Cindy Ratzlaff

Bestselling author, award winning brand marketing and social media pro, Cindy Ratzlaff, creates sales driving campaigns for authors, books and publishers.

10 Social Profiles Every Author Needs

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Every author needs a platform, a way to connect with readers and let them know when their next book is ready to be purchase. So what is a platform? A platform is simply the reliable ways in which an author can connect with fans and encourage them to buy books.

Bestselling authors have a history of bestsellers, creating a kind of literary celebrity. That’s a platform. Some authors have national television shows, magazine columns or are regulars on nationally syndicated radio. These are platforms too. An author might have a commitment from Staples or IBM to buy books and give them to employees. That’s a kind of platform, too.

Until recently, the average author was out of luck if they didn’t have a platform. That was before social media and the power it has to excite, engage, build community and create media for authors.

Read More

8 Simple Ideas for Free or Low-Cost Publicity

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Every business owner knows the value of PR. It helps your ideal customer understand what you do and find you when they want your service or product. But most business owners don’t have a background in public relations nor do they have the budget for a professional PR agency.

The good news is you don’t need to break the bank to garner good publicity for your business.  If you’re willing to commit a little time and ingenuity, you can promote your company effectively and build your reputation as a business leader.

Here are eight simple steps you can take, on your own, to promote your business, book or service.

Read More

15 Simple Mostly Free Facebook Marketing Tips to Try Today

By Cindy Ratzlaff

With more than 1 billion people on Facebook, the sheer volume of potential clients and customers makes this platform worth your marketing efforts. But building a following and making sure they see what you post has become a bigger challenge as Facebook continues to tweak the algorithm in favor of advertising and big brands. But do not abandon the platform just yet.

Here are a few nifty, mostly free, tips and tricks to help your content attract, engage and retain a fan base so that when you have something to sell them, they’re still listening. For more ideas on the specific how-to aspects of content marketing on Facebook, you can employ most of the ideas in 8 Ways to Get Your Posts Seen in the News Stream easily.

Read More

Write Non-Fiction Books as a Marketing Tool

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Write a book. I’m begging you.  I’m not going to mince words here. People are search, right now, for exactly what you offer. But they can’t find you. So they hire someone else. Want to be the one they find and hire? Then write a book.

If you know how to do something, write a book.

If the service you provide can be taught, write a book. If the concepts you impart during the consulting you do are replicable, write a book. Writing a book will stake your claim to leadership in your business and set you apart from the pack as a unique brand voice. But one cautionary word here. Make sure that if you are going to write a book, you pack that book with the kind of information and value you’d give to your clients in person.

A book is a more permanent reminder to potential customers of what you stand for. So if you write a book that does not deliver on the promise, you’ve created a negative digital connection to your brand or business. But if you write a book that surprises, inspires, solves a problem or teaches a new solution to your ideal client base, you’ll have a credible resource to point to in every business situation.

Read More

3 Ways to Drive Social Sales

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Turning fans and followers into clients and customers is the next step in building a Maximum Visibility Platform that connects customers to your products. These three steps are easy to implement and often overlooked but can have an immediate impact on visibility, growth, sharing and conversion.

If you want fans and followers to becomes customers and clients, make sure they know exactly what you’re selling and how to purchase it.

How to Drive Social Sales

Design an environment that smoothly, comfortably and easily guides the fan or follower to your offering and makes a compelling case for making immediate purchase decision, and reward followers and fans with a special discount or added value. Then invite them to share their purchase and share that special offer with their friends thereby helping your biggest fans gain status in their friend’s eyes because they’ve discovered and shared something before everyone else. Here are three ways to increase social sales by creating a social media customer-centric experience.

Read More

4 Ways to Jack Up Your Customer Experience Marketing

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Social media has entered the grammar school years and is no longer an infant. Businesses who’ve been using social media well are learning that the journey from friend and follower to loyal customer must be a skillfully curated one. The customer experience must be crafted, nurtured and adjusted to fit the tastes of the fan base if a purchase action is to be solicited at trail’s end.

