Susan Friedmann [00:00:31]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.
Today, my special guest is distinguished marketing guru, Mark Schaeffer. Mark has over 30 years of experience across global sales, PR, and marketing. Esteemed for his engaging keynote speeches and his worldwide top-rated blog, Grow, Mark is not just an educator and consultant but a visionary shaping marketing strategies globally. With 7 patents to his name and a legacy of learning from Peter Drucker, his influence extends from academia to the biggest corporate stages worldwide, impacting global brands and audiences in 35 countries. He's the author of 10 best selling books and a trailblazer guiding brands through the digital age. Mark, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Mark Schaefer [00:01:47]:
Well, I'm happy to be here. And as I was listening to you, I thought, well, marketing master, you must not have been able to find one this week, so I'm standing in. So thanks.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:58]:
I think you'll do the trick really well. Because, Mark, you have your finger on the pulse with today's marketing trends, from your marketing rebellion book, which I really enjoyed, and now your latest book, belonging to a brand. You're just up there, and you just know what's going on. So let's talk about how we can turn these sort of marketing principles into some specific actions that our nonfiction authors can take to maybe market their books more effectively in today's environment. Let's start there and see where we go, and I know we'll go in many different directions, so I'm just throwing the net wide. Sure.
Mark Schaefer [00:02:46]:
Well, that's an issue that's very close to my heart because as you mentioned, I've written 10 books and really have just launched number 11. And so marketing a book is something I've studied a lot. I mean, the one golden nugget, I think, the biggest mistake that authors make is that they don't work on their personal brand in addition to trying to market a book. And let me just give you a little example of what I mean. This really extends to selling any kind of product, whether you wanna be a speaker, whether you wanna sell a course, whether you wanna have an event, is that you have to be known. And there is definitely a process to do that that I've studied a lot. Well, I was consulting with a woman who is an engineer and she created a course. And this woman was meticulous.
Mark Schaefer [00:03:38]:
She took every class she could take about marketing, creating, and marketing this course. She was following everything to a tee, and she wasn't selling anything. She had a very fine product. The problem was she wasn't known. Why would you spend money on a person that you've never heard of before? This is absolutely critical, and this is something I studied for 2 years, wrote a book about it called Known, how to unleash your personal brand in the digital age. And there really is a process to it. And this is something that people just completely overlook. We live in an age where nobody's gonna do the promotion for you.
Mark Schaefer [00:04:23]:
No one's gonna build you up. We're past the days where a book publisher is going to give you a contract and create a star. Right? Today, book publishers, they're only gonna hire stars. So you've gotta create your own stardom. You've gotta create your own celebrity, And that's by showing up consistently with content to build your audience most critically, to build an email list. Your email list. These are the people who love you. These are the people who want to know when you're gonna have a new book.
Mark Schaefer [00:05:02]:
That's really number 1, is you've got to work on your personal brand, and it's never too late to start. Number 2, there are 2 things that I found work best of all around selling books. And I've tried everything. Believe me. The first thing that works best is reaching out to influencers. These would be people that you develop networks with, and you can't just show up in someone's email box or send them a book and say, will you help me? This takes nurturing. This takes building relationships. This takes creating reciprocity.
Mark Schaefer [00:05:41]:
Right? Do favors for people that you love, that you admire, that have big audiences that can help you. So then when it's time to launch your book, you can maybe call in a chip and say, look, I really believe in this new book. I think it would be amazing for your audience. If you could just mention this, it would be amazing. And then the other thing I found works so well is, frankly, what we're doing today. It's being on podcasts. When people subscribe to a podcast and they hear the host, they trust the host. When you introduced me, you said kind words about marketing rebellion, and that's authentic.
Mark Schaefer [00:06:20]:
Right? We never talked about that. I'm not giving you any consideration for talking about my book in a kind way. So there's nothing more powerful than authentic advocacy from an influencer or a podcast host. Those are some of the things that I think are important when marketing books. And like I said, I've experimented with everything, and those are the things that I think are most important.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:47]:
And I love that. And interestingly enough, you talk about being known and, by the way, the workbook to your book known is lying on my left hand side on my hand.
Mark Schaefer [00:06:59]:
Oh, wonderful.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:00]:
So just know that it's there, it's one of my references. So I love that. Thank you for reminding me that you're right there with me every single day. One of the things that you mentioned was building this brand for yourself. Self. I had the question that I was thinking, will many authors, they grapple with the idea of whether the book is the brand or whether they themselves are the brand. Because often, and I'm sure you've seen it, authors love to hide behind the book. Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:38]:
Sure. What are your thoughts on that?
