How to build a marketing plan

Part one: Choosing good goals

If you’re signed up to this newsletter, I’m hoping that you have downloaded my free book marketing plan template (which you can access here, if you haven’t). This gives you a series of prompts to help you build a marketing plan for your book.

Over the next few emails, I’m going to dive into some of the key questions I ask when I create author plans, and which I hope will help you when you’re filling in your own.

Spotting: What are you aiming for?

There are hundreds (of thousands) of different things you can do, when it comes to your marketing. But to decide what tactics you want to employ, you need to have an idea of what you want.

Setting goals helps you decide what direction you want to head in, and helps you focus your time and energy. Rather than trying to do everything, deciding what goals you want to focus on in any given time period gives your plan structure and direction.

To come up with useful goals, I use a SMAKT goal framework:

Goals should be:

• Specific (not just ‘sell more books’, but decide what that number looks like).

• Measureable (if you’re traditionally published, and aren’t able to look at your daily sales, how else will you measure progress?).

• Achievable (ie, if your budget is £0 and you have zero audience, it’s going to be tricky to become a #1 Sunday Times bestseller. Or is it? Maybe you have other levers you can pull!).

• KIND (did you set this as a goal because you think you’re doing a shit job? Does reaching this goal mean sacrificing everything else in your life? Make sure you are being kind to yourself in the goals you set).

• Time-bound (ie: when do you want to reach your goal? Do you have time between now and then to actually do the tasks related to it?).

There are lots of different versions of success. Goals should be tied to your version. This framework can help ensure you’re not focusing on things you think you should be doing, but instead pointing yourself in the direction of where you actually want to move towards.

Having good goals also makes it easier to measure progress. You can track what’s working, what’s not, and adjust your approach accordingly. Is your newsletter growing? Are you seeing your Amazon chart position change? Are you getting more reviews? Even if you don’t reach your goals, are you getting closer to them?

It’s easy to set a goal and then either a) beat yourself up if you’re not coming close to it or b) forget that you’ve even set that goal. It’s important to review your goals regularly to make sure that they’re still relevant, adjust them (or the tactics you’re using to reach them) based on the experiences you’ve had so far, and decide if you want to keep your focus on those areas, or move on.

If you’d like to join a small group in a guided goal reflection / setting workshop, come along to next week’s Seasonal Map session. It’s online, at 11am BST, and available to all paid subscribers of this newsletter. You can upgrade your membership here. You’ll also get access to some gentle accountability and feedback to give you the best chance of reaching those goals.

Plotting: No, I don’t know your husband’s name

If, like me, you are terrible at remembering people’s names, but PARTICULARLY can’t remember the names of your friends’ hubsands (who you see less frequently than you see their dogs) this tip might help:

Instead of saving someone into your phone as just their name or just their name plus where you know them from (eg: Harriet, School mum), put everything into their name. Now people in my phone are saved as:

FriendsName, Child1Name, Child2Name, 🐶 DogName, 👨 HusbandName

My memory for your husband’s name is just as bad, but now I can quickly glance at my phone and pretend like I knew it all along…

Currently I’m…

Reading: Colony by Annika Norlin. This is much more literary than I’m used to! It took me a while to figure out who everyone was (see above: terrible with names), but now I’m very invested in this group of people, and am curious to see how it all pans out. I’m guessing… not well.

Listening to: Myself on my friend Sally’s podcast. The Rest is Entertainment — New to me! Say what you like about Richard Osman, he is one of the hardest working performers / authors out there and I really enjoy him and Marina Hyde talking all things showbiz. Help Me, I’m Poor — money in pop culture, very fun. It inspired me to watch…

Watching: Gossip Girl. I didn’t watch this when it was originally on because I went to private school in New York and I can tell you it is Not Like This. I had just graduated from school, and the whole thing felt ridiculous and it made me a bit cross. Now it’s 25 years later and I’m not as close to it, it still feels ridiculous, but I’m able to enjoy it for that.

Enjoying: Strawberries from the garden. Every morning I get to have a tiny handful of strawbs that are freshly picked, and the slugs haven’t eaten them all, and it brings me a little bit of joy every day.

Looking forward to: A summer party this weekend at a local friend’s house. These are always my favourite because I get to chat to lots of people I know and love, and then walk 4 streets back to my house.

How’s your week going?

What are you working on this week? What are your goals for the coming season? Are they kind? Do you have a good way to remember people’s names? What’s something you’ve read recently that you’ve enjoyed? Please do leave a comment or Substack or hit ‘reply’ if you’ve had this in your inbox.

PS: Office hours is on as always this week for paid subscribers! Drop me an email with your marketing query, and I’ll get back to you by the end of the week.

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