What is your marketing plan?

My background is heavily in online marketing; I love this stuff! Feel free to email me at ben@bookdna.comor leave questions in the comments below. 

(If you are looking for how we market your book recommendation list, go here.)

How do readers discover us?

Search Engine Traffic

We work to rank pages on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Search engine traffic is very valuable because it brings in readers looking to buy a book (unlike social media, where they are just browsing without a specific aim).  Our goal is to give readers something amazing and start building our brand with them.

The goal is to build a long-term connection with readers so that the next time they look for a book, they come directly to Book DNA (rather than through a search engine). This takes many, many years, so it is a constant focus. 

Email Marketing

We run a personalized book recommendation newsletter for readers as well as other email features. 

We want to build a large list of active readers seeking book recommendations by genre, topic, author, and book. It is a medium we control fully, which is a big plus in the world of Google and social media. We plan to use email to jump-start our reader features as well. 

Our book tracking app

We are creating a private, personal way to track your reading and get deeply personalized recommendations. Think Goodreads, but for readers who want a calm, private space to track what they read, keep notes, and explore books that match their Book DNA.

Apply for early access to the beta here.

Once this launches publicly it will be another place we pull readers into a long term relationship with our platform. 

What about social media?

Currently, we only focus on social media through the authors we work with. We encourage authors to share their book list on social media with their fan base. Not only does this help the author sell their book and engage their fan base, but it also introduces readers to the entire author community at Book DNA, benefiting everyone involved. 

Book DNA itself is not active on social media; for a website like ours, social media is the least valuable traffic (you can read a full breakdown of why). We are different than an author; for an author, social media traffic can be very valuable since they are building a personal fan base.