Restaurants, hotels and hospitals are finally staffing up, more than making up for losses in tech and other sectors. “Knock on wood, things are running like they were before the pandemic,” said one restaurant executive.
In a world of increasing competition, understanding your target market is vital. Conducting thorough research of past, current, and prospective customers helps you uncover insights to improve your product or create more effective marketing messages. Those insights don’t have to be hard-won, either. Thanks to new tools and data sources, businesses no longer have to …
In a world of increasing competition, understanding your target market is vital.
Conducting thorough research of past, current, and prospective customers helps you uncover insights to improve your product or create more effective marketing messages.
Those insights don’t have to be hard-won, either. Thanks to new tools and data sources, businesses no longer have to rely on traditional methods like surveys and focus groups.
Ready to learn what your audience really wants? These are the 15 best market research tools to use.
Benefits of Leveraging Marketing Research
There’s a reason the global revenue of the market research industry has more than doubled since 2008 and is now valued in excess of $76.5 billion. It comes with a heap of benefits. Any business wanting to improve their product or launch a new marketing campaign will be at a significant disadvantage without it.
Market research keeps your target audience at the center of every decision. By understanding their needs and desires, you can tailor everything from your product to your marketing to your customer. In doing so, you’ll reduce the number of bad customer experiences—one or two of which are enough to make 66 percent of customers switch to a competitor.
Market research tools can also help you discover new business opportunities and threats. New markets become obvious when speaking to customers and understanding their behavior. So, too, do competitors and external threats that could threaten your business if you don’t act.
Ultimately, using market research will give you a huge competitive advantage. That’s because of the benefits above and because less than 40 percent of marketers are using consumer research to drive decisions.
How to Use Marketing Research Data in Your Marketing
You can leverage market research data in several ways, but using it to inform and optimize your marketing strategy, from campaign creation to execution, is one of the most powerful.
For instance, market research can ensure your new product launch goes off without a hitch. Almost half of all product launches are delayed, and 20 percent fail to meet targets. By understanding exactly what customers want, a successful product launch simply becomes a case of delivering it.
Market research can also help you focus your marketing efforts on areas where you have a competitive advantage. By understanding what customers are really searching for, you could identify untapped markets with very little competition in terms of paid ads or SEO. Focusing your efforts here, rather than on saturated verticals, will send your ROI soaring.
Finally, you can use market research data to optimize your marketing efforts after launch. Analyzing social media and other types of user engagement data can highlight how effective each message is so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
5 Best Free Marketing Research Tools
You don’t have to spend a dime to get the benefits of marketing research. There are plenty of free market research tools out there. I’ve highlighted five of my favorites below.
1. Google Trends
Google Trends shows you what people are searching for on Google. It was introduced in 2006 and tracks the popularity of topics over time by location. You can see exactly how popular searches are for Taylor Swift in the U.S. this year. Or how searches for Brexit have declined in the U.K. since 2019.
At the time of writing, Google processes 102,000 searches every second. That’s 88 billion searches every day, making it the largest and most valuable search data source in existence. Google Trends gives you access to that data in a categorized and aggregated way.
Enter a trend and Google will show you how trendy that term is with a line graph and give you a score out of 100. You can also compare different terms.
Pros
easy to use
visually appealing
huge amount of data
Cons
doesn’t show the exact search volume
related topics aren’t always relevant
Price
Free.
2. Facebook Page Insights
Facebook Page Insights is a fantastic and free market research if you use Facebook to market your business. If you don’t use Facebook for marketing yet, you probably should. With 2.9 billion monthly active users, it’s one of the best social media platforms for marketing.
The tool provides insights into your audience, post performance, and the health of your pages. You can use the tool to see who likes your page and why, which posts get the most engagement, and learn how to increase the reach of your content.
Think With Google is one of the search giant’s lesser-known tools, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. It’s a free-to-use resource library of facts and figures based on Google’s own data and other research that can supercharge your marketing efforts.
If you want a broad understanding of what’s going on in the world, Think With Google is a great starting point. Search the platform, and you can uncover marketing trends, understand the latest consumer behavior and find the insights you need to drive your marketing strategy.
The site is split into four areas (Consumer Insights, Marketing Strategies, Future of Marketing, and Tools) which you can use to find the insights you’re looking for.
Pros
huge resource of statistics and studies
easy to use
great for marketing research
Cons
limited to marketing studies
Price
Free.