Mark Schaefer [00:07:41]:
I mean, this is hard. It's hard for me. I'm an introvert. I don't like self promotion. I loathe it. I'm the worst networker in the world. Literally, I'm the worst networker in the world. I mean, I have a few close friends, but I'm not a a networker.
Mark Schaefer [00:08:00]:
It's a fatal flaw. I'm a case study in how to build a brand for a person that's terrible at building a brand, But I am known. I have tens of thousands of subscribers to my blog. I have tens of thousands of subscribers to my podcast, and that has to come first. I think the two things that can really accentuate the personal brand is a book and a speaking career that helps you get known, that helps you create credibility, but the book doesn't come first. You have to build an audience, and an audience can only come through showing up every day or every week on social media where your fans are showing up and just sharing your ideas, sharing your practices, telling about what's new, even, like, maybe opening the curtain a little bit and showing what's going on in your life. That's how I use Instagram. I mean, I don't really talk about business on Instagram.
Mark Schaefer [00:09:08]:
A lot of people do. But I kind of open up the curtain to say, look. I'm hiking today, or, you know, I'm doing something in the community, or I'm visiting this city that I enjoy. That helps build trust, and building trust helps build thought leadership and commitment to a brand. I think that's part of it. As you know thanks again for reading my book and the workbook that goes with the book known. I mean, it is a process, but you've got to be consistent. You've got to show up with content on the web consistently, and consistency is more important than genius.
Mark Schaefer [00:09:48]:
You've got fans out there. You have to acknowledge that. You have to build that base because those are the people that are gonna help you make your dreams come true. So I believe strongly that building your personal brand in a consistent basis, that comes first. That build your brand, not the book. The book helps. It could put a jetpack behind your brand, but nothing replaces showing up to your fans in a consistent way.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:17]:
Yeah. Because you are the book. I mean, it's like the book is an intangible. Yes. You can hold it, but it's not you. You can offer so much more. And I love the fact that you say that despite the fact of being this incredible introvert, that you have managed to build your brand. You've become known, and it's because, as you said, the consistency.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:44]:
You've got now 11 books in the marketplace. I said 10 best selling, and I know that you've written a new one now. So social media, you mentioned Instagram. Where are you on social media in terms of all your recommendations? Where should you put your energy? Because I'm concerned about putting energy in all the platforms rather than being on 1 or 2 platforms. What are your thoughts there?
Mark Schaefer [00:11:15]:
This is something that is always a little confusing to people and daunting. My view is is that social media really isn't the platform. It's a distribution channel. Where your personal brand really starts is with content. And as you know from reading my book that it's very simple. It's not overwhelming. You only have 4 choices. And I would suggest for professional authors or or aspiring authors, really, there's only 3.
Mark Schaefer [00:11:51]:
You have 3 content choices. You have to write something like a blog, which is probably pretty easy for most of your listeners. You have to record an audio program like a podcast, or you create a video series like something you would have on YouTube. Now the 4th one would be visual content like you would put on Pinterest or Instagram or something like that. Now let's assume most of your listeners wanna create a blog. That's how they're gonna show up in the world every week. And my idea is that you create a blog post once a week. That should be your goal forever.
Mark Schaefer [00:12:31]:
Just create 1 blog post a week talking about what's going on in your world. Now that is the content that fuels the brand. Social media is just a distribution system. It's like trucks taking your product to market. Once you have a blog post, you can post it on LinkedIn. You can post it on Twitter. You can put it on Medium. You can put it on Substack.
Mark Schaefer [00:12:59]:
Voice synthesis, I think, is at a stage right now. You could even have voice synthesis read your blog post, or you could do it and put it out as a podcast, put it out as audio content. But it all starts with one of those 3 or 4 content forms. You pick 1. You do it well. You do it consistently, and then you worry about where you're gonna post it on social media.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:27]:
I love that because I was like, I get so hung up with social media, you know. It's like, I'm on LinkedIn, and that's my platform, and everything goes out on LinkedIn. But I never thought that, yes, you can take the same information and put in on others.
Mark Schaefer [00:13:45]:
It's a little weird, actually, because I have no idea. Literally, I have no idea how many people read my blog because I have subscribers. That's easy to see. I have my email system so I can see how many subscribers. I could even see what the open rate is to get an idea of how many people are reading it. But I also have thousands of people that read it on LinkedIn. So I publish it on my website on Monday, and I might publish it on LinkedIn on Tuesday or Wednesday. And I'll sometimes I'll get 5,000, 6,000 views, dozens of comments that I posted on Medium, posted on Substack, you know, where I might get thousands of more views.
