This is the response I got from a distributor when I noticed she was selling a lot of books and asked her what she concentrated on in her marketing: ”I’m focusing in schools and as a party’s keepsakes, but something that has really helped me so much is the ‘mouth-to-mouth publicity’. Besides, right now all my attention is in this business, because I don’t have a job, I have an 8 and a 2 year-old girls, and I like the idea of this home based business to spend more time with them. It has really been great, so I take this chance to thank you for having this great idea, for sharing with others, and for giving me the opportunity to learn, and to love this business!!”
Archive for the ‘marketing’ category
Kind Words from a Jiff-e-Books Distributor
July 23rd, 2010Jiff-e-Book Title Featured in Toy Catalog
July 17th, 2010Our industrious licensee in Ireland has gotten Santa’s Secret Helper featured in a prominent toy catalog. With an attractive full-page ad for this favorite personalized book title, we think that very strong 4th quarter sales will ensue. Good job getting into the catalog!
Charity Tie-in Can Boost Holiday Sales
June 28th, 2010It’s not too early to start planning for the holiday sales season. The fourth quarter is always the best for personalized books. One good way to market your books and your business is to align your business with a charity. You can pick a charity that benefits children, for example, and see if they will let you mention them in your marketing pieces. Make an arrangement with them that x percent of your sales will go to their charity. There will likely be some charity events for the public and you may be able to sell your books at them. You’ll be helping a worthwhile charity and your business will benefit from the extra exposure.
Personalized Book Preschool Fundraiser
May 24th, 2010A preschool fundraiser can be a profitable way to market your personalized books. Sell the fundraiser on the basis that it’s a good fit for a school and an easy way for the school to make extra money; also tell them that parents and kids will love the books and that it’s a great way to promote literacy, enhance a child’s self-esteem, and make reading fun. You’ll have to negotiate how much the school will receive per book, but don’t give away the farm because you’re in business to make money.
Start by making up a flyer that clearly explains how the fundraiser works and take along a couple of sample books to nearby preschools. the key is to make it easy for them. Use your creativity to design a flyer for parents to read that will get them interested in your books. Have the preschool distribute your order forms to parents. Your order form should have a due date and a date the books will be ready.
Professional Email Marketing at No Cost
May 9th, 2010Would you like to create an email marketing campaign with professional-looking, attractive emails — and not spend a dime to do it? All you have to do is get a free acount at www.mailchimp.com. For mailing lists of 500 and under, their service is free. With this service you can create beautiful html emails with your name and logo, send them out to your mailing list, and track how many of them get opened. They have a free webinar that you can attend so you can learn how to create and send your emails. It’s a more professional way to advertise your business.
Give Drop-off Marketing a Try
March 31st, 2010Drop-off marketing is a pretty simple way to get book orders. Take along a couple of samples of your best sellers and visit office buildings in your area. Show the receptionists the books and make sure they become enthusiastic about them. Leave a sample or two along with your flyers/order forms. These can be left in a break room or shown around by the receptionist. Make sure your flyer states clearly that you will pick the orders and payment up from the receptionist on _______ (insert day) and that the completed books will be delivered on a certain day. If you drop them off on Monday, give them two or three days to get their orders together, pick up the orders and payment, then get the finished books back to them the next day or two if possible.
Use your creativity and come up with variations on the above idea. You could easily take an afternoon and visit quite a few offices in one geographical area. Your cost would just be your time and a few samples, and you might end up with a surprising amount of personalized book orders.
Marketing Idea
February 3rd, 2010One of Jiff-e-Books’ savvy dealers recently came up with a clever marketing idea. She will be sending an e-mail to her personal contacts of a few hundred, plus past customers’ e-mail addresses, offering a FREE ”Letter from the Easter Bunny” to everyone who will forward the free offer to 5 or more friends. When they “copy” her with the other 5 friends, she will then send them the Code to enter on her website for the FREE “letter from the Easter Bunny”.
This idea is very promising because it will drive a lot of people to her site. They might go ahead and buy a book or just bookmark her site for a future purchase. It’s a really inexpensive way to increase your sales and your database for future marketing strategies.
Personalized Books as Realtor Gifts
January 27th, 2010Here’s an idea for a different way of marketing personalized books. Realtors are always looking for an excuse to make contact with a prospective client so the client will think of them when they are ready to buy or sell a house. For instance, suppose a realtor holds an open house and meets a good prospect. If the prospect has a child, the realtor gets the child’s name and buys a personalized book to send to the prospect. The prospect will love having a book with their child’s name in it (and the realtor’s name and contact information). Realtors can also take a book along when making a listing presentation, when closing – just about any time they are making contact with a client or a prospective client.
Think about contacting a realtor, agreeing to make a book for one of their hot prospects, then offering to make books for them on an ongoing basis at a discounted price.
Easter Personalized Book Sales
January 24th, 2010With the Easter season fast approaching, personalized book dealers would do well to use their personalized Easter letters as marketing tools. Of course, the Easter letters can always be sold to consumers, but another way to use them is to entice shoppers to make a more profitable purchase. Consider offering a free Easter letter with the purchase of God Loves Me or God’s Promise. The Easter letter costs you almost nothing and it will help you sell books. It’s easy to make a flyer using Microsoft Publisher or MS Word that will advertise your Easter special. If you are a Jiff-e-Books dealer and do not have the brochure/Santa Letter/Easter Letter software, you can purchase the CD for $59. With this CD you will be able to print an unlimited number of Easter Letters, Santa Letters, and brochures at no additional cost.
Upsell with Pictures in Personalized Books
January 22nd, 2010Most personalized books on the market are personalized by inserting the child’s name, friends, gift giver, etc. This makes for a book that a child and his or her parents will cherish for years. Adding the child’s photograph to the book makes the book even more special. All of the Jiff-e-Books Personalized Books can easily be personalized with a child’s photo. Just point the software to the location of the jpeg picture file and the child’s picture is automatically inserted into a picture frame underneath the child’s name. A close-up is best, as it shows the child’s face more clearly. Dealers of Jiff-e-Books can use photo editing software to crop a picture and size it appropriately for the picture frame in the book. A free download of photo editing software such as Picasa will enable dealers to alter the child’s photo for use in a personalized book.
Purchasers of personalized books will gladly pay up to $5 more per book to have their child’s picture in the books they order. This is $5 of extra profit per book because there is no cost to the dealer for printing a child’s picture in a book.