4. Living Facts
As part of the Pew Research Center, LivingFacts provides a free overview of how Americans live today. It’s bursting with research, statistics, infographics, and videos that can help you understand the opinions of your U.S. customers on everything from religion and work to health and family.
The site gets its data from several sources, including the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other reputable organizations. If that wasn’t reassuring enough, you should know the Pew Research Center has over 160 staff members and 11 different research teams. In other words, you can trust the data on LivingFacts.
Pros
great for understanding U.S. demographics
huge amount of free information
understand your target audience across multiple topics
Cons
limited to the U.S.
research can be too basic for some
Price
Free.
5. U.S. Census Bureau
The U.S. Census Bureau website lets you search U.S. census data for free. The Bureau of the Census conducts over 130 surveys a year (which are used to allocate billions of dollars in federal funds), making it an in-depth source of reliable data.
You can filter by several variables, including age, location, and income. It also provides visualization of some data sets. One interesting way to use this data set is to filter the results using your business’ NAICS code to see where and with whom your industry is most popular. This is a great way to discover new target markets.
Pros
one of the biggest demographic resources online
easy to search through reports
Cons
limited to the U.S.
older census reports can become outdated quickly
Price
Free.
10 Best Paid Marketing Research Tools
Free market research tools are a great way to dip your toes into the industry. However, there will always be limitations when you don’t pay for the data. If you’re serious about market research, you’re going to want to pay for premium access. These are the best paid market research tools to use.
1. SurveyMonkey
So far, we’ve only discussed secondary data sources. If you want to collect your own market research data, polls and surveys are one of the best methods. SurveyMonkey is one of the best and most popular tools to use, with over 20 million questions answered using the platform each day.
The company’s enterprise-grade platform makes it easy to create, send out, and analyze surveys. Surveys can be sent via a link, email, social media, or embedded into a web page. You can browse through individual responses or use the tool’s custom reports and charts to visualize data.
Pros
easy to use
good template selection
great free plan
Cons
analytics could be improved
lack of customer support
Price
Basic plan is free. Standard plan costs $99 per month.
2. Statista
Statista is a hub of visual data, market research reports, and statistics. It collates data from several reputable sources, turning most of them into graphs and charts that are easy to digest. Because Statista’s data is continually updated, you can keep coming back to the same chart year after year to see how trends are changing.
The site has data on almost any topic you can imagine, making it a great way to discover consumer behavior and market trends, no matter your business.
Getting started with Statista is as easy as searching for a particular topic. The site’s search functionality is excellent and will return hundreds of reports and dashboards that you can use to influence or support your marketing efforts.
Pros
one of the best statistical resources online
great UX
easy to search for data
Cons
free plan is limited
visuals aren’t the best
Price
Basic account is free. Premium account costs $59 per month.
3. Typeform
Typeform is another survey-based market research tool and an alternative to SurveyMonkey. It benefits from a more user-friendly design with a bunch of pre-made templates, making it easy to create forms and online surveys that you can send to customers. Typeform drives more than 500 million digital interactions every year and integrates with hundreds of other apps.
You can format questions in multiple ways, including multiple-choice, scale ratings, and open-ended answers—perfect for collecting quantitative and qualitative data. You can even use conditional logic to change the structure of your survey based on a respondent’s answers.
The respondent experience is also different. Unlike other survey tools, respondents are only shown a single question at a time. This makes for a more user-friendly and less intimidating experience that can increase the number of responses.
Pros
easy to use
respondent-friendly
strong data visualization
mobile-optimized
Cons
lack of customer support
data reporting isn’t amazing
Price
Limited free plan available. Premium plans start from $25 per month billed annually.
4. Buzzsumo
Think of Buzzsumo as the content marketing and social media market research tool. It analyzes over 8 billion articles and 300 trillion social engagements, so you can see which topics or types of content receive the most engagement, what’s getting shared on social media, and find influencers who can help increase the reach of your content.
This makes Buzzsumo an incredibly effective market research tool for any marketer looking to put together a content marketing strategy. There’s no need to second guess what’s going to rank well and receive engagement when you can use Buzzsumo to see what’s getting traction at the moment.
There are several ways you can use Buzzsumo. The easiest way is to use the tool’s Content Analyzer to search for a topic and see which articles have the most engagement. You can also set up alerts to monitor mentions of a particular optic or keywords.
