Like any business owner, you consider how to acquire and keep customers. You rely on marketing and publicity to draw attention to your products. You build relationships where you can, and you encourage your  authors to do the same. You hope that the cumulative result of your efforts will bring customers back to buy more of your books.

But how does this look from the customer’s perspective? Are there stumbling blocks in their journey from interested prospect to repeat customer? If so, how can you remove them so the journey is seamless and profitable for everyone?

The Sales Funnel: Prospects to Customers

To assess a customer’s journey, you need to know where to look. For publisher Jason Kutasi at Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream, this boils down to two data points: initial conversion rate and user retention.

Of the two, retention is the easiest, he says. If you track customer data, you look to see if the customer bought from you again. “A great product and [a] good customer experience will take care of this for you,” he says. As a function of funnel analytics, the initial conversion rate is tougher to track. “There are dozens and dozens of variables in a funnel, and all of them should be monitored and split-tested,” Kutasi says.

He points out that conversion is all about delivering the right product to the right customer at the right time. A customer journey that involves only seeing a book and reading a description may not generate the desired conversion rate.

Instead, Kutasi recommends publishers focus on why prospects should buy their products. Maybe a title is similar to one they’ve purchased before. Or maybe it provides a solution to a problem they have. “Great story, beautiful pictures, award-winning—[that] doesn’t matter,” he says. “Everyone says that.”

To improve conversion, he suggests building a list of customer avatars. “Think about why each avatar would want to purchase a specific book, then build marketing campaigns and funnels for each avatar,” he says.

To improve their sales funnel, Richard T. Williams, vice president of business development at Independent Publishers Group (IPG), advises publishers to make sure their outreach is customer-centric. “Marketing needs to be in the consumer’s best interest rather than coming across as a money grab,” he says. “Most readers will shy away from a publisher who appears to be pitching a business rather than playing to their interests.”

Kutasi notes that too many buy buttons on e-commerce sites can also be a stumbling block. “When people have too many options, the overall conversion rate dramatically decreases,” he says.

Smith Publicity’s Andrea Kiliany Thatcher also advises publishers to pay attention to barriers to purchase. For instance, she says media should link to a purchase page, not an author’s website. “Every extra click a reader has to make to take action on ordering your book is a chance to lose them,” she says. “It seems lazy, but the data backs this up.”

Getting out of the clutter is a sales funnel priority for Terry Ulick at Wherever Books, which he describes as a next-generation publisher. “The newest readers are screen-centric, so video plays a large role in every title we produce now,” he says. That includes making music videos for books and Spotify playlists for songs that inspired the books. As an alternative to crowded platforms such as Amazon and TikTok, Ulick uses RokuTV while making “extensive use” of video on his company’s website.

At Rhinewerk Publishing, managing director Florian Zimniak relies on a system that allows him to control and track the company’s customer journey. “About 70% of sales happen on our own website,” he says. “All marketing automation activity is managed and measured via Hubspot.” That includes an abandoned shopping cart program to bring back customers who leave the site before making a purchase.

The company’s content marketing is a tool for bringing customers into the sales funnel. The key, Zimniak says, is to hire marketers who can consistently generate content. “Google will love you, and your customers have regular incentives to come back to your site,” he says. At Rhinewerk, that translates into maintaining an active blog with at least three new posts a week. Visitors get product recommendations based on which posts they read.

Beyond the Sale: Keep Them Coming Back

The first step in retaining customers is knowing who they are. For publishers who rely heavily on retailers to get their books into readers’ hands, aftercare can be tricky since customer contact details, if gathered at all, remain with the retailer.

One solution is to sell directly to consumers. “With 20% of our sales being on Amazon—1 million customers—we knew we were losing a lot of one-on-one relationships with customers simply because they prefer to buy from Amazon,” Kutasi says. “So, we include links in all our books that offer customers a discount if they buy from us directly. The link goes to a lead-gen funnel.”

With his company’s emphasis on direct sales, Zimniak gathers data on his customers using Hubspot cookies. He funnels new customers and account creators into a welcome campaign advertising both products and free services such as the company’s learning center, blog, and newsletters.

When launching new products, Rhinewerk advertises to existing customers who’ve purchased similar books in the past, offering a discount. They also run what Zimniak calls “a home-grown loyalty program,” with top customers receiving quarterly emails that include coupons.

To keep such programs useful, he notes the importance of measuring results and reviewing them regularly. “You don’t want to bother your customers with emails that don’t work,” he says.

At Wherever Books, Ulick also notes the benefits of selling directly from the company’s website. “There we have order history and can invite readers to subscribe to newsletters and be included on promotions, leave feedback, and contact the author,” he says. Aftercare outreach includes sharing videos, giveaways, and discounts as well as asking customers to share their opinions and ideas.

Even if a customer buys a Wherever book from another retailer, the front and end matter will include an invitation to the company’s website. “Use the back matter of the book to invite them to provide feedback, subscribe to an author newsletter, and read blogs about the book,” he says. At the same time, Ulick advises against overkill. “When selling direct, we only offer opt-in programs,” he says.

“The invitation is stronger than an unwanted or surprise solicitation. A one-time email on a sale or discount program is good, but respect when readers don’t want to communicate.”

Thatcher agrees that end matter is an important segue into aftercare. “Whatever your primary goal is—more sales or more followers—make sure your end matter leads people to the appropriate action,” she says. “End matter is the perfect place to put a link to your website, where readers can find a bonus chapter, a chapter from and link to the next book in a series, or book club discussion points.”

Aftercare also involves ways for readers to continue engaging with authors, Thatcher says. “This can mean setting up the publication timeline so that there’s always a preorder up for the next book when the current book comes out,” she says. “[Or] it can look like providing engaging content in between books. There are lots of ways to keep media and readers interested in your work after the current book is out.”

Thatcher also urges publishers to tap the power of social media. “More and more of the media includes social media influencers who are also customers—and who have the ear of even more customers,” she says. “Nurturing these communities and not leaving them high and dry between books is key. Have a plan for the rollout of bonus content and preview teasers between books.”

To engage with customers who come through retailers instead of his company’s website, Kutasi has run ads that resemble user-generated content, such as a hand holding one of his titles and a headline that says, “Did you buy this book?” From there, customers enter a survey funnel where they answer questions, giving insight into who they are and what they like to read. In exchange for providing their email address, customers receive a discount code or a free gift. “In order to get someone’s contact info, you have to give them something in return,” Kutasi says.

For publishers with full-service print distribution, Williams notes that IPG’s website collects consumer data when a purchase is made. IPG also uses promo codes to track how certain publishers promote their books to specific audiences. In addition, he says the company’s digital distribution service offers versioning for retailer-specific versions of e-books. That way, back matter can link readers to other books by the same publisher or author without violating the retailer’s terms of service concerning back matter.

The Journey Goes On

Ideally, the journey from prospect to repeat customer is seamless and engaging. To reach that goal, publishers benefit from considering the journey from the customer’s perspective. By tracking the efficacy of each entry point into the sales funnel, they can remove stumbling blocks and smooth the path to more sales.

But the journey doesn’t end there. By tapping data and cultivating relationships, publishers and their authors can bring customers back for book after book. The destination? A satisfying read and a happy customer experience. 

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