Seasonal books

Guest: Foreign. Hello, Stuart Bell, how you doing? Fantastic. How are you?

Stuart: Very good, thank you. We're recording this on a Monday and hopefully I'll get it out either later on today or first thing this morning because anyone that's tried to speak to Betsy this week or last week will know that today's the first day that she's got a voice back. It's good to have you. Good to have you back in the zone.

Guest: Yeah, it's good to be back. It's been a while since we've. Well, just what we've talked, but even since we've done this podcast it is.

Stuart: I pushed a show last week which I think I had mentioned to. I put on the show notes and in the email that we'd recorded it a little while ago and used it as the first one back in the swing. So it's good to be back in the saddle and without wanting to fate a season two podcast by saying we're back and then just do two shows and disappear, which I see quite often hopeful we should be good for. Good for this year. We've talked about new seasons. That's what we're going to talk about this time. We're going to talk about seasonal books. Seems appropriate. Quite a few questions about it and quite a few reasons for it to come up in conversation over the last couple of weeks. So I think that will form the basis of a good show today and hopefully will give people some good ideas. Thinking about either dialing in a book that you've already got in mind or you're thinking that a book is a good idea, a great lead generation tool, but struggling to come up with a specific idea. Then hopefully we're going to do a quick fire round today on lots of different ideas and from that you'll be able to grab something and run with it.

Guest: I think that's fantastic. I'm looking forward to this.

Stuart: Yeah, it should be good. So seasonal books, I guess they don't so much mean books talking about the seasons but just thinking about book in a time based context rather than a subject based context. So we've talked in past shows and it comes up all the time about being specific with the book and as we say in the book, blueprint scorecards to choose the target market and know what you're talking about. But adding a seasonal element to it adds an element of urgency, I guess, of. Of a reason to give people. Sorry, a reason to give people and distant by graph the rest of the season. If I keep trickle over my words this much, it gives People a reason to opt in now rather than not having a reason to opt now. So a little bit of, I don't even want to say scarcity, but a little bit of impetus or external validation that now's the time that you should get this book because it's, it's of the moment, it's something that we can, that you can pick up now. So the easy one to think about and, and one of the reasons, because we've been doing quite a few fitness books over the last couple of weeks. One of the reasons to think about it of course, is New Year, new you fitness type books. So through the whole of the 12 month calendar cycle, anything to do with fitness and diet around New Year's tends to peak a little bit more rather than the rest of the year. So there's kind of smaller peaks around the summer and people have individual peaks depending on what their own personal agenda is. But I think the new year as a seasonal impetus is a big driver for a fitness related book.

Guest: Right. So we're thinking about. Susan, also though, we're thinking about, okay, that book. My thought process is that book needs to come out in January. So really wouldn't that book be started say end of October, November to have it launching? Is that launch that book in January or you know, because everybody thinks about it come January, it's going to take a few weeks to get it going. I mean every, you know, we go through this every year with different, every subject, you know, every industry. Everybody thinks about that book in January. So really we would be processing the book in October, right?

Stuart: Yeah, like you say September, October. Really? Yeah, yeah, definitely. When we're talking about, as we run through the list now, all of the dates that we're talking about, these are kind of anchor dates, if you like, of when the, when the peak interest is. But you're absolutely right. If you want it ready for that point in time, then you definitely need to start it sooner and have it ready to go. And I mean it's quite possible looking at the fitness ones that you'd probably really want to have it done a month or two before that. So you can kind of start preceding the idea in the run up to Christmas. So have a big push. This is going into some of the funnel stuff and the campaign stuff. But have a big push in January or immediately straight after Christmas. I guess the unboxing that you really want to start pushing this get people thinking about it in that downtime between Christmas and New Year. But it definitely wants to be ready to go then but dropping ideas of the book and depending on which routes you've got to market beforehand, depending on who that audience is and how they're interacting with you and with their own health and wellness and knowing what you know about the customers that you work with, it might well make sense that people want to dial in before that. So certainly could be the case that a January based fitness book might make sense in certain circles to launch three months early because you know your audience is particularly dialed in and they'll want to get a jump start on the new year. So almost give them the opportunity to go through these health and fitness steps prior to Christmas so that Christmas isn't quite so impactful and then pick up again in the new year. So I think the key thing as you're listening here is not so much think about the exact dates that we're talking about, just the broad concept that there is. As well as a topic based, topic based cycle and a financial based cycle and an industry based cycle, there's also a calendar based cycle and that's something that you can leverage if you've got assets, if you've got things they're waiting to take and make the most of this calendar based activity that's going on throughout the year. So yeah, absolutely, you definitely want to be thinking about this and getting us ready for the date, not come to the date and then think, oh, that would have been nice to have had,

Guest: but as the new year, new me. Oh, I should have done a book.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just going to say, I mean that also happens as well you alluded to before and that's old saying of the very best time to plant an oak tree was 100 years ago and the second best time to plant an oak tree is today. And then everything else comes after that. So. So yeah, if this is something you're thinking that you should have done but haven't started yet, then carpe diem and seize the day and get started on it today. So that being said, let's, let's run through the list. So I think today we really wanted to focus on not get too much in the details of one particular subject, but just go through a whole load of subjects to try and give people ideas for what they could write about. Because fitness is one that obviously stands out at this time of year. It's relatively straightforward. But a lot of other industries will struggle to come up with a calendar around their ideas. That almost is just an exercise in imagination. The calendar doesn't have to be externally validated by anyone Else one of the fantastic things that you've seen over the last couple of years is the. Well, fantastic and irritating because everything goes to extremes, but is the explosion of national days. So from Mother's Day and Teachers Day and Grandparents Day and.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, every day.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, Speak like a pirate day.