Pros
accurate social share counts
great for competitor research
Cons
doesn’t include every social media channel
filtering could be better
Price
Free plan available. Premium plans start from $99 per month.
5. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an all-in-one market research tool. From creating advanced surveys to segmenting markets and analyzing data, Qualtrics does it all. Create your own survey to gather data or upload an existing data set and Qualtrics will run statistical tests and apply visualizations to help you gather insights.
There’s no need to spend time finding respondents for your surveys, either. You can use the platform to find a representative sample of your target audience and have them fill in your survey.
There’s even on-demand training to help you get the most from the platform.
Pros
easy to build surveys
excellent data reporting
Cons
software has a steep learning curve
limited customization of surveys
Price
Plans start from $1500 per annum.
6. Qualaroo
Qualaroo is an advanced customer survey tool that helps you ask the right questions at the right times. What separates Qualaroo from other survey tools is that you can embed surveys into your site, allowing you to catch users in real-time, with context. That makes their responses significantly more valuable and insightful.
Creating surveys is easy thanks to a wide range of templates and customization options. Analyzing and reporting results is also a breeze thanks to the platform’s AI-powered analytics tool. There are also tons of other features like dozens of answer types, branching questions, and automatic language translation.
Pros
easy to create and deploy surveys
analytics reduces reporting time
easy to learn
Cons
pre-built templates can be generic
dashboards could be improved
Price
Plans start from $80 per month.
7. BrandMentions
BrandMentions is another social media monitoring platform similar to Buzzsumo but with a greater emphasis on social media. It estimates it currently analyzes billions of social media mentions for over 10,000 companies.
You can use the tool to quickly understand social media users’ opinions on practically any topic. Simply search for a keyword, and BrandMentions will display the most recent social posts as well as the context in which it was used. So not only do you see what people are saying, you understand the broader sentiment around the topic.
The tool also shows a range of other metrics, including how many people view the topic each day, how many people engage with the topic, and which days the topic trends on.
Pros
great for social media research
can also be used for brand monitoring
intuitive UX
Cons
can be time-consuming to automate reports
only analyzes social media data
Price
Plans start from $99 per month.
8. Gartner
Global research and advisory firm Gartner is a heavyweight when it comes to market research. The company has three core services (trusted insights, strategic advice, and practical tools). We’re only going to focus on its trusted insights offering here.
Trusted insights offer an incredible amount of detailed, verified, and peer-driven research. It’s a fantastic way to identify trends in your industry, spot gaps in the market, and discover other insights to power your business.
These reports are at another level compared to other research teams. Gartner boasts over 2,000 research experts and several proprietary research methodologies to deliver objective and unmatched insights.
Pros
unmatched insights
unbiased data
Cons
very expensive
Price
Plans start at $30,000.
9. Tableau
Tableau is a business intelligence suite centered around data visualization. You can connect to almost any data source and Tableau will transform that data into beautiful visual reports that make it easy to analyze and share with stakeholders.
You don’t need to know any code to use Tableau, and the tool makes it easy to be as broad or granular as you like with data analysis. Import data from tons of different data sources, like PDFs, spreadsheets, and Google Analytics.
Tableau is a trusted market research tool for some of the country’s biggest companies, including Verizon, Lenovo, and Charles Schwab.
Pros
best visual data reporting tool
acts as a central repository for data
analyzing data is easy
Cons
can be slow to upload large data sources
requires you to source your own data
Price
Tableau Explorer starts at $42.
10. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is one of the best tools for doing SEO and PPC-focused market research. Put a phrase into the search bar and it will provide you with a list of other relevant keywords people are searching for, along with search volume and a difficulty score. You can also enter your own domain or that of a competitor to identify areas for improvement.
It’s a great tool for identifying the size of a potential market, how competitive that market is and what chance you have of ranking in it. You can also use it to get the low-down on a competitor and find out which audiences they’re targeting.
Pros
great UX
one of the best market research tools for digital marketing
wide range of affordable plans
Cons
limited to SEO and PPC data
Price
Plans start at $29 per month or $290 for lifetime access.
Market Research Tools Frequently Asked Questions
What are the primary market research techniques?
There are five main techniques for conducting primary research: surveys, one-on-one interviews, observational studies, focus groups, and field trials.
The best insight from market research is the discovery of a relevant and actionable insight about your target market you can use to improve your offering or influence your marketing efforts.
