You have an event looming on the horizon—maybe a race or a health fair or a community festival. You want to make the most of this chance to not only meet people and promote your practice, but increase your chances that they’ll contact you in the future for an appointment. Now is the time to bring out one of the most powerful (but chronically underused) tools in your marketing arsenal: your free book. Promoting your free book at an event is not only a way to provide people with something physical they can have that reminds them of you, but also gives you a way to follow-up with them afterward.
There’s a lot of power in a free book and its follow-up campaign as a marketing tool. It provides a slow-drip connection that allows you to build a relationship with potential patients and figuratively walk with them through the process of deciding to get help for their problems. This makes it a great tool to bring to events. However, how you use it and promote it matters.
You can go about promoting your book several ways: one, you could simply hand it out to anyone who expresses interest; or two, you could have people look at an example of your book and then “sign up” for their own free copy. If you want to make the most of this opportunity, you’ll choose the second option.
That’s because the first option, while it does give you something a person can walk away with right now, means you aren’t able to follow up with interested people later. That person does have your book, yes, which can be valuable. But you’re not able to use the whole slow-drip campaign to build that relationship and increase the odds they’ll come to you for their problems in the future.
See, the power of requesting your free book on your website is that it requires an exchange: a person’s contact information (e-mail, physical address) for the book. That way you are able to send them the physical copy—as well as continue to communicate and build a relationship with them through the campaign. Also, since you know they went to the effort of requesting the book, they must be at least somewhat interested in its contents. Having someone sign up for their own free copy of the book at your event provides a similar opportunity. Only people who are really interested in receiving a book will get one, and you now have the chance to enter that person into your marketing database and build that relationship!
We’ve already seen this process (and book campaigns in general) work for many members. If you’d like to learn more about how to better use your free book offer, or you’d like a free book of your own to bring to your next event, let us know! You can e-mail us at [email protected] or call (717) 725-2679 for more information or to get started.
