The importance of staying organized

Book marketing is a lot like sales, and as any successful salesperson will tell you, it's often a numbers game. In other words, the more people you contact, the better chance you have of getting a response. However, before you fire off a bunch of emails, I strongly recommend creating a system to track your efforts. It will keep you organized, and it will also keep you from inadvertently pitching the same person more than once, which can be embarrassing.

I have a spreadsheet on my laptop called "Marketing" that includes several tabs, e.g. media, conferences, book clubs, etc. Each tab (or worksheet) includes a list of organizations, sorted alphabetically and by state. For each organization, I have columns listing a contact person's name and email address, the most recent date, nature and status of the interaction, and a website address.

I also use color codes. If the organization says no to whatever I'm proposing, I put it in red. If there is potential, I put it in yellow to remind myself to follow up. If we get something scheduled, I put it in green. I add to my marketing spreadsheet nearly every day and review it regularly to see which leads need following up.

You don't want to end up like this!

What I'm proposing may sound like a lot of work, but believe me, it's much better than the alternative, which is complete chaos! If you're diligent in your marketing efforts, soon you may have dozens, if not hundreds, of interactions with various organizations, so relying on memory to keep track of everything is impossible, not to mention extremely inefficient. Taking the time up front to create a spreadsheet or table will make your life much easier and lead to better results.

-Maria

Maria Murnane writes romantic comedies and provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

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Comment by Nora Barry on February 17, 2012 at 3:01pm: Great advice.

Comment by Joanne Tombrakos on February 15, 2012 at 11:28am: Great minds think alike Maria! I have an excel spread sheet, color coded and organized by category as well. As a former professional sales person, I agree that you have to treat book marketing as a sales opportunity and you have to stay organized. I wrote a piece for Jane Friedman's blog on this topic that was very well received. http://janefriedman.com/2011/12/06/what-good-salespeople-know/

Comment by Maria Murnane on February 14, 2012 at 2:00pm: @Laura, I always put the link to the group's website in a field-- that way it's easy to refresh my memory who they are if someone gets back to me. :)

@Atta, I explain that in great detail in my book marketing webinar here on SheWrites if you'd like to check it out: http://media.beaconlive.com/viewitem?repr=1202

Comment by Laura Brennan on February 14, 2012 at 12:36pm: Okay, this sounded like such a great idea, I had to try it. I've made the database, and I figure I'll add information as I contact people and move my current contact lists into it slowly, because otherwise it's overwhelming. But I've put in about a dozen names so far.

I love the color-coding idea, and I've added a field for "date of last contact" and another one for "how I can help them" because I tend to build relationships as I pitch. Is there anything that you found particularly useful as a field heading?

Thanks for sharing the idea! -- Laura

Comment by Atta Arghandiwal on February 14, 2012 at 12:24pm: Thanks for excellent advice. Really like the Excel worksheet suggestions. Can I ask what type of organizations are you targeting. I am hoping to publish my memoir this summer.

Many thanks

Atta Arghandiwal