Are market research tools worth the cost?
If you are on a budget, there are plenty of free market research tools available. However, the best market research tools cost money and provide access to more data and additional capabilities that can increase the effectiveness of your market research.
Why is it important to do market research?
Market research uncovers important information about your business and target market that can highlight opportunities for your business that would otherwise be missed.
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Conclusion: Market Research Tools
Market research tools are an invaluable way to find out exactly what your target audience is thinking. Whether you use free market research tools or paid market research tools, you can uncover plenty of insights that can have a transformative effect on your business.
The de facto buyers’ strike on Russian crude that began a month ago propelled oil prices to their highest levels in years. Now the real effects are starting to create a second wave of impact. The post Oil Prices Stay High as Russian Crude Shortage Hits Market first appeared on Online Web Store Site.
Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari already block third-party cookies, and recently, Google revealed it would no longer support cookies on ad networks and its Chrome browser.
What does this mean for marketing teams, and what can you do to ensure your business keeps running smoothly when you are marketing without cookies? Let’s find out.
Why Are Third-Party Cookies Going Away & Why Does it Matter?
Whenever you use the internet, especially on browsers like Chrome, your actions are tracked through cookies.
These cookies can help marketing teams understand user behaviors and ad performance, but they may feel like an intrusion of privacy for many users.
By blocking these cookies, users can increase their privacy and security. Browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Brave have already started doing this. Google will also begin phasing out third-party cookies from its browsers to strengthen user privacy and promote itself as a secure search engine.
This represents a considerable change for marketers who heavily relied on cookies for their ad campaigns.
When creating paid ad campaigns on browsers and social media platforms, you need customer details to customize the copy. Marketing without cookies means you’d have to rely on first-party data (more on that below) rather than third-party cookies.
Now Google is launching “The Privacy Sandbox” as a response to the cookieless future. Here data will be stored anonymously to form a middle ground where companies can obtain customer data without intrusive cookie tracking.
Beyond this, there are various ways to market without cookies. Below, we’ll discuss some of the most effective strategies and offer tips for marketing without relying on the use of third-party cookies.
4 Tips to Prepare for Cookieless Marketing
Your marketing campaigns don’t have to suffer because you don’t have access to third-party cookies.
Using the strategies and tips below, you can learn to leverage tools like first-party data to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts without depending on cookies.
Turn on Google Analytics 4
An upgraded version of Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4 supports both app and website-based tracking. It helps if you use both formats (app and website), as most businesses do today.
Whether you already run GA for an existing website or you want to create a different account for a new site, turning on Google Analytics 4 is simple. Here’s a detailed guide to help you get started.
Start Gathering First-Party Data
Third-party cookies are blocked, but marketing teams can continue to collect first-party data. This means you can still use data from email sign-up forms or newsletters, surveys, and other direct methods.
The biggest benefit of working with first-party data is you own the data. You don’t have to worry about buying it from someone else or losing the right to use it.
The second benefit is first-party data tends to be more accurate than third-party cookies because you know your customers and have the tools to figure out exactly where the data came from.
Another massive benefit is your competitors don’t have the same data. When you buy third-party data, there may be another company, most likely your competitor, that buys the same information.
Sounds exciting? Here are some ways to collect first-party data to help you get started:
online surveys
sign-up forms
newsletters
community polls
SMS answers
mobile notification responses
direct mail (offline post), etc.
These are some of the tools marketers typically use to gather first-party data from both new visitors and seasoned users. You may not want to start using all of them at once as it could overwhelm your customers.
Instead, try one or two approaches first. See how your audience responds to it. Are they receptive to your methods, or do they need a different approach? Experiment with different techniques to see what best suits your business model.
Invest More in Market Research
Market research goes hand-in-hand with collecting first-party data. When marketing without cookies, you need to know who your audience is.
Understanding their needs and pain points will help you tailor your campaigns to suit their needs without having to rely on external cookies data.
Collect questions and feedback from your current users.
Work with analytics to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
Hold focus groups with incentives for participants.
Observe how customers interact without interfering with their actions.
Post simple polls in community forms to get a broad view of audience interests.
Leverage the power of social media to understand what your target market wants.
No matter which method you choose, the bottom line is this: Start investing more in market research. Get to know your customers and target market with surveys, buyer personas, and most importantly, constantly testing your findings with A/B testing.
