6 Steps to Start Your Marketing When You’re Beginning at Zero

“I need to start marketing, but I have no idea where to begin.” It’s something I hear often from the writers and literary organizers around me, and something I see posted often on social media. It’s also a very comprehensive question! Unfortunately, much of the advice given today is “Get on TikTok!” or “Start a Substack!” or “Post pictures of your garden on Instagram!”

But marketing actually doesn’t start with creating and posting content — that comes later. Instead, here’s how to get started with marketing in six steps.

What is Marketing?

Marketing doesn’t have to be salesy or a 24/7 job. Instead, marketing is simply telling the world about who you are, what you do, or what you make — and you might do some of that already. How do you tell others? Through writing, creating graphics, or through another creative medium. As you do this, you’ll attract an audience who is interested in what you have to say, what you do, or what you sell.

So, what are you going to tell people about and how are you going to do it?

Step 1: What are your goals?

Before you ever create a social media post or send a newsletter, determine what your goals are for marketing. Do you have a book launch coming up and want preorders? Do you want to gain a following as you’re writing your next book? Do you want to get people interested in attending your literary events or book festival? Do you want to raise awareness around your literary non-profit? Do you want to drive more foot traffic into your bookstore? Do you want to increase enrollment in your writing program?

Articulating your goals will create the map you’ll follow to get from A to B, instead of sailing around aimlessly.

Step 2: Who is your ideal or target audience?

Next, think through who your ideal audience is — and no, the answer is not “everyone”! If you’re publishing a horror novel, your ideal audience would be horror readers. If you’re opening a romance bookstore in a certain city, your target audience would be romance readers in that city. If you want individuals to enroll in your adult education writing course, your ideal audience would be adult writers who want to improve their writing.

Narrowing down your ideal audience will help you focus your messaging so that you’re appealing to that audience and attracting the right people to your services or products. As you create content for your marketing, don’t just think “horror reader” or “adult writer” but give that person a name, background, and story. This will help you hyperfocus your message to really speak to your ideal audience!

Step 3: What topics will feature in your marketing?

Another concern I often hear when it comes to marketing is, “But I don’t know what to say or write about!” Before you start posting anything on social media or sending any newsletters, you need to know what you’ll talk about.

There’s a marketing concept called thought leadership that focuses not on selling products or services first, but on sharing your ideas with the world first. By leading with your ideas, interests, and imagination in your marketing, you’re drawing in an audience that resonates with those ideas. You’re also establishing yourself as a knowledgeable and trusted voice in your industry.

So, in this step, come up with three topics you can talk knowledgeably about that relate to your goals or the product or service you want to sell. For example, if you’re an author, you can talk knowledgeably about writing craft, how to write a book, and the publishing process. You can also talk knowledgeably about the topics in your book as well, whether you write non-fiction or fiction. (I’m a novelist, and I know how much research we do!) Cycle throughout these topics in your marketing.

Step 4: What marketing efforts can you take that will be fun and doable to you?

Now that you know your marketing goals, who you’re marketing to, and what you’re going to talk about in your marketing efforts, now’s the time to figure out what you’re doing! You don’t have to do everything, but there are a few things you should do as part of your marketing:

Create a website: This will be your home base and where everyone can find out about who you are and what you do. There are free website options out there and many that are low-cost (I use and highly recommend Squarespace).

Start a newsletter: A newsletter allows you to speak directly to an audience and show up in their inbox. Talk about topics you’re passionate and knowledgeable about from the list above, increasing trust and sales. There are also free newsletter platform options (I use Mailchimp and Kit) or low-cost plans for more features.

Pick two social media platforms: You don’t have to be on all platforms, and you also don’t have to be on TikTok if you don’t want to! Pick a primary and secondary social media platform to focus on. If you’re more of a word person, Threads may be your primary (and is also where there are a lot of writers). If you like creating graphics or videos, you may choose Instagram. Just remember to be on a platform where your ideal audience is also.

Advertising: The above methods are free (or low-cost) ways to organically build your audience. However, you can also set up an advertising campaign to get who you are and what you do in front of a larger or more targeted audience.

Above all, make sure that you’re choosing channels you can post to and use consistently. If you don’t think you can commit to a weekly newsletter, send it once a month. You don’t have to post every day on social media, but try a few times a week. What will tank your marketing efforts is not being consistent because your audience won’t know what to expect from you.

Step 5: Start creating and posting!

NOW is the time to set up your channels and start posting! As you create content, make sure it offers value to your audience: it teaches them something, helps them do something, entertains them, solves a challenge they have, or convinces them why they should take an action. These topics should relate to what you do or sell so that you can use your content to point toward your services or products.

For example, if you’re a historical fiction writer, send a newsletter about topics you researched for your novel or talk about how you wrote your novel, then ask the reader to buy your novel. It’s going to be much easier to make a sale in that scenario than if you sent a newsletter out about your favorite coffee shops, then asked someone to buy your (very unrelated) historical fiction novel.

As you begin to tell others about what you do through your marketing efforts, engage with them so you can learn more about them. This helps build relationships and trust with your audience.

Step 6: Evaluate, tweak, and improve

Regularly look at your marketing efforts to see what’s working and what can be improved. For example, if you not attracting the right type of audience, you may need to reevaluate what you’re posting and where. Or if certain posts are getting engagement above others, post more of those posts. If you’re struggling to have newsletters opened, test out different subject lines. Always be evaluating your efforts and make changes as needed.

Each one of these steps could be a full course in itself! But they should get you on your way toward understanding what a marketing strategy is and how to execute it.

Interested in learning more about content marketing and how you can use it to tell the world about what you do? Sign up for my weekly Literary Marketing newsletter.

Ready to create a content marketing strategy for your book or your business? Head to my Literary Marketing Services page to get started.