Source: http://www.wheatmark.com/index.php?/blog/entry/using-your-book-to-keep-your-leads-hot/

Written by Sam Henrie

So you’ve got a thousand leads in your database. That’s a thousand people who’ve given you permission to communicate with them about your products or services. Guess what? The vast majority of them are not ready to buy from you right now, but will likely buy from you sometime in the future. If you don’t want these leads to go cold, you must have follow-up systems that keep you in front of them over time. Periodic and consistent follow-up via mail, email, phone, and/or text messaging is essential. For this you need content, and lots of it. That’s where your book comes in. It can provide content for your follow-up systems in two powerful ways: as a source of excerpts, and as a generator of announcement-worthy news.

In all likelihood most of the thousand leads in your database haven’t read your book and don’t own it. They aren’t familiar with the great expertise-confirming content it contains. Give it to them! If your book is about weightlifting, excerpt individual exercises each month and include them in your e-zine or printed newsletter. If your book is about codependency, excerpt a poignant story of overcoming it. Passages from your book are incredibly powerful in this context, because while you’re reminding your leads that you’re out there, you’re also providing them with proof of your competence and know-how.

Every author is, simply by virtue of having published a book, also an expert and a celebrity. As an author/expert/celebrity you are yourself an unending source of announcement-worthy news. You hold book events. You get book reviews. You do radio interviews. You win book awards. People blog and tweet about your book. One very successful client I work with sends email notifications to her entire leads database every time her book gets any kind of mention in the media or the blogosphere. She also sends them invitations to her book signings and events, and notifications of upcoming media appearances. This puts her in front of her leads month in and month out.

Whether you are using excerpts or your status as an author/expert/celebrity to follow up with your leads, having a book helps keep those leads HOT—and you might earn you some royalties too!

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