Focus on Personalization
What would you prefer? An email that addresses you by your name, or one that starts with a “hello there!?”
Research says people prefer the first option. Studies show 90 percent of users find personalization appealing and 80 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands provide personalized experiences.
If you want to take your marketing efforts to the next level, it’s best to focus on personalization.
Now that you’re already working with first-party data, this will be easier.
Start with using the customer’s name. There are dozens of tools in the market, including ones that work with newsletters to automatically personalize your campaigns.
Then address customer pain points. Get really specific about what bothers them and position yourself as a solution for those problems. This will help customers connect with your brand better.
Here’s an eye-opening graphic about pain points to keep in mind when working on personalization.
Rethinking PPC: 4 Tips for PPC Marketing Without Cookies
If you’ve ever run online advertising campaigns, you know the best way to get effective results is to target your ads to specific audiences. How can you do that when marketing without cookies? Here’s how.
Use AI-Based Bidding
By analyzing search data, AI-driven bidding determines which keywords and trends generate the most conversions. Then it optimizes your bids in real-time, maximizes efficiency for your ad spend, and improves the return on your investment.
The Smart Bidding feature of Google AI-based bidding provides bid strategies based on conversions. As a result, you can make targeted bid decisions for every auction in which your ads are entered.
What does it mean? Simply speaking, it means you can get more reliable results without resorting to guesswork.
Such automated bid decisions are based on data that includes information about the device, the current location, the time of day, remarketing list, enabled languages, operating system, and other relevant details.
Still confused about AI-based bidding? Don’t worry. Here’s a Google guide to help you get started.
Reconsider KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) measure progress towards achieving ad campaign goals, so the success of your PPC marketing campaign often depends on what you’re actually measuring.
Here’s where it gets interesting. When marketing without cookies, you may have to reconsider these KPIs to better align with your business goals. For instance, you may want to pay more attention to conversion numbers (how many users convert vs. how many users bounce from your homepage).
Cost per acquisition is another important KPI you need to consider to ensure your ad campaigns are profitable in the long run.
Fully understanding and leveraging these KPIs can help you make better marketing decisions, especially when you’re navigating this new territory of a cookieless marketing future.
Use Contextual-Based Advertising
Now that third-party cookies are out of the picture, you may be wondering: How can I know which ads to place where if I don’t have data about consumer behavior?
That’s where contextual advertising comes in. In context-based advertising, ads are placed on web pages according to the website’s content. For example, a tech blog may display ads about computer accessories, while a vegan-living website may display ads about vegan food products.
The Amazon Prime Video ad copy literally talks about being a “bookworm.” This is contextual advertising as users who read the NYT Books section are obviously readers in some capacity.
One more: Look at WSJ’s Life and Work section. It has a classic lifestyle content ad, considering users visiting this section have already shown an interest in lifestyle content.
Target Based on Location and Time
Say you want something more personal than contextual advertising. Then consider targeting users based on their current location and time of the day.
This can be as simple as “geotargeting,” where you change the ad copy to suit users from different regions. You see this in most search results.
For example, if you look up “coffee shops” from New York, you’ll see ads and search results for coffee shops in NY, even if the same brand has a franchise elsewhere.
The most interesting part? It doesn’t even have to be a huge brand. As long as the business has some web presence and works with geotargeted ads, it’ll show up for location-based searches.
Time-based marketing is similar, with the only difference being you’re now using time data to personalize your copy. Imagine getting an email greeting you with a Good Morning when it’s actually morning in your region. Feels good, doesn’t it?
This approach can also be useful to determine when ads will appear for users.
Say you want to market coffee products. It’s better to show these ads in the morning when users are considering buying coffee, rather than at night when they are more likely to avoid it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing in a Cookieless Future
Here are some frequently asked questions about marketing without cookies.
Why is Google getting rid of third-party cookies?
Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies comes as part of a comprehensive strategy to create a privacy sandbox so users can be tracked (for marketing purposes) while maintaining their privacy.
How will the end of third-party cookies impact marketing?
Most marketing teams were used to using third-party cookies for launching marketing campaigns. Losing access to those would mean you have to rethink your strategy, find better ways to collect information (first-party data), and personalize ad campaigns without relying on cookies.
What is the Google Privacy Sandbox?
Google has launched the Privacy Sandbox initiative to develop web standards that allow websites to access user information without compromising privacy. In essence, it facilitates online advertising without relying on third-party cookies.
