December 7, 2024 • 32 mins
I recently attended Author Nation, the premier conference for self-published authors in Las Vegas. While it might seem like fiction authors and digital marketers are worlds apart, the lessons I learned prove otherwise. From innovative uses of AI to the art of leveraging "borrowed audiences" and creating content that captivates through curiosity, authors are blazing trails that marketers can follow. Join me as I share 10 game-changing insights from Author Nation that will inspire your digital marketing strategy in 2025 and beyond!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What can you learn about marketing from authors?
Well, I actually just came backfrom the largest conference for
self-published authors, calledAuthor Nation in Las Vegas, and
I can't wait to share with youthe 10 things that inspired me,
that I hope inspire you aboutwhat you can learn from authors
that will drive your digitalmarketing forward in 2025 and
(00:23):
beyond.
So make sure you listen to thevery end of this next episode of
your Digital Marketing CoachPodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
blogging, podcasting, vlogging,tiktok, linkedin, twitter,
facebook, instagram, youtube,seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
there's a lot to cover.
Whether you're a marketingprofessional, entrepreneur or
business owner, you need someoneyou can rely on for expert
(00:54):
advice.
Good thing you've got Neil onyour side, because Neil Schaefer
is your digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business
with digital first marketing,one episode at a time.
This is your digital marketingcoach and this is Neil Schaefer.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Hey friends, it has been a while.
Sometimes in this podcast thereare a few weeks, sometimes it's
been a few months, where youknow the creativity, the energy,
the timing, the workload.
Sometimes the stars just don'talign and if you feel pressured
by editorial calendars, that youfeel that you need to be
publishing on X network or Xblog posts X times a week or X
(01:43):
times a month, it's okay to takea break.
Right, and we should only becreating content only when we
are at our natural high, ournatural best, because otherwise
it will not be as good a contentas you can create.
And these days, with algorithmsand just the you know, the
algorithms being focused onquality content and the amount
(02:04):
of quality content that exists,just having a not so focused
approach or just not doing whatyou're capable of doing, I don't
think it's good enough anymore.
I mean, it never has been goodenough, but more and more we
need to be at the top of ourgame.
When we're creating content,especially long form, evergreen
content like podcasts, right,our game when we're creating
(02:25):
content, especially long form,evergreen content like podcasts,
right, short form content, alittle bit different.
But anyway, that's always howI've thought and that's always,
if you see a little break in thepodcast recording, you'll know
why.
All right, let's begin thisepisode with the latest news.
So a few things to look at thisweek, and fortunately you're
(02:45):
getting this in time, becauseOpenAI is teasing the 12 days of
mystery product launches, whichactually started December 5th
pretty shortly before you shouldbe able to hear this podcast.
We don't know exactly whatthey're going to be revealing.
Well, the day I record this,they actually already released
(03:06):
their first product, but we'rethinking that Sora, this
text-to-video model that they'veteased before, a new reasoning,
ai or multimodal breakthroughslike DALI 4, where they're
currently at DALI 3,.
These updates could reshapecompetition with rivals like
Google and Anthropic, the makersof Claude.
Whether you're an AI enthusiastor a professional, we really
(03:29):
need to keep our eyes peeled onOpenAI, and I want to go over
the first release from these 12days of mystery product launches
, which is ChatGPT-01, whichthey are calling the world's
smartest language model.
Obviously, whenever OpenAI putsout something new, it's
probably going to be the world'ssmartest, whatever.
So they are with this AIproduct, or, I should say, model
(03:54):
.
They are offering it up only ifyou buy a pro plan for $200 a
month.
This pro plan offers unlimitedaccess, enhanced computational
power and an even smarter modefor more reliable, nuanced
answers, particularly in fieldslike programming and law.
So it might not apply to all ofus.
While the O1 model excels inspeed and features, it does
(04:18):
limit uploads to image files,sparking curiosity as to why
that is the case.
Nevertheless, sparkingcuriosity as to why that is the
case.
Nevertheless, this releasemarks a leap in AI capability,
ideal for power users andprofessionals.
You know, $20 a month, I thinkis sufficient.
Let's wait and see, but if youare a heavy user of ChatGPT, you
just might want to considerpaying that.
(04:39):
It is not a lot of moneyconsidering how much power users
are probably using ChatGPBT ona daily basis.
On other AI news, eleven Labsand Eleven Labs really has this
best AI voice cloning technology.
I know a lot of authors areusing them to create AI-based
voices for their books.
You can create AI voicepodcasts, which obviously I am
(05:02):
human.
I don't plan on doing that, butthey now launched
conversational AI agents thatspeak 31 languages, which is
just crazy.
So, in other words, if you wantto build things like 24, seven
customer support, outbound sales, interactive training in a
variety of languages, right andwith real-time responsiveness
(05:24):
and integration with major LLMslike GPT or Claude.
It is a leap toward morehuman-like interactions in the
chatbot customer service space,making it a valuable asset for
improving customer engagementand productivity.
Definitely something to watch.
But conversational AI hasbecome big and more and more
(05:45):
brands are using it, and ifyou're interested in that at all
, I would highly recommendchecking out Eleven Labs.
And then, on the social mediafront, tiktok.
Their in-app sales for theTikTok shop on Black Friday,
which wasn't that long ago,topped $100 million.
There were celebrity-hostedlive streams with Nicki Minaj
drawing record viewers.
(06:06):
Interestingly enough, a thirdof the sales came from small
businesses spanning categorieslike beauty, home goods and
fitness.
While in-stream shopping in theWest isn't as big as it is in
China, where it's huge, they arereally making headway with
younger purchase ready audiences.
I don't know about you.
I have a TikTok user account.
(06:27):
Please follow me.
Neil Schafer Social is the nameof that account, and I also
signed up for a TikTok forbusiness, which I have not yet
attached to my personal account,and they have been pitching me,
I swear.
Two or three times a week I amgetting emails from them
recommending that I set up aTikTok shop.
I even had a phone call with aTikTok representative a few days
ago talking about TikTok shop,where I'm thinking of setting it
(06:48):
up.
You cannot distribute thingsdigitally, only physically, but
you can.
Obviously, once you set it up,like with Instagram shopping or
Facebook shopping, you can tagyour products there and there is
a hungry audience that arebuying things just directly in
TikTok through TikTok shop, andthere's a whole ecosystem of
affiliate marketers and contentcreators and influencers that
(07:10):
are also making money off thethings that they're promoting
that can get sold through TikTokshop, right?
So if you are in one of thosereally, really popular B2C, you
know beauty, home goods, fitnessand you target a younger
demographic, primarily Gen Z,but also millennial I mean, it
is aging Definitely, definitely,definitely check out TikTok
shop, and I know, if you readthe newspaper today, wherever
(07:33):
you read it, that it lookslikely that TikTok is going to
have to sell its US assets to anAmerican company.
You know, when Donald Trumpgets in office, all bets are off
.
I mean, who knows right?
