Successful author Susan May Warren (left) and one of her biggest fans, Maribeth Farley of Lutsen, greet each other after a talk Warren gave at a business networking luncheon at Angry Trout in October. Warren also runs a business that provides coaching for aspiring writers, and to keep her name out there, she has honed the art of blogging. She believes using social media and offering fresh information on business websites is imperative to keeping customers interested and involved.
Your business is down. The slow season is here, tourists are staying home because of the weather, because their companies aren’t giving out bonuses this Christmas, because of the price of gas. What should you do?
Go fishing!
And what good will that do?
You could land some keepers—customers, that is—who will keep coming back.
On October 26, 2011, Susan May Warren, Cook County author of over 34 books—1,000,000 in print around the world—talked to a group of local businesspeople at Angry Trout about how to use the Internet to keep old customers and land new ones.
Even in the face of big-time success as an award-winning writer, Warren works hard to keep her name out there. She uses numerous social media venues including Facebook, Twitter, and two websites— one about her own writing and one about coaching other novelists. She has honed the art of blogging, regularly offering tidbits of information people are looking for in creative packages that keep them coming back for more.
“If you don’t know how to make your mark as a novelist—and your publisher is not going to do that for you—you’re not going to make it in the publishing world,” Warren said. Only 5 percent of published writers make a living selling their books, and only 1 percent make over $50,000 a year. What Warren has learned about making a living in her own industry she is now sharing with people in other industries, and she would like to help Cook County businesses become more successful by learning to market themselves effectively in this new digital age.
Warren divides marketing into two types—the old style she calls outbound marketing, such as billboards, TV ads, magazine ads, and website ads that intrude into people’s computer space, and inbound marketing, where businesspeople seek out web surfers already looking for something. It’s like casting a great big juicy worm into a pond of hungry fish, only the fish are potential customers sitting in front of their computers. “You’re giving them answers to a problem they’re trying to solve,” she said. Whether or not you solve their problem— such as where they want to eat when they get to town on Friday night—will determine whether they take the next step closer to your product.
A successful business uses this equation, Warren said: Value (something valuable to a potential customer) + Niche (something unique) + Trust = Tribe. The members of your tribe are your “flying monkeys” who advertise your business through word of mouth, Warren said. “They’re the people who are going to sell your business for you.”
A blog can be used to connect readers to other resources that are valuable to them, Warren said, and this builds trust. You could tell a customer about the latest production getting rave reviews at the Grand Marais Playhouse, a big sale going on at the Lake Superior Trading Post, or the Fiber Arts Guild’s annual open house. “Everybody should be putting content out there,” she said, but it doesn’t have to be a 250-word essay. The trick is to find out the kind of information your customers would appreciate getting from you.
Warren builds relationships with potential consumers, giving them some things, such as writing tips, for free. They eventually build up trust in her product to the point where they know they will value whatever investment they make, such as buying one of her books or hiring her to coach them in writing. “You need to let them try you on for free,” she said.
Warren recommended continuing to offer people things that are valuable to them so they will keep coming back. Business owners should put out fresh “bait” on a regular basis—every day or every week. It could be a fresh photo of the Grand Marais harbor, a weather forecast for the weekend, or upcoming local events. Specials and coupons for the business could be posted along with the bait. Content must be very well organized and visually easy to consume, Warren said.
Some websites allow readers to post comments, but only ones that the website owner has approved. Key words potential customers are likely to use in a web search can be embedded so that the owner’s site pops up near the top of the list.
Warren has a blog called Scribbles on the website that focuses on her own writing, www.susanmaywarren.com, and her coaching website, www.mybooktherapy.com, has blog postings right on the home page. For those interested in growing their business using these kinds of tools, she will be teaching a class through Cook County Higher Education starting in January.
Warren’s latest novel, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, is about a woman who learns to open her closed heart one stormy Christmas, and it’s out just in time for the holidays. It can be found at numerous bookstores including Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, and at Super America in Grand Marais.
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