What does cookieless marketing mean?
Cookies are bits of data that contain identifiers for consumers (personal and usage information), so cookieless marketing relies less on them in comparison to other marketing approaches. This involves using first-party data and personalization to increase the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
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Cookieless Marketing Conclusion
Marketing without cookies may seem like a daunting task at first. However, it doesn’t have to be so hard.
The best part is these methods give you more control and accuracy compared to cookie-based marketing, which has you sharing data with your competitors.
Which strategy will you try for marketing without cookies?
It might feel like you’ve already done the hard work.
You’ve spent hours with a keyboard or notebook in your hands, writing away. You’ve edited, edited, and edited some more—and may have even struggled through the complicated process of self-publishing.
Now you have to go to the next step: marketing your book.
This entails getting your book “out there,” earning an audience, and generating sales. You just need to understand how to market a book.
With the right marketing tactics, there’s nothing stopping you from selling your book around the world and building the fanbase of your dreams—well, nothing but time and effort.
How to Market a Book
No matter how good a book is, no one will read it if it doesn’t have the right marketing.
International self-publishing websites like Amazon have brutal algorithms that punish the unaware. In order to get yourself that “best selling” tag, your best bet is to look away from the shops and start focusing on your audience.
In many ways, having a book is like having a website. It can be absolutely brilliant, but if it’s not presented to the right people, it won’t take off.
Luckily, with the help of modern technology, finding readers doesn’t have to be an impossible journey.
For this reason, marketing shouldn’t just be an afterthought. It needs to be a part of your process from the very conception of your book.
If you fail in your market research, then you may find you’re writing a book that nobody wants to read. In some cases, this might not be a problem (such as you are writing for passion), but if you want to make sales and know how to market a book, then your writing has to be informed by your research.
Fanbase
I always talk about the importance of targeted content. No matter what you’re writing, it’s impossible to accommodate everyone.
Instead, you have to focus on the people who are most likely to enjoy your book.
This is where it’s helpful to create a reader profile. Ask yourself questions about what your ideal reader looks like and build a picture of their character. Understand the following about them:
Demographics.
How often do they read?
How many books do they read?
How fast do they read?
What information are they looking for?
How do they consume content?
Yes, your writing comes from you and is an expression of yourself, but it’s always important to keep your readers in mind. This will help you with the writing process, but it’s also going to help your marketing, and, eventually generating reviews.
Genre
If you tell someone you love reading, then what’s the next question they’re likely to ask?
Understanding what works and what doesn’t in your genre is important information for your market research. For example, the blurb on a non-fiction book is going to be very different from the blurb on a romance novel.
The more information you have about your genre, the easier it is to understand how to market a book.
Competitors
Consider this: who are you competing with?
Are you competing with that out-of-reach New York Times bestseller, or are you competing with something a little more niche?
In an ideal world, there would be no competition. Your book should stand proud, and alone. Only, in the real world… that’s not the case.
Competition exists.
For example, if you’ve written a children’s book, you need to look at similar authors.
After all, marketing is always much easier when you know what the competition is doing. When you can see what they do well and what they don’t do so well, then it can give you ideas for your own marketing. You can look at what they’ve written, what the blurb is, what social media pages they run, and even do a deep dive into their website.
Strategy #2: Develop an Online Presence and Following
Sadly, books won’t just sell themselves. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could?
You can put them on Amazon, and in bookstores, but getting people to pick them up and buy them is a whole other thing.
To market a book, you’ve got to establish an online presence and be able to create a buzz about your work. It takes time to build this authority, so the earlier you set up an author website and build out your social media profiles, the better.
A big part of marketing is reaching people where they are and in modern times, we’re virtually all online.
We live in a world where we have instant access to information. When someone sees your book, they’re not just going to say “let’s give it a go,” they’re going to look online to learn more about it.
If there’s no information online about you or your book, then it’s not going to fill them with confidence.
There are lots of ways you can build your online presence:
Create an author website.
Engage with readers on social media.
Offer extra content.
Show “the person” behind the books through blogs or videos.
Your online presence is a fundamental part of marketing a book today. People want to feel a personal connection with authors, their books, and the characters in them, and your online presence is the way to give it to them.
As Paperback Kingdom says, “when you’re a writer, you’re a writer. But when you’re an author, you become a whole lot more than just a writer—you become a brand.”
