If you have read my previous posts on guest blogging or podcast interviews, you already know that I am a fan of outreach to improve your author exposure. What you may not know is how you can leverage your author exposure to make the most of it. So in this post, I am going to share five ways that you can maximize any media exposure you get.
If you're not yet familiar with the idea of doing outreach to land publicity opportunities, then go back and read some of my previous posts on this topic:
Advertising vs Publicity For Self-Published Books
How To Craft A Guest Blog Pitch (With Free Template!)
Promote Your Book With Guest Podcast Appearances
When you do outreach, whether that is guest blogging, an interview on somebody else's podcast, or even appearing on somebody else's YouTube channel, the idea is that you get free author exposure. You are very unlikely to get paid. So you need to know how you can leverage it to make it work well for you and get the payment that you so deserve.
So here are my five ways to leverage your author exposure.
1. Grow your mailing list
Your main aim when you get featured on somebody else's blog or podcast is to attract people to your mailing list. It is better to promote your reader magnet than your books, because it is a smaller ask. It's best to have a compelling reader magnet that a potential reader will find attractive. Once they consume your reader magnet and are impressed with the content, they're more likely to engage with your emails and go on to buy your book.
So that link in your author bio on a guest blog or that you mention at the end of a podcast interview is so important. You want to make it clear what somebody's going to get and why they should sign up, and also make the link easy to remember.
2. Promote on social media and in your email newsletters
Authors often come to me struggling to know what to post on social media or include in their emails. Well, if you're doing outreach, then that is content that you can link to. It will help drive traffic to the content and the blog or podcast host will be grateful for your help.
It's also content that your readers, your target audience, will value. They will enjoy consuming the content because it's not promotional. You're not asking them to buy a book. It is something of value – they may learn something, or be entertained. Then they may share it with their own networks, which will help you reach more readers. Promoting your media exposure on social and via email is important and can be beneficial to both you and your audience.
Grow Your Author Platform
Discover the roadmap for growing your author platform
3. Include mentions in your welcome sequence
I always encourage authors to have a welcome email series in place for when someone joins their mailing list. In that sequence, you want to let people get to know you a bit better, so it can be a great place to mention some of your media wins. If a top podcast or blog features you, then you can include a link to that. And that will introduce new subscribers to you and your content. If you don't have much content of your own, then it's a great way to direct people to something that you've created that they can enjoy.
The other thing that it does, and this is particularly important for non-fiction authors, is it highlights your credibility. So if you have written for a top blog in your space, or been interviewed on a top podcast, that will interest new subscribers. They're going to consume the content and find it valuable and interesting, and they're going to trust you that little bit more.
Remember, marketing is all about improving know, like, and trust. If you can send people to guest blogs or podcasts interviews that you have done, it allows them to get to know, like, and trust you more. That is super, super valuable.
4. Add logos and links to your website
You have likely visited websites and seen media logos on the homepage, and these provide valuable social proof. They say, “I have been featured on this website, which has a lot of trust within a certain space, and because I've been featured there, that means you can trust me as well.”
There's a little bit of psychology at play but it really does work and helps build trust with your audience.
If media logos aren't something that you want to include on your website, you can include a media page with links to places that feature you. Again, this provides social proof and also provides value to your audience.
If they come to your website, they want to consume more content from you so they can get to know you better. Perhaps you don't have a lot of your own blog content. But if you can provide links to content of yours published elsewhere, your audience can enjoy that. Plus, it definitely helps develop trust.
5. Make new connections
When you connect with bloggers and podcast hosts and when you provide real value for their audiences, they will be happy to have you back in the future. This can be very beneficial when it comes to launching a new book, as it's great to be on plenty of podcasts and blogs in launch week. So investing in those relationships ahead of time will be worthwhile. You may be able to reach out to ask if you can be featured again and even request when you would like to be featured.
The other thing you can do with those new relationships is to ask for more recommendations. And if you're lucky, those contacts may make introductions for you as well.
Guest blogging and podcast interviews, outreach, publicity, it does take a time investment. It is something that you need to be doing consistently for it to pay off as a book marketing strategy. So if you can invest in relationships and get to know people, they will be more likely to help you out in the future. That truly is a great way to leverage your author exposure and all the work you put in.
So those are my five top tips for leveraging author exposure. If you're wondering how you can grow your author platform through outreach and publicity, download my free 7-step guide here. That will walk you through all the steps and help you get started.