But I do believe that it is notsomething going away.
It is so big right now I couldnot see it disappearing and
therefore I would not let thatprevent you from moving forward
(07:56):
with TikTok shop, all right.
On the personal news, well, itwas a busy little time there in
between podcast recordings, butfinally settling down now and
getting ready to end the yearstrong.
Still working on the update tomaximizing LinkedIn for business
growth, but been gettingencouraging awards for digital
(08:18):
threads.
Actually, I've gotten a few,probably since our last
recording up to four awards nowand there's some announcements
coming out over the next severalweeks for some other business
book awards.
So it's really great to getthat recognition.
And once again, if you haven'tchecked out Digital Threads, you
can go to neilschafercom slashbooks.
You can find the links whereyou can find it online and
(08:39):
there's also a special freepreview edition that you can
download as well.
On other news, I'm reallyhonored that I am going to be
teaching a class on social andcontent marketing in Vietnam
next spring.
This is together with theSolvay Brussels School out of
Belgium, solvay Brussels Schoolsof Economics and Management,
(09:00):
and they have a program togetherwith a Vietnamese university in
Ho Chi Minh.
So it's going to be a 24-hourmodule taught over a weekend,
with some virtual sessionsbefore and after.
But I can't wait to visitVietnam for the first time and
to serve the next generation ofsavvy, digital first marketers
there.
(09:22):
All right, so let's get intotoday's topic.
Author Nation is, as I tease,the largest event for
self-published authors.
I am currently a self-publishedauthor and, while a majority of
the authors who go man probably70, 80, even 90% are fiction
authors right, they were peopledressed up in cosplay, fantasy,
(09:45):
romance, horror, thriller, youname it you wouldn't think it's
a place where you could actuallyglean any insight that can help
your business, but I beg todiffer.
I think it's all about themindset, and I've really been
leaning into what fictionauthors are doing to promote
their brand, their books.
They are entrepreneurs.
(10:06):
Authors are entrepreneurs.
My approach to book writing isalso an entrepreneurial one.
It is a product, but more thanthat, it also is digital PR.
So, on that note, I want togive you 10 things that I
learned or that inspired me,that I think will inspire you as
well.
So we'll begin with AI Now.
You'd think that fictionauthors, people that love
(10:29):
writing they would be absolutelyopposed to using any AI in
their work, and for the mostpart, up until last year, from
what I understand, there was alot of pushback on using AI.
But man, the tide has turned so.
Even fiction authors areleveraging AI in a variety of
ways to improve their craft andI think, when you think about it
(10:51):
that way, any content that yourbusiness is creating, you can
also be using AI to improve yourcraft.
Now, there are some tools thatare available for authors that
might not be available forbusinesses, but there are a ton
of content marketing AI toolsthat are coming out that can
help, you know.
Just thinking of short formvideos with Opus Clip or using a
(11:14):
tool like CastMagic to take aaudio or video and give you a
bunch of outputs that you canuse for your marketing.
What's really interesting isthat on the analysis side,
there's been a lot of progress.
There's a platform calledauthorsai that actually compares
the pacing, the characterdevelopment and other things
about your book compared toother similar books in your
(11:37):
genre.
Really, really fascinating.
And it was a reminder and Itell this to every business I
talk to you can't upload otherpublic examples of work that you
want to emulate right and usethat as a base to help it or
help the AI, help you find ideasto improve your content,
something I do pretty often andit was a reminder that you could
(11:59):
be doing that as well.
Another really, reallyinteresting perspective, someone
that I hope to have on thispodcast someday.
Her name is Joanna Penn.
She is a thought leader,founder of the Creative Penn
Podcast, which is probably thelargest podcast for
self-published authorsnonfiction and fiction author
and she gave a great speechabout how authors are all
entrepreneurs which, as Ialluded to before but AI should
(12:23):
absolutely be leveraged at everystage, and it's really about
leveraging AI to amplifyintelligence, amplify ourselves,
amplify our IP, amplify ourthoughts, and I just could not
agree with that more so.
Hopefully, as listeners of theyour Digital Marketing Coach
podcast, you are already leaninginto AI, but I would almost say
(12:45):
we cannot lean into it too much.
There is so much that is stillpossible that I want you to
explore.
I'll be talking about what toexplore in future episodes, but
just a general tool like ChatGPTcan bring you to a lot of
locations right.
Go into the GPT directory,check out what's going on out
there, what GPDs exist, dosearches for you know chat GPT
(13:09):
prompts, even ask chat GPT.
What else can I be using youfor?
You'd be pleasantly surprisedthe recommendations that it will
give you.
All right, that was number oneAI.
Number two is the concept ofusing borrowed audiences.
Now authors have the chance towork with companies like and you
may not have heard of theseunless you're an author a
(13:31):
company called BookBub orWritten Word Media that runs a
bunch of sites like BargainBooksy, the fussy librarian.
There's a bunch of these sitesout there where people sign up
to get notified when there arefree books or discounted books
available.
So these are companies thathave lists of hundreds of
(13:52):
thousands, if not millions, ofpeople that are segmented by
what they're interested in.
So, while it's primarily forfiction writers, I have been
using these services becausethey do have nonfiction
databases and it goes out in anemail newsletter Sometimes it
repeatedly goes out and you havethe ability to promote your.
Obviously, the idea is thatyou're promoting a discount, but
(14:12):
it's also the concept ofleveraging a borrowed audience
that I think is really reallyinteresting.
Right, you can go on your ownand do Amazon ads and Facebook
ads, which we're all doing,right?
You can go on your own and doAmazon ads and Facebook ads,
which we're all doing but bytapping into audiences which are
already trusted and whichalready have an expectation and
giving them what they want.
I think that's really powerful,and I don't have all the data
(14:33):
to prove the effectiveness of itor not, but I think you can
imagine how powerful that is.
So what can you do?
And I think from a businessperspective, borrowed audiences
are being able to tap into theaudiences of people that you can
collaborate with or businessesthat you can collaborate with.
These might be partners, if youhave partner marketing.
These might be the newslettersof content creators or of
(14:57):
influencers in your space.
It might be being interviewedon podcasts, where you are now
leveraging a borrowed audienceto introduce what you and your
company do to that audience.
Right, so that is a really,really powerful concept.
It's all about I've beentalking about this for like a
decade leveraging the other.
It is a type of influencermarketing.
(15:17):
Now, when I'm paying money tobe part of a traditional media
site that sends out an emailnewsletter, that's one thing.
But to collaborate with thosethat have an audience and
leverage that borrowed audience,that's really where you can
expand what you do to a newaudience.
So keep that in mind as you'recreating your marketing strategy
(15:39):
for 2025.
All right.
Point number three ads are anormal part of work.
There was a day on Amazon whenyou could put a book up there
and, organically, it would be alot easier to sell than it is
today.
But just like anything else,and even just like TikTok, these
days it seems, from what I hearfrom some content creators,
everything is pay to play.