Take, for example, YA author C.G Drews:
Drews runs a popular blog, Paperfury, and has an Instagram account with thousands of followers. When her first book, “A Thousand Perfect Notes” was released in June 2018, it became an instant hit, with support from her friends, followers, and blog readers.
This just goes to show how vital an established online presence can be in understanding how to market a book.
Strategy #3: Create a Blurb and Press Kit
How much did a pirate pay for his hook? An arm and a leg.
That’s how much authors feel like they have to sacrifice when trying to become marketing experts. Sure, it’s difficult, but make no mistake: it’s not impossible.
Like with any great story, you need a hook for your marketing—something that will grab people’s attention and draw them into reading more.
In marketing, we use them all the time (just take a look at my first paragraph).
The equivalent to a hook when you market a book is a blurb. Think about the steps someone takes when they’re considering your book:
Look at the cover page and title.
Read the blurb.
Look at the index to see chapter titles.
Research online.
All in all, with worldwide shortening attention spans, you don’t have a huge amount of time to grab someone’s attention before they click onto the next page.
You need to combine your great writing ability and newfound marketing skills to create the perfect blurb. You can even trial different versions and see which resonates with your audience the most (this would be called A/B testing.)
Blurbs should draw people in, inspire their imagination, and demand that they read on.
Remember that a good buyer’s journey should finish with the delight stage. They should fall in love from the first sentence of your blurb, right to the end of your novel.
Powerful synopses are how you convince people to take a chance on an unrecognized author and build your brand evangelists for future organic marketing. When someone loves your work, (whether that be a newspaper columnist, blog owner, or casual reader) you want to provide them with all the tools they need to help you market your book.
This is when your press kit should come in (also known as a media kit). The more shareable images, videos, and other items you can put in your press kit, the easier it is for your fans to help market your book.
Writers Edit suggests that you should have the following on hand:
Author bio, contact details, and a photo.
Information about your book(s).
Media release information.
Ideas for interview questions or discussion topics.
Strategy #4: Design an Eye-Catching Book Cover
How many times have you been told not to judge a book by its cover?
The funny thing is, we all do it!
We’re naturally drawn to certain elements (such as human faces or different color combinations).
When it comes to marketing a book, this means your cover is going to be vitally important.
Take a look at the cover of Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, a bestselling YA dystopian novel. The color combinations, the typography, and the artwork are all cleverly designed to draw our attention. The light gradient as you move up the cover allows the main feature to stand out.
For the most part, book cover design is an area where market research can come in handy.
What do some of the most successful books in your genre have in common when it comes to the cover? Are they like Shatter Me, with one main piece of artwork as the focus? Or, like in non-fiction, do bold-colored, imageless covers with large text dominate the leaderboard?
Consider how you can incorporate the details you are noticing on multiple bestsellers. Walk the thin line between going with what works, and finding a way to add your own, refreshing twist to the market.
Remember that your book cover isn’t just for your physical book, it’s also going to play an important part in online stores like Amazon.
Unless you’re a writer and a high-quality artist, this is probably something you will want to outsource, but your input will still drive the project. Knowledge and feedback will influence some important decisions that can help your book succeed.
Strategy #5: Run Targeted Ads on Social Media
There are nearly four billion active social media users across the world. When you think the population of the world is just under eight billion, this figure is staggering.
When you run social media adverts, you have the ability to get your book in front of this massive audience.
The best part about it?
Social media ads allow you to be unbelievably targeted. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn have so much information on their users, and you can use this to make sure you’re reaching the right people with your ads.
use your market research to narrow in on your target audience
utilize video to boost engagement
build specific landing pages that reflect your ad copy
explore different platforms
keep an eye on your analytics and find ways to optimize
It’s much easier to advertise a book to people when you understand their interests, and, luckily that’s exactly what social media helps you to do.
Strategy #6: Create a Mailing List to Market Your Book
No matter what you’re selling, it often takes more than just one touchpoint for someone to make a purchase. People tend to research products, then go away, before coming back and making a purchase at a later date.
Books are often considered “lower value items,” with prices running from $12-$24 on average. This means that customers are more likely to make impulse purchases when in the decision buying process, but, often, there will still be some back-and-forth before clicking the buy button.
No matter how good your marketing approach or book cover, people are going to visit your website, look at your socials, view your book online, and, sometimes, simply leave without making a purchase (no matter how successful you are, this will still happen.)