Mark Schaefer [00:14:30]:
And I don't really take the time to try to figure out, okay, you know, how many people saw it as long as it seems to be growing. It's a validation that I'm doing a good job. Really, the idea is just create the content and unleash it in as many places as possible. And once you create the content, that's the hard work. Posting it on social media takes 5, 10 minutes a week. Then you might wanna engage if people have comments and so forth, but, actually, getting it distributed is not that much work.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:04]:
Yeah. And it's the engagement part. It's like, okay, if you've got all these views and people who are reading, how many of them do you comment on? How many do you engage with?
Mark Schaefer [00:15:17]:
All of them.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:18]:
Wow. Wow.
Mark Schaefer [00:15:19]:
I do. I do. Because, again, I mean, look. Let's say a post on LinkedIn that might get 5 or 6000 views, that probably means it gets maybe 20 people commenting on it. Right? I mean, this is such a gift that people are taking their time to not only read what you wrote, but to tell you something back. Right? I'll never forget the first time I ever got a comment on my blog 15 years ago. This actually I think it's this week is the 15th anniversary of my blog. When I got the first comment on my blog, I was just in awe, just in awe that someone out there in the universe found me, read me, liked me, and commented.
Mark Schaefer [00:16:14]:
And I've never taken that for granted. I never have lost that sense of gratitude and awe for people that spend time with my content. If someone comments, I respond to them all. And, again, it doesn't take that much time. If it takes 1 or 2 minutes to respond to 20 comments, maybe that's, you know, 40 minutes or an hour per week, because really I only post one major post on LinkedIn every week. It's worth it, and that builds the brand. Right? I mean, that shows that you're someone one time, Susan, said to me, I love you because you're just so friendly and accessible. Now think about that.
Mark Schaefer [00:16:59]:
This suggests that my point of differentiation is being friendly and accessible. That's pretty sad. That's a pretty low bar that anybody can achieve, I think. If you're just friendly and accessible, you're gonna be beloved.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:14]:
It's interesting because when you talk about building community, building loyalty with readers, but isn't that part of it? That even just that mere, well, you're friendly and I feel I know you. I mean, that's what people often say to me, having listened to me every week now for, let's say I mean, we're on our 8th year with this podcast. It's like, yeah. They know a lot about me because I do share on podcast. They feel they know me. They hear me. They don't necessarily see me, but they hear me. So, yes.
Mark Schaefer [00:17:52]:
That's a brilliant point, especially on a podcast because it's your voice and your passion that comes through. And listeners to my podcast, I'm actually in my 13th year. And by the way, I post every other week, and I've never missed an episode. Even when I had COVID, I've never missed an episode because, again, it's that consistency. You gotta figure a way through even when you don't feel like doing it and create something great every week or every other week. But on a podcast, it does create that parasocial relationship where people, you know, they view you as almost like a family member or a close friend. And that's so important for an author because you become part of the fabric of that person's life. When you have a new book out, they're gonna buy it because it's you.
Mark Schaefer [00:18:47]:
And I wanna build on that point for one moment because this is a very, very important point. We're in this world now where AI can do just about everything, and it can write very, very well. And the only thing that's gonna save you as an author is your personal brand. I'm not worried about AI. Not at all. Because people know me, and they trust me, and they know I'm creating 100% authentic, passionate, generous human content. No matter what happens with AI, people are still gonna read my blog. They're still gonna read my books because they know it's me.
Mark Schaefer [00:19:28]:
That's why I shout from the rooftops. You've got to work on your personal brand, especially now. It's the only sustainable competitive advantage we're gonna have left.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:39]:
That's a wonderful segue into AI because I was wanting to find a way that we could start talking a little bit about it, because you've embraced AI, as have I. And tell me more about how you use it, and how you would even recommend that our listeners might consider using it?
Mark Schaefer [00:20:03]:
Well, first of all, I would say, you know, if you're a doubter or if you think this is a fad, you need to change your mind. You need to embrace this. This is very similar to an attitude I saw, like, in the eighties when calculators became popular. People thought, oh my gosh. If you use a calculator, you're cheating. You're not doing the long math. Students won't have to learn long math anymore. Well, now using technology to do your math, whether it's your taxes or checking out a ecommerce site, we never do long math.
Mark Schaefer [00:20:41]:
The technology is ubiquitous. It's like the air that we breathe, and that's the way AI is. AI is gonna be built into everything. It levels the playing field for writing. I saw something recently that showed that the power and capability of AI is doubling every 6 months. So if you're sort of astounded by what something like chat gpt can do today, you ain't seen nothing yet. You need to explore. You need to dabble in it.