It is just a normal part ofwork, right?
(16:01):
And we've had Dennis Yu on thispodcast.
You know, a buck a day, $5 aday, whatever the equation is,
but we have to accept that everymonth we are going to have an
advertising budget for whatevernetworks are strategic to us,
and you might be trying to avoidthe pay to play game, but at
this point in time it reallycan't be avoided.
(16:23):
The question is how effectiveare you going to be?
What are you going to promote?
And I have a great episodecoming up.
It's still a few.
Well, it might be a few monthsaway, but if you go to my
YouTube channel, youtubecomslash Neil Schaefer, I had an
interview with James Herman,just yesterday actually, and he
talked about brand building andthe importance of brand
(16:44):
awareness ads performancemarketing to build sales for
today and the near future, butbrand awareness, brand building,
ads to build an audience forfuture sales, and I thought that
was really compelling and madea lot of sense, regardless if
it's performance marketing,brand awareness, ads a buck a
day, $10 a day.
It is a normal part of work andI think that authors,
(17:08):
self-published authors, haverealized that as well and they
are leaning into the Facebookads, the Instagram ads, the
Amazon ads and working withthose sites that have those
promotional email newsletters asa type of advertising.
All right.
Point number four provide yourwork in different formats.
So maximizing LinkedIn forbusiness growth is only
available in ebook format, butdigital threads is an example of
(17:31):
a book that is available in allformats.
There is paperback, there'shardback with dust cover,
there's audio and there's ebook.
Well, why is that important?
Because people consume contentin different formats, which is
why this podcast is primarilyaudio, but there's also a
textual version of it.
I sometimes will publish it inLinkedIn as a newsletter and for
(17:52):
my interviews there's a videowhich goes out live stream and
YouTube.
Give your audience differentcontent formats to allow them to
consume your content any waythey want, and this really gets
down into content repurposing.
Now, with books, we literallylike if you don't have an audio
book, you're leaving money onthe table, seriously.
(18:13):
But we could say the same thingabout content repurposing by
not and I'm sort of kickingmyself as I say this but by not
repurposing all of my horizontalinterview videos into vertical
videos.
I just cannot play on TikTok.
I can't get the views, whetherit's 10 views or a hundred views
and then you got reels, andthen you got, you know, youtube
shorts and now LinkedIn videoright.
(18:33):
By not having the format,you're leaving money on the
table.
If you don't know how to docontent repurposing, check out
the interview that I did withAmy Woods, the founder of
Content 10X.
Check out her podcast as well.
I also have a dedicated chapteron this in Digital Threads that
hopefully you've read by now.
All right, point number five.
(18:54):
Now this might be a little bitless applicable BookWorld.
We have seen extreme successwith fiction authors that have
created custom or specialeditions, like books with
sprayed edges or fancy bookcovers that have ribbons on them
.
Maybe you've seen some of theseon BookTalk, if that's your
thing, or some of the mostfamous Kickstarters for authors
have been these sorts of specialeditions that have sold a lot
(19:18):
of money.
I mean, if the paperback isfive or 10 and the hardcover is
20, these will sell for 25, 30,35.
You add a signature on it, youcan sell it.
A signed version, you can sellit for even more, but it's the
concept of creating specialeditions of your product.
So it might be a little bitharder for you to do, for you to
(19:39):
think about.
But if you have an audience ofhungry customers, think about an
easy way to create a deluxeedition of whatever you have
that you can charge for more.
Limited quantity, limitededition it's something that
we've seen time in and time outin the B2C space.
Limited edition only availablenow, only limited number of
(20:02):
copies, but there is an audiencethat's hungry for that.
Now.
This might just be in the bookworld, right, but I would
challenge you to think aboutcreating a new type of product
that is higher end, that hasmore bells and whistles.
It has a higher perceived valueor a higher you know type of
concierge service or freeonboarding or whatever.
(20:23):
That is that I think you mightbe able to sell for a little bit
more money, all right.
Point number six networking.
I saw a lot of networking amongauthors and I also network with
other nonfiction authors andbusiness authors, and the reason
is that people buy more thanone book right Now.
(20:44):
If you're in fashion, obviouslypeople buy lots of clothes.
Now, a lot of business authorsare afraid that if they
collaborate with other businessauthors and this is what I heard
from some people in theindustry there that they are
basically taking away theirbusiness.
Right, why would theycollaborate with the competition
?
And I think we're at the pointwhere companies that are
(21:08):
thinking about services orconsumers that are thinking
about buying things you know,whether we like it or not, they
are going to be comparingmultiple companies, multiple
products, multiple services.
So at least by collaboratingwith other businesses and they
don't have to be directcompetitors by any means you're
giving more options.
And I love the author mindsetaround this because obviously
(21:31):
with authors, you know the whalereader, as they call them, buy
lots and lots and lots of books,so there's no competition
whatsoever.
And I'd say in the businessbooks as well, you're not just
going to buy digital threads andnever buy another book about
digital marketing again.
You probably own books by JayBaer, by Anne Hanley, by Mark
Schaefer and on, and, on, and on.
Even with podcasts.
You're not just listening to mypodcast, you're listening to
(21:52):
other podcasts as well.
So it is this notion that thereis a plentiful marketplace for
all and is there a way that wecan collaborate?
Because when we collaborate wecross-pollinate audiences.
Really interesting that forSpotify Wrapped, they partnered
with Google's Notebook LM.
Who would have thought Spotifyand Google would be
(22:12):
collaborating with each other?
But now I have to explain to mywife what Google's Notebook LM
is right, and now you have awhole new generation of people
that are being exposed to thatwonderful technology.
All right.
Point number seven theimportance of they call them
reader magnets.
We call them basically leadmagnets, right, and what authors
(22:33):
are doing is they will,especially fiction authors.
They create a series of booksand then the first book in that
series they'll give away forfree.
They call it permafree, right.
They'll put it up for free.
They'll ask Amazon to matchthat free price and that becomes
their lead magnet, like, ifyou're hooked on the first book
in a series, you're going toprobably want to buy the
remaining 14 books in thatseries.
(22:54):
Maybe you're going to buy thebox set and they build up an
email list to be able todirectly communicate.
Obviously, for those that haveread digital threads, I have a
whole chapter about lead magnetideas, but I could not agree
more with this approach and it'sreally good to see that authors
are very, very strategic aboutthis.
(23:14):
So here's the thing Are youcreating lead magnets that
people want more of you afterreading it?
You can't create a series ofproducts like a series of books,
but you can make it enticingenough, and I'm not talking
about you need a lot of volumeto make it enticing, but
enticing enough that people willwant more from you.
So when you're thinking aboutyour next lead magnet, think
(23:36):
about those reader magnets.
Think about that first book ina series and obviously you know,
for authors, you need to have afew books in order to give away
that first book.
And I'd say, as a company, youneed to have a lot of experience
and you know, ideally, multipleproducts to give people
something to choose from to havean even greater success with
this, or to have multiple leadmagnets to help you better
(23:58):
segment your audience based ontheir lead magnet interest.