Once someone leaves, you have no way of reaching them. However, if you’re focusing your efforts on building a mailing list, then you’ve got a way of creating more touchpoints.
Email marketing can be one of your best strategies for marketing your book. By engaging with your subscribers, offering valuable content, and building the relationship, you’re going to boost your sales.
If you use email to market your book, make sure to:
respecting people’s privacy
using segmentation to personalize your outreach
offering value
not just focusing on the sale
driving people to your website
A good mailing list is a valuable commodity and it’s a perfect way to build interest in your future releases.
Strategy #7: Network With Other Authors in Your Niche
People often underestimate the power of networking. Modern technology allows us to reach our target audience so easily that we forget about building relationships.
There are lots of other authors going through the exact same thing as you, and they have lots of insights to share. They’ve also spent time growing their websites, mailing lists, and social media profiles just as you’re doing.
A great way to maximize your reach is by reaching out to other authors and seeing if they will help market your book. They can quickly shoot a message to their mailing list, and you could even pitch it as extra content they can use to share their own work. Perhaps you could organize a joint interview or review the other author’s book to share with your mailing list.
You will find you can build reciprocal relationships, and friendships, where you support each other through the process of marketing your books.
There is a strong writing community out there, and it can pay to get involved in it.
Similarly, you can build up a reputation for your key insight into the industry. Reviewing other books in your genre allows you to tag authors and get your name on their feed. It’s a way to become more visible.
Always be constructive, though, and never tag author’s in negative reviews. You can still post your honest thoughts and feelings online, but it can be hurtful to share critiques directly with them.
Your goal is to make connections with authors, not ruin them.
How to Market a Book: 3 Examples of Successful Book Marketing
Different authors will go about marketing their books in slightly different ways. You may find certain techniques work better than others, but it’s worth exploring every avenue.
Here are some examples of authors who have done an amazing job with their marketing.
Author Website
Chloe Gong is an NYT bestselling author who has only recently published her first book. As part of her marketing efforts, she set herself up on TikTok, where she has millions of views and likes from talking about books. She also has an up-to-date website with great copy, and even a meme page to appeal to her YA audience.
The website helps keep Chloe’s fans updated, whilst also allowing people to get to know the person behind the books. With regular updates, she keeps people coming back and has built a brilliant platform to market her upcoming book, Foul Lady Fortune.
Social Media
Reddit isn’t a social media platform that gets talked about a whole lot, but it can be an amazing platform to start discussions about books.
There are an endless number of Reddit threads on virtually every subject in the world, and often the people taking part are very passionate. This goes for the subject of books as well.
Some authors have found that hosting question and answer sessions on Reddit have been a great way to market their book. People are generally interested in getting to know authors and understand the work they do, and Reddit provides a good platform for this.
Mailing List
Don’t be afraid to do something a little bit different with your email communication. This email from Tansey Morgan is a great example of how you can create engagement with your subscribers.
Not only are the Amazon reviews very helpful for Morgan’s marketing, but the email also makes the recipient feel involved in the process.
There are lots of little ways you can do this, with sneak peeks at content, a behind-the-scenes view of the writing process, and other fun benefits for your subscribers.
How to Market a Book: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I self-market my book?
To self-market a book it’s important to start with market research. From there, you can build your online presence and reach your target audience.
How do I get my book noticed?
Your book cover is one of the best ways to get your book noticed. Look at other books in your niche to find out what they do well, and incorporate this into your book cover.
Can a self-published book become a bestseller?
There’s nothing stopping your self-published book from taking off. Great marketing can create a viral effect, taking you all the way to a bestseller (think 50 Shades of Grey).
How do I market my book on social media?
Targeted social media ads are a great way to reach your target audience and market your book.
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How to Market a Book: Conclusion
There’s nothing stopping you from successfully marketing your book.
The online world has made it much easier to reach your target audience, and there are lots of ways to take advantage of this. By creating an author website, building out your social profiles, and engaging with the community, you can soon build momentum behind your book.
Lots of independently published books have had great success, but one of the key things is they’ve had good marketing behind them. If you can nail this part of the process, then it can make a huge difference to your book sales.
This white paper takes a current view of market risk management, its growing complexity and how it can be transformative to institutions as the industry is widely recognising what are the right approaches to addressing evolving risks.
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