Mark Schaefer [00:21:12]:
You need to see what it can do. Push the edges of it. Don't just use it like a search engine, but really challenge it to create something interesting and new for you. So I just worked on a new book. It's a 3rd edition of an old book called Social Media Explained. And when I write a book, it's a completely exhausting process. I mean, I put everything I have into my books. And by the time the thing publishes, I'm completely exhausted.
Mark Schaefer [00:21:44]:
Psychologically, even physically, I'm just worn out. It's not a healthy process. I was determined to use AI in every way that I could to write this new book, and it turned out that it was a total flop. Now the reason is because when you use AI to help you create something, AI is looking at 1,000,000 and billions of data points that have all come from the past. And it assembles these through an algorithm to give you the highest probability answer of the average of everything that's happened in the past. And if you create content that's the best average of everything that's happened in the past, that is a lousy book. If you want the best average of what happened in the past, go to Google. A nonfiction writer depends on insight.
Mark Schaefer [00:22:42]:
An insight is a revelation. It's an insight that something you have learned that you wanna tell your readers, don't ever do this again because I made this mistake. Or look what I learned. I made these mistakes. And I found this new path, and I wanna show you how to create this new path. A book is insight. It's stories. It's your humor.
Mark Schaefer [00:23:08]:
It's your personality. It's connecting dots in a new way. I just couldn't find a way for AI to do that. AI was helpful with research. It helped me uncover some sources I wasn't aware of. It helped me uncover some case studies that were very useful to highlight in the book. But in terms of structuring and writing the book, it was a total failure. Now the one way I did use it, which was quite, I would say, bold and experimental and life changing was I used AI to narrate the book.
Mark Schaefer [00:23:48]:
And as far as I know, it's available now. You can find the 3rd edition. It's social media explained 3 point o, and it's successful marketing in the AI era. That's the name of the book. Social media explained 3 point o. And the book is narrated with voice synthesis. You can find this on Audible, and I believe this is the first book ever completely narrated by a computer voice. Now it's my voice.
Mark Schaefer [00:24:17]:
I uploaded previous narration files from other books into a platform called 11 Labs. It sounds like me, and, I mean, it's uncanny. It's absolutely fantastic. I'll play a little snippet for you here. Introduction. In the earliest days of social media, most business leaders were skeptical about how this strange new technology could be usefully applied to business. Alright. That's not me.
Mark Schaefer [00:24:49]:
Sounds like me. It has wonderful pronunciation and pauses and a nice pace, but it's not me. And it saved me hours and hours of work. I did send it through my audio editor, and she found a few places where I I needed to do it over again because something was a little funky. But overall, she said, this is great, and it passed through the audible process on the first go. So there you go. I mean, it saved me hours and hours of work and probably at least 100 of dollars in audio editing expenses.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:26]:
Thank you for sharing that example because that really brought it to life. You know, you explained it, and then we heard it. And now the comparison between hearing your voice and then hearing you synthesized was fabulous. This is a great segue, Mark. You've talked a little bit about your books. How do you like our listeners to connect with you? What would be the best way to find out more?
Mark Schaefer [00:25:58]:
It's really easy to find me. You don't have to remember my name, and most people can't spell Schafer anyway. All you have to remember is businessesgrow.com. On businesses grow, you can find my blog. I'm consistent. It's free. You can find my podcast. You can find my books.
Mark Schaefer [00:26:19]:
You can find my social media connections. If you follow me on LinkedIn, I follow everybody back. Just, find businesses grow dotcom, and you can find me.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:30]:
Fantastic. Yes. And listeners, I highly, highly recommend read Mark's blog. It's phenomenal. It really is. He tackles all different subjects that I wouldn't even have thought about tackling, but he's given me some great ideas. So thank you for that. Mark, as you know, we always end off with our guests leaving our listeners with a golden nugget.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:56]:
You've given us so much wisdom already. What else could you share?
Mark Schaefer [00:27:01]:
At the beginning of the show, you mentioned a book I wrote called, Marketing Rebellion. It's a book I'm really proud of. It was a wake up call. It's changed a lot of people's approach to marketing. One of the things I love most about that book is the subtitle, and that is the most human company wins. I believe that with every fiber in my body. And it's not just the most human company wins. The most human nonprofit wins.
Mark Schaefer [00:27:29]:
The most human symphony wins. The most human author wins. And it get kinda gets back to this idea of showing up in a human way, in a generous way, in a compassionate way on social media that helps you win an audience. And if you show up in a human way, you'll build your audience, you'll build your list, and you'll build your book sales as well.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:56]:
That's so beautiful. Yes. Instead of b to b, it's now h to h. I love it. Human to human. Mark, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales, because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for.
Go to BookMarketingBrainstorm.com to schedule your free call.
And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparked some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Mark:
Website
Blog
LinkedIn