This is something that I'vebeen doing for quite some time
with my multiple lead magnets,which, by the way, I used to
have a page.
I used to have a freebies page.
All that has now moved to thebooks page neilschafercom slash
books.
If you're curious about my ownlead magnets, all right.
Point number eight there were anumber of technical service
(24:20):
providers or vendors that wereat the show, and what I loved
about them is they gave us thechance to actually reserve time
to talk about our customersupport issues that were not
getting resolved.
I mean, I talked to people fromGoogle, I talked to people from
some pretty big companies andthey were all extremely helpful.
(24:40):
I made a human connection.
It makes me an even more loyaluser.
Now you're thinking, well, howdo we do that?
I mean, imagine if you have acustomer support agent that
people can reserve time to speakwith.
Right, it doesn't have to be aphysical event, it could be a
virtual one, it could be a Zoomcall, but I thought that that
was a really, really great wayof closing the gap between your
(25:03):
customers and your company, yourbrand, your support team, and
I'd say it's not only for yourcustomers.
But there were a lot ofpre-sales conversations going on
as well, as you can imagine.
Up to you know, it doesn't haveto be a 24 seven, it could just
be like a half day a week, fourhours of one person's time, but
(25:31):
I highly recommend youexperiment that and you put it
on your website and you put itin your emails, you put it in
your social and you see whatsort of engagement you get from
that and what business and youknow higher customer lifetime
bio you can generate from that.
All right, number nine, andrewDavis was one of the keynote
speakers and man he was.
(25:53):
It was one of the best speechesthat I've seen and the whole
idea behind his speech was aboutcreating curiosity gaps in your
content.
So he had this like surprisebox and he kept on saying you
know who would want the surprisebox?
Like, you know what do youthink is inside?
How much would you pay for it?
(26:13):
And he already knew what was init, but he waited until the
very end to basically talk aboutwhat was in it because he held
our attention for 45 minuteswhile he was talking about other
things, about this creation ofcuriosity gaps.
In other words, I begin thispodcast with a teaser, hopefully
to create a little bit ofcuriosity that you want to stick
(26:35):
around and keep listening.
And this is more important thanever with our content,
especially on social media withpeople's low attention time
spans right.
We need to begin with a stronghook and we need to create a
need to know and then generate aneed for closure.
That is really the best examplethat I can give you of what
(26:58):
Andrew defined as this curiositygap, right?
So when you create that need toknow, that's where you have a
hook and people want to keeplistening or watching until they
get closure.
And he gave some great examples, right.
He showed this Ikea ad andmaybe you've seen it before
about nothing, and that 39% ofpeople watch the entire four
minute and 23 second ad, whichis pretty incredible.
(27:20):
And then he showed a YouTubechannel that does slow motion
videos of things exploding, andso he showed a video of a
watermelon explosion is maybe 15or 30 seconds, right.
And then he showed a livestream of BuzzFeed BuzzFeed
employees putting rubber bandsaround a watermelon until it
(27:41):
exploded, and people were onthis live stream for hours
watching with that anticipatewhat is going to happen.
How many rubber bands is itgoing to take?
And I thought that was a greatexample of not just immediately
delivering the goods butcreating that curiosity gap,
building that gap and creatingtension and then giving payoff
(28:04):
and all about generating a needfor closure.
So Andrew's advice, which Iwant to echo here, is think like
a reality TV editor, showsomething the audience desires
and then threaten it.
Really really compelling speechand you know I was not the
presenter, so I'm just givingyou the gist of what he talked
about but a really really goodframework to think about your
(28:25):
own content with every piece, totry to create that curiosity
gap, just to get a little bitmore mileage, and I think this
is especially important forshort-form videos.
So something to think about,all right.
The last point I want to talkabout is a gentleman named James
Blanche who is the co-founderof the Self-Publishing School
podcast, one of the other realfamous podcasts in the
(28:48):
self-publishing arena.
I had a chance to meet him, bigfan of his podcast, he's one of
two podcast hosts and he was onstage talking about the Swiss
cheese analogy, and the Swisscheese analogy is all about not
having any holes that aren'taligned in your online strategy.
He was talking specificallyabout books, but it could be
(29:12):
your products or services aswell and your branding.
You see a book cover, you see abook title, you see a blurb Is
everything aligned?
And he really went deep on thebook covers not being aligned
and the power of familiarity.
So he showed these Hollywoodmovie posters over the last few
(29:32):
decades and, depending on thegenre, they were incredibly
similar.
Right and this is also what hisadvice was for authors is that
you don't want to create a coverthat sticks out.
You want to create a cover thatsticks in, that immediately
when someone sees the cover,they know what the book's going
to be about because of the powerof familiarity, and I thought
(29:52):
that that was a really powerfulthing that we don't talk enough
about in marketing, whether itis your Facebook ads or your
short form videos.
I mean, especially with TikTok.
It is your Facebook ads or yourshort form videos.
I mean especially with TikTok.
Right, I always talk abouthaving role models and trying to
be inspired by the content thatis already there, that is
(30:13):
already getting visibility fromthe AI algorithm.
That is really the same concept, right?
Understand what people arefamiliar with on each social
network and, looking at otherads, like in the Facebook ad
library, try more to fit in sothat immediately, people know
what you're about.
Now there is a brand buildingexercise where maybe you don't
want to fit in, maybe you wantto stick out, but for some
(30:35):
things, leaning into thisconcept of familiarity, the
science behind it, could workmore to your advantage than
trying to do something unique.
It might be a littlecontroversial, but I thought it
made a lot of sense and I wantedto share that with you today.
Well, all right, so you knowthis is episode number and I
(30:56):
should have talked about this atthe beginning.
We're at episode number 388.
It was my goal at the beginningof the year to get the $399 by
the end of the year.
Man, I don't know if that'sgoing to happen we shall see but
I want to thank you for yourloyalty in continuing to
subscribe to this podcast.
I am still committed for thelong haul.
I can't wait to continue toserve you.
I already have a few monthsworth of interviews that have
(31:16):
already been recorded and manymore incredible and
inspirational subject matterexperts that are waiting to
record their interview on thisshow.
So lots more to come.
Make sure you stay tuned.
Continue to stay subscribed.
As I said, that was a temporaryblip.
I do look forward to moreregularity publishing over the
next several months.
(31:37):
And hey, it's the holidayseason.
I know it's a little bit early,but make sure that you spend
this month in introspection andreally set the framework, set
the base for a very powerfulnext year, in 2025.
And this is not my last episodefor the year, so I'll stop
there, but thanks again and onceagain, this is your digital
(31:59):
marketing coach, neil Schafer,signing off.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
, neal Schaefer, signing off.
You've been listening to yourdigital marketing coach.
Questions, comments, requests,links.
Go to podcastnealschaefercom.
Get the show notes to this and200 plus podcast episodes at
nealschaefercom to tap into the400 plus blog posts that Neal
has published to support yourbusiness.
