Judy Colbert of of Crofton, Maryland writes:
It contains information gathered from experts and websites, including suggestions on how to prevent tantrums, how to stop them, and how to live with them.
It will be great for parents, family members, baby sitters, daycare operators, flight attendants, and others who love and care for children in the tantrum age. It may surprise you to learn that most daycare operators and workers receive maybe three hours of instruction about tantrums. Teachers, flight attendants, and others don’t receive any!
My first promotion will be distributing a release through ExpertClick.com and a number of journalists and others who have told me to let them know when the book is ready.
I’d sure like suggestions from your Hounds on anything special I should be doing after that. Is there a central operation for providing instruction information for daycare center operators and others who deal with children in this age range? Is there a company (baby food, diapers) that might be interested in a gift-with-purchase offer to parents who buy their products? Some other mass market I’m missing?
This kind of subject makes for great how to information for parents. I would do some quick 1 2 3 tips kind of videos and post them on YouTube and other video hosting sites. Put well keyworded text with links to either your website or to Amazon in the description and you will do very well. I have been using how to videos on my products and customers love them. Remember YouTube and others are free and worldwide, how can you not love that.
The descriptive text in YouTube is picked up very well by Google, they love video, also think about your titles. You can even just sit in front of a simple video camera or the one built into your computer and talk about your topic with some answers and then direct them to how to learn more and purchase. Each chapter is a short video. Keep them 3 to 5 minutes. This is perfect material for YouTube, ExpertVillage, MetaCafe, etc, there are lots of places.
Judy,
Sending a press release is literally the tip of the iceberg for you. This sounds like a useful book and you certainly have lots of options for groups to promote to, including ones you already mentioned.
For example, search for national associations of daycare providers, see what conferences they attend, see if you can speak or have a booth.
Also, though airline workers sound like a great audience, airlines continue to have budget issues so while you can approach them, an additional strategy might be to approach those who serve the industry-flight atttendent schools or maybe even those who provide uniforms. See if they’d want to do a promotion with their marketing departments.
Best of luck.
Cheryl Pickett
http://www.publishinganswers.com
Don’t forget the power of social networking. Create a fan option for Facebook members, and connect with moms on the variety of social networks targeted to that group.
Register for a Twitter account and link to moms, daycare providers, babysitters and Mr. Moms. As you establish a following of your own, post tips on how to deal with tantrums. You may post links back to a page with more information about how to purchase your book in those Tweets.
Judy, here are a few ideas:
—On Facebook, research the Groups category and see how many Groups are comprised of the target audiences you mentioned in your question (babysitters, flight attendants, day care operators). Join those groups. Then create “tip sheets” and push out to gruup members tips on how to deal with tantrums. Don’t promote your book outright, but the title of your book can certainly be at the end of the list along with your name.
—Create a Page on Facebook for your book. This is the place to promote your products and services.
—Contact publishers of parenting ezines and offer them one of the tip sheets, in exchange for a link back to the sales page for the book. Many would welcome your tips because it’s content they don’t have to create.
—Redbook magazine published an article (a very long tip sheet) on how to unspoil your child at http://tinyurl.com/6hycxv. Check the print edition to see if it’s included there. If so, write a letter to the editor with your own comments that tie into how to not spoil your child when he or she has a temper tantrum.
—Create short tips sheets on your topic and email to publications like Redbook, as well as to parenting magazines read by your target audiences.
—In-flight magazines might be interested in these same tips. I just updated “Special Report 29: Fly High with Publicity in the In-flight Magazines.” It includes contact information for 49 magazines, plus pitching tips and case studies of Publicity Hounds who have gotten into these magazines. Send tip sheets to them. You can find the report at http://publicityhound.com/publicity-products/reports.html
–What about trade magazines for the day care industry? Pitch a story on how to deal with tempter tantrums.
—Find smaller social networks devoted to the niches you are targeting. See my post on how to do this at http://tinyurl.com/5cwrsr
I live in Maryland, There’s a website called tots2tweens.com that is full of resources for parents in the MD/VA/DC area. I have noticed that there seem to be oodles of parenting groups everywhere. Some are independent groups, and some are chapters of larger organizations. Most have websites. There’s a big Child Expo in Frederick each June; I’m sure there are others in the area and around the country.