E-Marketing Strategy: The Power of the 
Blogosphere

This installment of E-Marketing Strategy picks up right where the column in the March/April issue of Book Business left off: blog marketing. This next step in building a solid Web-marketing foundation marks an important turning point. In this step, you will transition out of the research phase and into the—way more exciting—outreach phase. If you have done your site redesign, content development and audience research well, now is when you will begin to see new customers flow through your (digital) door.

Marketing your books to the blogosphere is one of the most fun and effective ways to find new customers. Unless your chosen topic is something outrageously obscure—underwater basket weaving?!—it is likely that every day thousands to millions of people flow through the blogs you have identified on your list of the top 10 to 15 blogs in your niche. (Remember that list?) Start with outreach to the blogosphere because establishing a strong presence with these heavy-hitters will make it much easier for you to build up your Twitter, Facebook and e-mail newsletter numbers.

Fill the Content Vacuum

It isn't easy to create and sustain a constant flow of quality content through your blog. The publishing schedule that top blogs have to maintain in order to keep the attention of their audiences is—to put it mildly—insane. There is no way a team of professional bloggers—let alone an ambitious individual—could create enough quality content every day to satisfy the demand. Bloggers must look elsewhere for content. Demand outstrips supply and creates the "content vacuum."

Book publishers are content creators; therefore, they are perfectly suited to fill this void on blogs. By pouring their quality, expert and edited content into this vacuum, book publishers are doing blog editors a favor by providing the content they need, and the blogs, in turn, are providing book publishers with exposure to the audiences that they need to sell books. It's a win-win situation.