A Great Marketing Plan Strategy

Serial Publication – The Original “Content Marketing”

Charles Dickens was not just a great author he was an inventor of a very powerful strategic marketing plan known as serial publication. Dickens wrote: A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol. His novels were almost all written and sold in installments. You bought one chapter and if you enjoyed it you would most likely buy the next chapter when it was published.

We can learn two methods from this marketing planning strategy Dickens used. Firstly the continued conversation he created with subscribers by using serial publishing is very similar to the use of an auto responder series today. Secondly the use of valuable content to create continuity with his readers and more chances to advertise to them.

Dickens published serially as well as wrote serially. He planned every chapter out and wrote each one after the last was published. This is a concept I use mostly as I write these articles as I find it helps heighten my sense of awareness and my drive to produce something interesting. Please don’t think I am in any way comparing my drivel to the great Dickens. You can learn something that may be valuable here however. It works well for me and worked extremely well for Dickens.

I find that the need to continue conversations and content of value keeps me honest and under pressure to perform a bit. It helps me to stay focused and not waste too much time. If you are a lazy creature of habit like I am it can also really help you to focus on what is in front of you at the given moment and get it done. This is a great idea for people like me, mostly because it will keep them scheduled to write at specific times.

Dickens considered the structure of each chapter carefully and thought both of his serial readers and of people who would eventually read his novels when they were published as completed works. He and I have a content strategy of considering each post as well as the long term client relationship impact. The way you do this is to create something valuable for each post or chapter of the topic being focused on as it fits into a larger company plan blueprint.

I laid out a strategic marketing plan blueprint in previous articles and I guess it is a good method to use since I found out Charles Dickens actually used it. (pat pat pat…my arm is sore). The point of this method is you can create content for your market today and keep it totally focused on your short term information goal while keeping it totally relevant to your overall big picture blueprint.

Dickens published his serial writings as part of weekly and monthly magazines, much the same as I do with this blog. These magazines published material by other authors too as I will also be doing as the site grows. The difference being I will hand pick marketers in specific categories who are very knowledgeable in that area. I will also advertise specific products related to each market segment which are mine or I promote as an affiliate. This will be a marketing strategy choice you will have to make as well when you market with content or if you use simple direct marketing methods.

Serial or content publication has several advantages. The subscriber can read free valuable information or pay for it monthly as part of a membership site. This lowers the initial cost for customers and they are more likely to pay for your information. This method allows you to market anything you want such as: e-courses, e-books, software, widgets, and services and customers don’t have to pay a larger price for a product or service all up front.

Being a publisher of a content site expands your market especially if you involve content from multiple and wide ranging professionals in your niche. This allows you complete market coverage if your niche is not too large or you want to tackle the giant. People will come in and buy various products and services from the many expert areas of advice in your holistic site.

Serial publishing also allows price point coverage in multiple formats which different levels of clients can afford. This is a great platform for advertising along side your very valuable and informative content. Just make sure to make free content valuable so people don’t feel as if they just get a pitch fest and no value. People are more likely to buy something once you have demonstrated you know what you are writing about and that you have even better solutions and answers for them.

Being the author on a content site creates intimacy with an audience and allows you to get feedback by surveying your audience. Dickens in fact used feedback or what marketers call market surveys. What may have made Dickens so great as a writer as well as a marketer was that he was in touch with his niche. I accidentally learned this strategy on my journey and you should too.

The final chapters of his novels were double length and included illustrations, a cover, an engraved title page, a preface, a table of contents, and a list of illustrations. Dickens piled the bonuses on after he spent time building rapport and great content, then the publisher charged double for the final chapters. This was the publisher’s up sell sales method. Their back end sales method  included placing advertisements at the end of each article.

The final back end sales method was allowing clients with more money, after purchasing their last installment to take all the chapters to a bookbinder, and have them bound into a new book. This is how you can segment your audience by interest and willingness to spend.

We can learn a lot from the example of Charles Dickens and realize a good plan is often nothing more than thinking about different ways to sell to your market, how to increase value, and reaching people at various price points. All very solid strategies and guess what? These are principles which have been around a long time.

A Marketing Plan Strategy Can Make Sense

Author: Scott Holden - TrafficEraBlog