The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022. Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.
In the third session on Friday, Marketing for the Successful Solo Practice, marketing guru John Coe discussed how solo practitioners can find, sell, and grow their business using savvy targeted marketing. He focused on four elements in successful marketing campaigns:
- How to identify the correct person–the most important element
- What to offer to interest and gain new clients
- Why communicating by blending email, mail, and phone is best
- How to write copy that engages and sells
He also covered methods for building relationships and loyalty. He distributed a white paper with his tips to attendees.
The first step is to define the prospective target company and individuals. For indexers that would be the following:
- Production editors
- Academic editors
- Packagers
- Authors
He suggests setting up a database of contact information, which you could load in an Excel file unless you have a CRM or marketing automation system. Good sources for identifying possible targets include the following:
- NextMark
- Literary Marketplace
- Publishers Global (a directory of publishing houses)
- Association of University Presses
The three most common methods of targeted marketing are email, postal mail, and phone calls. He suggests mixing these–for example, send an initial email and follow up with a phone call a few days later. He said that postal mail can be surprisingly powerful, since a person actually holds and interacts with a letter.
He said it is important not to give up, since the average response rate to mailings is only 2.9 percent, and on average it takes fourteen emails to someone who doesn’t know the sender before they respond.
In the next blog posting I will discuss the fourth Friday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference. For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.