy of my book I Want To Write A Book Now What?  A to Z Of Self-Publishing on Amazon.


Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

One of the keys to success is building a brand or a product that people will remember.  If you think about brands that you love, there is a lot of work that has gone into building those brands.  You have to think of yourself as brand before you start building a brand.  

Some Entrepreneurs try to build the identity of their brand by imitating other well-established players in the industry. This strategy will prove futile. Customer loyalty is a product of building a unique identity for your brand.   If you are already the mastermind calling the shots for a brand that is struggling, my first suggestion is to turn to your existing customers. You would be surprised how much you can benefit from some good old-fashioned research by means of a brand audit. Carefully assess what customers currently think about your brand and what they think it represents. You may be quite horrified to realize that your clients have completely misunderstood the voice of your brand. In the same breath, take the time to find out how they think your brand fares against the competition. Your business and your brand might be too close to your heart for you to critique it objectively. This can be achieved by means of online surveys or even in-house questionnaires. The key to getting the right information is to ask the right questions.  Ask clear, simple questions that get straight to the point.

Now that you have asked the right people, the right questions and have gotten into the minds of your customers, it is time for action.  But don’t pick a fight with every naysayer you encounter. Choose your battles carefully and always remember that you will not be able to please everyone. Try to identify any common themes in the responses of your clients. Please bear in mind that some of these responses may be aimed at improving the quality of your product or service. Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of your clients will do very little to help you build a successful brand. Build on the complaints or lack of enthusiasm for your brand. Use that information to guide your brand identity strategy. All of your creative resources should be aimed at removing common road blocks from the minds of existing customers and thus potential clients as well. Be sure to also reinforce the positive aspects of your brand that your customers identified.  Now that you know what to do, it is time to learn how to do it!  Building the identity of your brand might take some amount of time, but aimlessly spending money is never the solution.  Now that you are armed with all the right information, it is time to skillfully aim your blows by means of a carefully thought out brand identity strategy.

Designing a good strategy means you have almost won the battle. Your strategy should be centered on
objectives, but only a few. Your strategic objectives should be as SMART as they come. By SMART, I mean Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  Don’t be too quick to implement a new strategy. Consider all the ‘what ifs’ before you jump and take the time plan the kind of attack your competitors will never see coming.

Remember to get to this point you have to survey the customers that you already have to get the feedback that you need to come up with a powerful strategy.  

Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

I've had a very interesting year so far.  I started a magazine, then shut it down.  I thought about selling my TV network, but decided to keep it.  I was just going through a moment of confusion about what I wanted to do next.  I really didn't feel like starting another venture only to discover I really did not want to do it.  Then I thought back to what I loved doing even if I didn't get paid and that was radio and podcasting.  I started on radio back in 2003.  I did a Saturday morning show every Saturday at 7:30 am and the crazy thing is I didn't make a dime, but I loved doing it.  Then in 2004 I started podcasting.  Every Tuesday morning at 9am I would go live on Blog Talk Radio and interview entrepreneurs and authors.  While I was doing that I started doing another show on local radio which I did for two years.  When I stopped doing BlogTalk Radio I had done over 200 episodes.  I started back doing podcasting in 2015, but I could not figure out how to make a living doing it, so I stopped to focus on my other businesses, so I could earn some money.  The funny thing is that none of what I was doing brought me joy the way that podcasting did. 

After some careful thought and reflection, I've decided that once and for all I'm going to do what I love and stop chasing money.  I will let God figure out the money part and I will do my part and line up some great guest and have them share their stories of inspiration, trials, tribulation and success.  That being said I will be back on the air in August, so stay tuned.  If you don't want to miss an episode be sure to sign up for my newsletter below to get my weekly updates.

Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day
Audrey