Start Marketing With The Right Tools

Greetings friends and hope all is well with you and yours and
your business endeavors. We're hunkering down here in Tulsa. They
say a perfect tornado storm is on its way in a few hours. Lovely.

Like my house doesn't have enough wrong with it already. My three
year old roof leaks, the wood around my dormers is rotting, and
the siding needs a paint job. Water damage from the winter storms
created leaks in my upstairs bedrooms, and the wood around my
windows is bowing and cracking due to water damage. So what's a little
tornado gonna do, right?

Got a call last week from a gentleman who called about ebook
covers. Wanted to know why it was so hard to create these
yourself and wanted me to tell him which software to use. Problem
#1: there's an assumption amongst most people that just because
you can buy a piece of software to do something, you can solve a
problem on your own. In this case, just because you can buy software to create ebook covers, this man thought he should be able to make
his own without any problems.

But what about graphic talent and the technical skills required
to design an ebook cover?

Why don't people think about this?

It's like buying a car and automatically believing that you'll
be able to fix anything that goes wrong with it yourself. Truth is most
people bring their car to an expert for service. Likewise, new
online marketers should turn to experts to show them the way, too.

I spent some time on the phone with the man and tried to qualify
him as a prospect for a larger project. "What's your budget for
launching your new ebook?" I asked.

He said between $300.00-500.00.

Problem #2: Unless you are a natural born Renaissance man (or
woman) who is capable of writing your own sales copy, designing
your own cover, writing your own HTML code, promoting your own
ebook and a host of other things, then you won't get very far with a
$300.00-$500.00 product launch budget.

I explained to him that merely setting up a generic web page
with an amateur ebook cover was not going to generate any sales.
They would be marginal at best, coming from immediate
friends and family. Unless, of course, he had written that one
truly unique ebook whose topic had never been covered before.

The man on the other side of the phone grew pensive and quiet.

"I could lie to you if you prefer," I said. "But I've published
a dozen of my own ebooks as well as 1100 ebooks for other
authors, and most do not sell well -- unless they start with a
quality product first and then do all the right things."

He asked what I meant by "all the right things".

So I told him he needed a simple but attractive web page, a
compelling sales letter, a provocative ebook cover design, a good
graphical header to intrigue the curious, a contact capture form
for non-buyers, an integrated email autoresponder, a good sales
email series dripped weekly or bi-weekly, a press release, sample
content and much, much more.

How much would that cost?

$2000.00-3000.00.

Wake up call. Hello? Hello? Anybody listening.

The man said he would call me back in a few weeks when he
finished his ebook and that he would contemplate what I told him
and see if he could gather the additional funding.

I felt badly. I always feel badly when I have this same
conversation. I have it with folks all the time.

I hate bursting bubbles, but if it was that easy to publish an
ebook and make substantial money, then we would all be
millionaires.

Isn't there a way to do this cheaper and still be effective?

Sure. There are a bunch of inexpensive tools you could purchase
that can help you to do a lot of this work yourself. But after
you invest in the tools, you still need to use them wisely ...

Here are some low-cost, high-quality tools:

Sales Letter Creator (creates sales letters)
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/sales%20letter%20creator.htm

Sales Page Tactics (adds features to your sales letters)
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/ebooks/salespagetactics.htm

Follow-Up Email Creator Pro (creates an email series for a drip
campaign)
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/business/followupemailcreatorpro.htm

eCover Software Pro (creates 3D ebook covers and other product
images)
http://www.ebookcovercreator.com/ecoversoftwarepro.htm

Press Equalizer (distributes press releases to sites)
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/business/pressequalizer.htm

There's also a new collection of easily customized,
professionally designed graphical headers that's just been
released. I highly recommend you check them out here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/multimedia/premiumheaderpack.htm

You could probably invest about $200.00-300.00 on these tools
and would then be well-armed to create the necessary elements for
a sound product launch and promotional campaign. But remember, it
takes time and talent.

More to come ...

All my best,

Steven

Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 South Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States