How to Make a major Impact on FREE Comic Book Day.

365 Killer, Sure Fire, Down – and – Dirty Marketing Strategies; Tactics For Indy Publishers and Comic Shop Owners…PART 24

How to Make a Major impact on FREE Comic Book Day - Power girl.

While investigating stores and the event that is FREE Comic Book Day ( FCBD), I noticed there were lots of promotion for the  FCBD event itself, but little to  no artist/creator promotional and relationship building material for the store itself  and its’ customers.  There was no branding, no creator community bonding, no creator retailer cross promoting… again, just the branding of the FCBD.

How to Make a Major impact on FREE Comic Book Day - The Fans Branded.

FCBD is already a known staple in the comic book world, what may be an unknown is your book, and the best way to change that is to get them in stores. How? You build relationships with the store owners, who have access to the customers, who in turn have access to the money and potential success of your work of art.

How to Make a Major impact on FREE Comic Book Day - True believers.

How do you go about building this relationship? The method I will be discussing is that of Private labeling, have the store incorporated in the comic book or published work you’ve  created, the easiest way to do this is by creating a store specific personalized emblem, picture, ect… on your book cover….this emblem/picture will be the accompanied by  the FCBD emblem. However, it will also brand you as a partnership fixture in the mind of the store owners and the potential customers that pick up your book.

Happy Hunting…

Related articles

• Free Comic Book Day May 5 (dave-lucas.blogspot.com)
• More on How to Handle Free Comic Book Day (comicsworthreading.com)
• Free Comic Book Day this weekend! (bwmedia.wordpress.com)
• Aspen Comics Celebrates Free Comic Book Day 2012 (comicbookresources.com)
• Who Is Free Comic Book Day For? (comicsworthreading.com)
• Free Comic Book Day is May 5th at Back to the Past! (backtothepast.tv)

How to create loads of comic book fans with a small base of customers.

365 Killer, Sure Fire, Down – and – Dirty Marketing Strategies; Tactics For Indy Publishers and Comic Shop Owners…PART 18

The Power Of Niche Marketing.

These days marketing is all about social networking. However, there are other subtle (grass-roots) more effective modes of marketing, niche marketing (1 person at a time). This sounds crazy I Know, have you ever heard the saying that “20 percent of people do 80 percent of the work?” This is called the 80/20 rule. If you grasp the concept behind that rule, the you will understand that the same  goes for your customers and fans as well. In fact the number can even be smaller than 20%. For example, let’s say you have a current audience base of 10,000 customers. By  using an effective marketing strategy(lets say direct mail), you should reap 3% (300 purchases/people)in sales. In the business world a 3% response rate is considered phenomenal…

How to create tons of Raving Fans!

 

A 3% response doesn’t sound like much does it? The trick then is to add some muscle to that 3%. Here’s how you do it. Place the  3% group in a new category.We will call them your ”A team.” They will become your prime purchasing group. Devise a way to reach out to this group( using various method, surveys, questionnaires, raffles, bribes etc… be creative…I can’t think of everything for you). Find out who’s bought what, how many, when it occurred, and the average price…the more info the better.

Once you’ve dissected everything about this group, you’ll need to create additional smaller groups, from the most active to the least active.This will give you the ability to better focus your marketing efforts to specific groups.  Create a place (it can be a website exclusively for the faithful or it can be a day you dedicate to them at the shop, where they meet and reaffirm their bonds for your products) uniquely for them interact and navigate. Take notice of the customers that are most active in the site or during the events hosted at the shop. Then approach them as “propaganda affiliates,”  fans that can help promote you to their family and friends. If they’re Facebook experts, twitter tweets, or myspacers… have them market you as if you were campaigning for president promising to lower taxes.