In the infant years, it was enough to make an offer on Facebook or Twitter and provide a link to purchase. That still works, sometimes, for brands who have already established trust and have a history of delivering on their brand promises. If, however, you’re new to social media marketing or are an emerging new brand without a long track record and hundreds of reviews to do the selling for you, paying attention to the environment you create will decrease the time between “hello” and “yes, please” in turn fans into customers.

Read More

4 Powerful Digital Platform Updates Your Brand Needs Now

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Blink and your social media marketing strategy will be out of date. The rapid-fire tweaks and updates to platforms can leave your brand’s marketing messages looking dated and, even worse, invisible unless you keep on top of what’s hot, what’s new, what’s trending and what works.  Here are four important recent changes to help you stay on top of your social game.

Finding and learning to use the newest digital tools and techniques can be as simple as finding and following those early adopters who live to try new things. ~ Cindy Ratzlaff

Pinterest adds a New Rich Pin for Business Accounts

Pinterest business accounts already have access to a suite of free analytics and the ability to use Rich Pins to enhance the information appended to a pin. From a marketing perspective, this is huge. In addition to Recipe pins, Movie pins and Product Pins, Pinterest announced this week the newest Rich Pin tool called Articles Pin.  Articles Pins will help you create boards for “Pin it Now, Read it Later” use and include headline, author, and story description, helping pinners find and save stories that matter to them. If you create something for sale or write something for general consumption, you should consider converting your Pinterest account to a Pinterest Business Account and enabling the Rich Pins tools. Details and information are available on Pinterest’s Business Hub.

Read More

Facebook Rolls Out Threaded Page Replies Feature | Social Media Marketing

By Cindy Ratzlaff

by Cindy Ratzlaff

Facebook is rolling out the new threaded replies feature today on an opt-in basis. This is a feature brands should find useful for directly responding to comments to create a more personal, meaningful conversation on their business pages. The new feature is called Replies or Reply Links. This feature will allow a page, especially in a very active conversation, to reply right under a particular comment rather than farther down the thread.

Read More

Turning Likes into Leads and Leads into Customers

By Cindy Ratzlaff

The promise of social media as the top of a profitable funnel can be the shiny object of marketing tools. Converting “Likes” to leads, however, requires a strategic use of social media rather than thinking of social media simply as a broadcasting tool.

A conversion focused social media strategy should bring a lead into the marketing funnel, capture the lead, create the opportunity and incentives to convert the lead (through either a sale or a partnership or a request for further information), engage that new partner/client and motivate the partner/client to transform into a brand evangelizer by providing them with the tools and incentives to recreate the cycle.

Social Media is a massive permission based marketing opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Social media platforms are where a large pool of potential clients spend their discretionary time. Developing a brand messaging strategy to engage with these potential customers requires understanding the language spoken on each social platform and integrating the social campaign with off-line campaign.

Read More

YouTube Adds Easy InVideo Branding | Entrepreneurial Toolkit

By Cindy Ratzlaff

*Editor’s Note: The video you feature must be hosted on YouTube.

YouTube quietly added a new feature to the platform that will help small businesses, cash strapped start-ups, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and coaches promote their brands, in just a few simple steps, across all of their YouTube videos.

InVideo Programming allows users to insert a branded logo or even another video into the corner of all currently uploaded videos on an individual’s YouTube Channel, all at once.

Branding With a Logo or Video

Imagine that as a small business owner you are creating short informational videos and posting them to YouTube. Next you share them through e-mail or through Facebook and even your business website* (your video must be hosted on YouTube, even if it’s featured on your website).  Now with InVideo Programming, you’ll be able to embed another video into the corner of your informational video–say an announcement about a big launch, sale or special event–and ever consumer facing touch point for the original informational video now becomes an invitation to view the special announcement video in just one click.

Read More

Get a free copy of "How To Create An Author Brand," a step-by-step guide for developing your brand message.