(32:23):
While you're there, check outNeil's digital first group
coaching membership community Ifyou or your business needs a
little helping hand.
See you next time on yourdigital marketing coach.
What can you learn about marketing from authors?
Well, I actually just came backfrom the largest conference for
self-published authors, calledAuthor Nation in Las Vegas, and
I can't wait to share with youthe 10 things that inspired me,
that I hope inspire you aboutwhat you can learn from authors
that will drive your digitalmarketing forward in 2025 and
(00:23):
beyond.
So make sure you listen to thevery end of this next episode of
your Digital Marketing CoachPodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
blogging, podcasting, vlogging,tiktok, linkedin, twitter,
facebook, instagram, youtube,seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
there's a lot to cover.
Whether you're a marketingprofessional, entrepreneur or
business owner, you need someoneyou can rely on for expert
(00:54):
advice.
Good thing you've got Neil onyour side, because Neil Schaefer
is your digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business
with digital first marketing,one episode at a time.
This is your digital marketingcoach and this is Neil Schaefer.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Hey friends, it has been a while.
Sometimes in this podcast thereare a few weeks, sometimes it's
been a few months, where youknow the creativity, the energy,
the timing, the workload.
Sometimes the stars just don'talign and if you feel pressured
by editorial calendars, that youfeel that you need to be
publishing on X network or Xblog posts X times a week or X
(01:43):
times a month, it's okay to takea break.
Right, and we should only becreating content only when we
are at our natural high, ournatural best, because otherwise
it will not be as good a contentas you can create.
And these days, with algorithmsand just the you know, the
algorithms being focused onquality content and the amount
(02:04):
of quality content that exists,just having a not so focused
approach or just not doing whatyou're capable of doing, I don't
think it's good enough anymore.
I mean, it never has been goodenough, but more and more we
need to be at the top of ourgame.
When we're creating content,especially long form, evergreen
content like podcasts, right,our game when we're creating
(02:25):
content, especially long form,evergreen content like podcasts,
right, short form content, alittle bit different.
But anyway, that's always howI've thought and that's always,
if you see a little break in thepodcast recording, you'll know
why.
All right, let's begin thisepisode with the latest news.
So a few things to look at thisweek, and fortunately you're
(02:45):
getting this in time, becauseOpenAI is teasing the 12 days of
mystery product launches, whichactually started December 5th
pretty shortly before you shouldbe able to hear this podcast.
We don't know exactly whatthey're going to be revealing.
Well, the day I record this,they actually already released
(03:06):
their first product, but we'rethinking that Sora, this
text-to-video model that they'veteased before, a new reasoning,
ai or multimodal breakthroughslike DALI 4, where they're
currently at DALI 3,.
These updates could reshapecompetition with rivals like
Google and Anthropic, the makersof Claude.
Whether you're an AI enthusiastor a professional, we really
(03:29):
need to keep our eyes peeled onOpenAI, and I want to go over
the first release from these 12days of mystery product launches
, which is ChatGPT-01, whichthey are calling the world's
smartest language model.
Obviously, whenever OpenAI putsout something new, it's
probably going to be the world'ssmartest, whatever.
So they are with this AIproduct, or, I should say, model
(03:54):
.
They are offering it up only ifyou buy a pro plan for $200 a
month.
This pro plan offers unlimitedaccess, enhanced computational
power and an even smarter modefor more reliable, nuanced
answers, particularly in fieldslike programming and law.
So it might not apply to all ofus.
While the O1 model excels inspeed and features, it does
(04:18):
limit uploads to image files,sparking curiosity as to why
that is the case.
Nevertheless, sparkingcuriosity as to why that is the
case.
Nevertheless, this releasemarks a leap in AI capability,
ideal for power users andprofessionals.
You know, $20 a month, I thinkis sufficient.
Let's wait and see, but if youare a heavy user of ChatGPT, you
just might want to considerpaying that.
(04:39):
It is not a lot of moneyconsidering how much power users
are probably using ChatGPBT ona daily basis.
On other AI news, eleven Labsand Eleven Labs really has this
best AI voice cloning technology.
I know a lot of authors areusing them to create AI-based
voices for their books.
You can create AI voicepodcasts, which obviously I am
(05:02):
human.
I don't plan on doing that, butthey now launched
conversational AI agents thatspeak 31 languages, which is
just crazy.
So, in other words, if you wantto build things like 24, seven
customer support, outbound sales, interactive training in a
variety of languages, right andwith real-time responsiveness
(05:24):
and integration with major LLMslike GPT or Claude.
It is a leap toward morehuman-like interactions in the
chatbot customer service space,making it a valuable asset for
improving customer engagementand productivity.
Definitely something to watch.
But conversational AI hasbecome big and more and more
(05:45):
brands are using it, and ifyou're interested in that at all
, I would highly recommendchecking out Eleven Labs.
And then, on the social mediafront, tiktok.
Their in-app sales for theTikTok shop on Black Friday,
which wasn't that long ago,topped $100 million.
There were celebrity-hostedlive streams with Nicki Minaj
drawing record viewers.
(06:06):
Interestingly enough, a thirdof the sales came from small
businesses spanning categorieslike beauty, home goods and
fitness.
While in-stream shopping in theWest isn't as big as it is in
China, where it's huge, they arereally making headway with
younger purchase ready audiences.
I don't know about you.
I have a TikTok user account.
(06:27):
Please follow me.
Neil Schafer Social is the nameof that account, and I also
signed up for a TikTok forbusiness, which I have not yet
attached to my personal account,and they have been pitching me,
I swear.
Two or three times a week I amgetting emails from them
recommending that I set up aTikTok shop.
I even had a phone call with aTikTok representative a few days
ago talking about TikTok shop,where I'm thinking of setting it
(06:48):
up.
You cannot distribute thingsdigitally, only physically, but
you can.
Obviously, once you set it up,like with Instagram shopping or
Facebook shopping, you can tagyour products there and there is
a hungry audience that arebuying things just directly in
TikTok through TikTok shop, andthere's a whole ecosystem of
affiliate marketers and contentcreators and influencers that
(07:10):
are also making money off thethings that they're promoting
that can get sold through TikTokshop, right?
So if you are in one of thosereally, really popular B2C, you
know beauty, home goods, fitnessand you target a younger
demographic, primarily Gen Z,but also millennial I mean, it
is aging Definitely, definitely,definitely check out TikTok
shop, and I know, if you readthe newspaper today, wherever
(07:33):
you read it, that it lookslikely that TikTok is going to
have to sell its US assets to anAmerican company.
You know, when Donald Trumpgets in office, all bets are off
.
I mean, who knows right?
But I do believe that it is notsomething going away.
It is so big right now I couldnot see it disappearing and
therefore I would not let thatprevent you from moving forward
(07:56):
with TikTok shop, all right.
On the personal news, well, itwas a busy little time there in
between podcast recordings, butfinally settling down now and
getting ready to end the yearstrong.
Still working on the update tomaximizing LinkedIn for business
growth, but been gettingencouraging awards for digital
(08:18):
threads.
Actually, I've gotten a few,probably since our last
recording up to four awards nowand there's some announcements
coming out over the next severalweeks for some other business
book awards.
So it's really great to getthat recognition.
And once again, if you haven'tchecked out Digital Threads, you
can go to neilschafercom slashbooks.
You can find the links whereyou can find it online and
(08:39):
there's also a special freepreview edition that you can
download as well.
On other news, I'm reallyhonored that I am going to be
teaching a class on social andcontent marketing in Vietnam
next spring.
This is together with theSolvay Brussels School out of
Belgium, solvay Brussels Schoolsof Economics and Management,
(09:00):
and they have a program togetherwith a Vietnamese university in
Ho Chi Minh.
So it's going to be a 24-hourmodule taught over a weekend,
with some virtual sessionsbefore and after.
But I can't wait to visitVietnam for the first time and
to serve the next generation ofsavvy, digital first marketers
there.
(09:22):
All right, so let's get intotoday's topic.
Author Nation is, as I tease,the largest event for
self-published authors.
I am currently a self-publishedauthor and, while a majority of
the authors who go man probably70, 80, even 90% are fiction
authors right, they were peopledressed up in cosplay, fantasy,
(09:45):
romance, horror, thriller, youname it you wouldn't think it's
a place where you could actuallyglean any insight that can help
your business, but I beg todiffer.
I think it's all about themindset, and I've really been
leaning into what fictionauthors are doing to promote
their brand, their books.
They are entrepreneurs.
(10:06):
Authors are entrepreneurs.
My approach to book writing isalso an entrepreneurial one.
It is a product, but more thanthat, it also is digital PR.
So, on that note, I want togive you 10 things that I
learned or that inspired me,that I think will inspire you as
well.
So we'll begin with AI Now.
You'd think that fictionauthors, people that love
(10:29):
writing they would be absolutelyopposed to using any AI in
their work, and for the mostpart, up until last year, from
what I understand, there was alot of pushback on using AI.
But man, the tide has turned so.
Even fiction authors areleveraging AI in a variety of
ways to improve their craft andI think, when you think about it
(10:51):
that way, any content that yourbusiness is creating, you can
also be using AI to improve yourcraft.
Now, there are some tools thatare available for authors that
might not be available forbusinesses, but there are a ton
of content marketing AI toolsthat are coming out that can
help, you know.
Just thinking of short formvideos with Opus Clip or using a
(11:14):
tool like CastMagic to take aaudio or video and give you a
bunch of outputs that you canuse for your marketing.
What's really interesting isthat on the analysis side,
there's been a lot of progress.
There's a platform calledauthorsai that actually compares
the pacing, the characterdevelopment and other things
about your book compared toother similar books in your
(11:37):
genre.
Really, really fascinating.
And it was a reminder and Itell this to every business I
talk to you can't upload otherpublic examples of work that you
want to emulate right and usethat as a base to help it or
help the AI, help you find ideasto improve your content,
something I do pretty often andit was a reminder that you could
(11:59):
be doing that as well.
Another really, reallyinteresting perspective, someone
that I hope to have on thispodcast someday.
Her name is Joanna Penn.
She is a thought leader,founder of the Creative Penn
Podcast, which is probably thelargest podcast for
self-published authorsnonfiction and fiction author
and she gave a great speechabout how authors are all
entrepreneurs which, as Ialluded to before but AI should
(12:23):
absolutely be leveraged at everystage, and it's really about
leveraging AI to amplifyintelligence, amplify ourselves,
amplify our IP, amplify ourthoughts, and I just could not
agree with that more so.
Hopefully, as listeners of theyour Digital Marketing Coach
podcast, you are already leaninginto AI, but I would almost say
(12:45):
we cannot lean into it too much.
There is so much that is stillpossible that I want you to
explore.
I'll be talking about what toexplore in future episodes, but
just a general tool like ChatGPTcan bring you to a lot of
locations right.
Go into the GPT directory,check out what's going on out
there, what GPDs exist, dosearches for you know chat GPT
(13:09):
prompts, even ask chat GPT.
What else can I be using youfor?
You'd be pleasantly surprisedthe recommendations that it will
give you.
All right, that was number oneAI.
Number two is the concept ofusing borrowed audiences.
Now authors have the chance towork with companies like and you
may not have heard of theseunless you're an author a
(13:31):
company called BookBub orWritten Word Media that runs a
bunch of sites like BargainBooksy, the fussy librarian.
There's a bunch of these sitesout there where people sign up
to get notified when there arefree books or discounted books
available.
So these are companies thathave lists of hundreds of
(13:52):
thousands, if not millions, ofpeople that are segmented by
what they're interested in.
So, while it's primarily forfiction writers, I have been
using these services becausethey do have nonfiction
databases and it goes out in anemail newsletter Sometimes it
repeatedly goes out and you havethe ability to promote your.
Obviously, the idea is thatyou're promoting a discount, but
(14:12):
it's also the concept ofleveraging a borrowed audience
that I think is really reallyinteresting.
Right, you can go on your ownand do Amazon ads and Facebook
ads, which we're all doing,right?
You can go on your own and doAmazon ads and Facebook ads,
which we're all doing but bytapping into audiences which are
already trusted and whichalready have an expectation and
giving them what they want.
I think that's really powerful,and I don't have all the data
(14:33):
to prove the effectiveness of itor not, but I think you can
imagine how powerful that is.
So what can you do?
And I think from a businessperspective, borrowed audiences
are being able to tap into theaudiences of people that you can
collaborate with or businessesthat you can collaborate with.
These might be partners, if youhave partner marketing.
These might be the newslettersof content creators or of
(14:57):
influencers in your space.
It might be being interviewedon podcasts, where you are now
leveraging a borrowed audienceto introduce what you and your
company do to that audience.
Right, so that is a really,really powerful concept.
It's all about I've beentalking about this for like a
decade leveraging the other.
It is a type of influencermarketing.
(15:17):
Now, when I'm paying money tobe part of a traditional media
site that sends out an emailnewsletter, that's one thing.
But to collaborate with thosethat have an audience and
leverage that borrowed audience,that's really where you can
expand what you do to a newaudience.
So keep that in mind as you'recreating your marketing strategy
(15:39):
for 2025.
All right.
Point number three ads are anormal part of work.
There was a day on Amazon whenyou could put a book up there
and, organically, it would be alot easier to sell than it is
today.
But just like anything else,and even just like TikTok, these
days it seems, from what I hearfrom some content creators,
everything is pay to play.
It is just a normal part ofwork, right?
(16:01):
And we've had Dennis Yu on thispodcast.
You know, a buck a day, $5 aday, whatever the equation is,
but we have to accept that everymonth we are going to have an
advertising budget for whatevernetworks are strategic to us,
and you might be trying to avoidthe pay to play game, but at
this point in time it reallycan't be avoided.
(16:23):
The question is how effectiveare you going to be?
What are you going to promote?
And I have a great episodecoming up.
It's still a few.
Well, it might be a few monthsaway, but if you go to my
YouTube channel, youtubecomslash Neil Schaefer, I had an
interview with James Herman,just yesterday actually, and he
talked about brand building andthe importance of brand
(16:44):
awareness ads performancemarketing to build sales for
today and the near future, butbrand awareness, brand building,
ads to build an audience forfuture sales, and I thought that
was really compelling and madea lot of sense, regardless if
it's performance marketing,brand awareness, ads a buck a
day, $10 a day.
It is a normal part of work andI think that authors,
(17:08):
self-published authors, haverealized that as well and they
are leaning into the Facebookads, the Instagram ads, the
Amazon ads and working withthose sites that have those
promotional email newsletters asa type of advertising.
All right.
Point number four provide yourwork in different formats.
So maximizing LinkedIn forbusiness growth is only
available in ebook format, butdigital threads is an example of
(17:31):
a book that is available in allformats.
There is paperback, there'shardback with dust cover,
there's audio and there's ebook.
Well, why is that important?
Because people consume contentin different formats, which is
why this podcast is primarilyaudio, but there's also a
textual version of it.
I sometimes will publish it inLinkedIn as a newsletter and for
(17:52):
my interviews there's a videowhich goes out live stream and
YouTube.
Give your audience differentcontent formats to allow them to
consume your content any waythey want, and this really gets
down into content repurposing.
Now, with books, we literallylike if you don't have an audio
book, you're leaving money onthe table, seriously.
(18:13):
But we could say the same thingabout content repurposing by
not and I'm sort of kickingmyself as I say this but by not
repurposing all of my horizontalinterview videos into vertical
videos.
I just cannot play on TikTok.
I can't get the views, whetherit's 10 views or a hundred views
and then you got reels, andthen you got, you know, youtube
shorts and now LinkedIn videoright.
(18:33):
By not having the format,you're leaving money on the
table.
If you don't know how to docontent repurposing, check out
the interview that I did withAmy Woods, the founder of
Content 10X.
Check out her podcast as well.
I also have a dedicated chapteron this in Digital Threads that
hopefully you've read by now.
All right, point number five.
(18:54):
Now this might be a little bitless applicable BookWorld.
We have seen extreme successwith fiction authors that have
created custom or specialeditions, like books with
sprayed edges or fancy bookcovers that have ribbons on them
.
Maybe you've seen some of theseon BookTalk, if that's your
thing, or some of the mostfamous Kickstarters for authors
have been these sorts of specialeditions that have sold a lot
(19:18):
of money.
I mean, if the paperback isfive or 10 and the hardcover is
20, these will sell for 25, 30,35.
You add a signature on it, youcan sell it.
A signed version, you can sellit for even more, but it's the
concept of creating specialeditions of your product.
So it might be a little bitharder for you to do, for you to
(19:39):
think about.
But if you have an audience ofhungry customers, think about an
easy way to create a deluxeedition of whatever you have
that you can charge for more.
Limited quantity, limitededition it's something that
we've seen time in and time outin the B2C space.
Limited edition only availablenow, only limited number of
(20:02):
copies, but there is an audiencethat's hungry for that.
Now.
This might just be in the bookworld, right, but I would
challenge you to think aboutcreating a new type of product
that is higher end, that hasmore bells and whistles.
It has a higher perceived valueor a higher you know type of
concierge service or freeonboarding or whatever.
(20:23):
That is that I think you mightbe able to sell for a little bit
more money, all right.
Point number six networking.
I saw a lot of networking amongauthors and I also network with
other nonfiction authors andbusiness authors, and the reason
is that people buy more thanone book right Now.
(20:44):
If you're in fashion, obviouslypeople buy lots of clothes.
Now, a lot of business authorsare afraid that if they
collaborate with other businessauthors and this is what I heard
from some people in theindustry there that they are
basically taking away theirbusiness.
Right, why would theycollaborate with the competition
?
And I think we're at the pointwhere companies that are
(21:08):
thinking about services orconsumers that are thinking
about buying things you know,whether we like it or not, they
are going to be comparingmultiple companies, multiple
products, multiple services.
So at least by collaboratingwith other businesses and they
don't have to be directcompetitors by any means you're
giving more options.
And I love the author mindsetaround this because obviously
(21:31):
with authors, you know the whalereader, as they call them, buy
lots and lots and lots of books,so there's no competition
whatsoever.
And I'd say in the businessbooks as well, you're not just
going to buy digital threads andnever buy another book about
digital marketing again.
You probably own books by JayBaer, by Anne Hanley, by Mark
Schaefer and on, and, on, and on.
Even with podcasts.
You're not just listening to mypodcast, you're listening to
(21:52):
other podcasts as well.
So it is this notion that thereis a plentiful marketplace for
all and is there a way that wecan collaborate?
Because when we collaborate wecross-pollinate audiences.
Really interesting that forSpotify Wrapped, they partnered
with Google's Notebook LM.
Who would have thought Spotifyand Google would be
(22:12):
collaborating with each other?
But now I have to explain to mywife what Google's Notebook LM
is right, and now you have awhole new generation of people
that are being exposed to thatwonderful technology.
All right.
Point number seven theimportance of they call them
reader magnets.
We call them basically leadmagnets, right, and what authors
(22:33):
are doing is they will,especially fiction authors.
They create a series of booksand then the first book in that
series they'll give away forfree.
They call it permafree, right.
They'll put it up for free.
They'll ask Amazon to matchthat free price and that becomes
their lead magnet, like, ifyou're hooked on the first book
in a series, you're going toprobably want to buy the
remaining 14 books in thatseries.
(22:54):
Maybe you're going to buy thebox set and they build up an
email list to be able todirectly communicate.
Obviously, for those that haveread digital threads, I have a
whole chapter about lead magnetideas, but I could not agree
more with this approach and it'sreally good to see that authors
are very, very strategic aboutthis.
(23:14):
So here's the thing Are youcreating lead magnets that
people want more of you afterreading it?
You can't create a series ofproducts like a series of books,
but you can make it enticingenough, and I'm not talking
about you need a lot of volumeto make it enticing, but
enticing enough that people willwant more from you.
So when you're thinking aboutyour next lead magnet, think
(23:36):
about those reader magnets.
Think about that first book ina series and obviously you know,
for authors, you need to have afew books in order to give away
that first book.
And I'd say, as a company, youneed to have a lot of experience
and you know, ideally, multipleproducts to give people
something to choose from to havean even greater success with
this, or to have multiple leadmagnets to help you better
(23:58):
segment your audience based ontheir lead magnet interest.
This is something that I'vebeen doing for quite some time
with my multiple lead magnets,which, by the way, I used to
have a page.
I used to have a freebies page.
All that has now moved to thebooks page neilschafercom slash
books.
If you're curious about my ownlead magnets, all right.
Point number eight there were anumber of technical service
(24:20):
providers or vendors that wereat the show, and what I loved
about them is they gave us thechance to actually reserve time
to talk about our customersupport issues that were not
getting resolved.
I mean, I talked to people fromGoogle, I talked to people from
some pretty big companies andthey were all extremely helpful.
(24:40):
I made a human connection.
It makes me an even more loyaluser.
Now you're thinking, well, howdo we do that?
I mean, imagine if you have acustomer support agent that
people can reserve time to speakwith.
Right, it doesn't have to be aphysical event, it could be a
virtual one, it could be a Zoomcall, but I thought that that
was a really, really great wayof closing the gap between your
(25:03):
customers and your company, yourbrand, your support team, and
I'd say it's not only for yourcustomers.
But there were a lot ofpre-sales conversations going on
as well, as you can imagine.
Up to you know, it doesn't haveto be a 24 seven, it could just
be like a half day a week, fourhours of one person's time, but
(25:31):
I highly recommend youexperiment that and you put it
on your website and you put itin your emails, you put it in
your social and you see whatsort of engagement you get from
that and what business and youknow higher customer lifetime
bio you can generate from that.
All right, number nine, andrewDavis was one of the keynote
speakers and man he was.
(25:53):
It was one of the best speechesthat I've seen and the whole
idea behind his speech was aboutcreating curiosity gaps in your
content.
So he had this like surprisebox and he kept on saying you
know who would want the surprisebox?
Like, you know what do youthink is inside?
How much would you pay for it?
(26:13):
And he already knew what was init, but he waited until the
very end to basically talk aboutwhat was in it because he held
our attention for 45 minuteswhile he was talking about other
things, about this creation ofcuriosity gaps.
In other words, I begin thispodcast with a teaser, hopefully
to create a little bit ofcuriosity that you want to stick
(26:35):
around and keep listening.
And this is more important thanever with our content,
especially on social media withpeople's low attention time
spans right.
We need to begin with a stronghook and we need to create a
need to know and then generate aneed for closure.
That is really the best examplethat I can give you of what
(26:58):
Andrew defined as this curiositygap, right?
So when you create that need toknow, that's where you have a
hook and people want to keeplistening or watching until they
get closure.
And he gave some great examples, right.
He showed this Ikea ad andmaybe you've seen it before
about nothing, and that 39% ofpeople watch the entire four
minute and 23 second ad, whichis pretty incredible.
(27:20):
And then he showed a YouTubechannel that does slow motion
videos of things exploding, andso he showed a video of a
watermelon explosion is maybe 15or 30 seconds, right.
And then he showed a livestream of BuzzFeed BuzzFeed
employees putting rubber bandsaround a watermelon until it
(27:41):
exploded, and people were onthis live stream for hours
watching with that anticipatewhat is going to happen.
How many rubber bands is itgoing to take?
And I thought that was a greatexample of not just immediately
delivering the goods butcreating that curiosity gap,
building that gap and creatingtension and then giving payoff
(28:04):
and all about generating a needfor closure.
So Andrew's advice, which Iwant to echo here, is think like
a reality TV editor, showsomething the audience desires
and then threaten it.
Really really compelling speechand you know I was not the
presenter, so I'm just givingyou the gist of what he talked
about but a really really goodframework to think about your
(28:25):
own content with every piece, totry to create that curiosity
gap, just to get a little bitmore mileage, and I think this
is especially important forshort-form videos.
So something to think about,all right.
The last point I want to talkabout is a gentleman named James
Blanche who is the co-founderof the Self-Publishing School
podcast, one of the other realfamous podcasts in the
(28:48):
self-publishing arena.
I had a chance to meet him, bigfan of his podcast, he's one of
two podcast hosts and he was onstage talking about the Swiss
cheese analogy, and the Swisscheese analogy is all about not
having any holes that aren'taligned in your online strategy.
He was talking specificallyabout books, but it could be
(29:12):
your products or services aswell and your branding.
You see a book cover, you see abook title, you see a blurb Is
everything aligned?
And he really went deep on thebook covers not being aligned
and the power of familiarity.
So he showed these Hollywoodmovie posters over the last few
(29:32):
decades and, depending on thegenre, they were incredibly
similar.
Right and this is also what hisadvice was for authors is that
you don't want to create a coverthat sticks out.
You want to create a cover thatsticks in, that immediately
when someone sees the cover,they know what the book's going
to be about because of the powerof familiarity, and I thought
(29:52):
that that was a really powerfulthing that we don't talk enough
about in marketing, whether itis your Facebook ads or your
short form videos.
I mean, especially with TikTok.
It is your Facebook ads or yourshort form videos.
I mean especially with TikTok.
Right, I always talk abouthaving role models and trying to
be inspired by the content thatis already there, that is
(30:13):
already getting visibility fromthe AI algorithm.
That is really the same concept, right?
Understand what people arefamiliar with on each social
network and, looking at otherads, like in the Facebook ad
library, try more to fit in sothat immediately, people know
what you're about.
Now there is a brand buildingexercise where maybe you don't
want to fit in, maybe you wantto stick out, but for some
(30:35):
things, leaning into thisconcept of familiarity, the
science behind it, could workmore to your advantage than
trying to do something unique.
It might be a littlecontroversial, but I thought it
made a lot of sense and I wantedto share that with you today.
Well, all right, so you knowthis is episode number and I
(30:56):
should have talked about this atthe beginning.
We're at episode number 388.
It was my goal at the beginningof the year to get the $399 by
the end of the year.
Man, I don't know if that'sgoing to happen we shall see but
I want to thank you for yourloyalty in continuing to
subscribe to this podcast.
I am still committed for thelong haul.
I can't wait to continue toserve you.
I already have a few monthsworth of interviews that have
(31:16):
already been recorded and manymore incredible and
inspirational subject matterexperts that are waiting to
record their interview on thisshow.
So lots more to come.
Make sure you stay tuned.
Continue to stay subscribed.
As I said, that was a temporaryblip.
I do look forward to moreregularity publishing over the
next several months.
(31:37):
And hey, it's the holidayseason.
I know it's a little bit early,but make sure that you spend
this month in introspection andreally set the framework, set
the base for a very powerfulnext year, in 2025.
And this is not my last episodefor the year, so I'll stop
there, but thanks again and onceagain, this is your digital
(31:59):
marketing coach, neil Schafer,signing off.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
, neal Schaefer, signing off.
You've been listening to yourdigital marketing coach.
Questions, comments, requests,links.
Go to podcastnealschaefercom.
Get the show notes to this and200 plus podcast episodes at
nealschaefercom to tap into the400 plus blog posts that Neal
has published to support yourbusiness.
(32:23):
While you're there, check outNeil's digital first group
coaching membership community Ifyou or your business needs a
little helping hand.
See you next time on yourdigital marketing coach.
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