Guest: Yeah. Oh yes, we talked about that.

Stuart: So point there being that all of those days aren't officially sanctioned by any international standards body. They're just made up by people that then it's got a bit of traction. So obviously bigger ones like Mother's Day is a little bit more, I was going to say international, but Mother's Day in the UK is different from Mother's Day in the us which always catches me. But just picking some calendar based event doesn't need any external validation. So some industries it's more obvious than others what calendar items are, what happens at certain times of the year where it's obvious, but other industries, it's far less so. So obvious ones. Fitness, tax time, things like vacation companies and lawn care companies have all got calendars pushed by either kind of regulation or the seasons. But even things like swimming clubs, I'm just looking out the window now to get some ideas. Swimming with clubs, car, automotive sales, car sales places, book sellers, all of these things that don't necessarily have something that immediately springs to mind, but things like swimming clubs. The calendar there might tie in with the school cycle, it might tie in with competition cycles, it kind of ties in with fitness cycles, kind of ties in a little bit with the seasons. If you've got an indoor versus an outdoor pool, then as the weather turns colder, that's a external kind of seasonal variation. Car sales that might tie into summer travel, coming into winter, the things you need to do to your car to get the get it ready for winter. Book sales, there's lots of literary festivals over the summer, there's NaNoWriMo, the book writing National Book Writing Month in November. There's all sorts of things even in industries that don't necessarily have an obvious calendar associated with them, it really is just an exercise in, in imagination of what you can tie in. So of course this is bridging the when with the what. So the what still needs to be relevant. I mean the calendar cycle thing, this isn't some magic trick that's going to suddenly identify a whole load of leads just because you happen to release something at a particular time of year. The what that you release is still exactly the same what that you'd have to think about all through the rest of the year. So again, thinking back to the book blueprint scorecard, we've got going the selection criteria in the early stages of that. So who is it that you're trying to target? What is it that you're trying to target them for? What's the message? What's the thing, the question already going on in their mind that's really going to spark their interest and get them to request a copy of the book. The kind of why they're, why they should care at all in the first place. All of that still stands. So you've still got to have a interesting book that resonates with a problem that they're having. What we're really talking about today is just the release cycle. What external factors that are already going on out there can you use to kind of leverage and give it a bit more of a boost so that people think, oh yeah, I should do this now because now is the timely reason to do it, rather than just making the book available for the rest of the year, which obviously you should do Anyway, so far so good.

Guest: The press are good.

Stuart: Perfect. So let's run through a bit of a list of the ones that we were brainstorming just before we got on the call. So I guess let's go through them in order from this time of year. It kind of makes the most sense. So Christmas and New Year we've obviously got things like fitness diet is another big one. What are the things that happen in kind of this time of year?

Guest: Yeah, well you've got making resolutions, you've got people setting goals, you know, being personal. I mean so much. If you look at social media right now, it's all these personal goals. People are, and I do follow a lot of people that are just in specific industries so they're making their business goals. But there's a lot of just those personal goals. I don't know what you want to always call them resolutions, but I think we failure onto that sometimes.

Stuart: Right.

Guest: But you know, people have got a lot of goals going on. Like you said, everybody is pumped for the new year. So all the things they want to accomplish, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, this might be, that's a good breakdown actually the difference between kind of the fitness or diet related ones and resolutions. Goal related ones as we're talking about it. I'm kind of thinking along the lines of the fitness and diet books are seasonally specific because a lot of people are thinking about the subject at this time of year. Whereas goals and resolutions. People are thinking about goals and resolutions, but they're less about the less about the specifics of what's in it. So let's talk financial freedom if you're or becoming debt free. It's a good example that's quite often a goal at this time of year. So that as the subject of the book, whatever resonates with the person to becoming debt free. All of the other exercises that we talk about to create the book that still stands, the time based element of it, the calendar based element of it, is the fact that here's a book that will help you achieve your goals, the resolutions that you are already setting or already talking about at this time of year. So I think that's another thing to think about as we're talking today. It's not specifically that we're talking about writing a book that ties in with something seasonal. It's the campaign around the book could also be something that's. That's seasonal at the end of the day. All of the conversations that we're having here is really to compel more people to raise their hand and start more of the conversations towards eventually doing business with someone. So whether that's a specific book on a different subject or it's a specific campaign that's that's seasonally triggered, I think both of those are applicable. It was interesting. I hadn't particularly thought about that before we started. I was really thinking about more in terms of books, but thinking about it from a campaign perspective makes just that as much sense. Yeah. So moving into springtime then. And again, as I said, really want to dive through these pretty fast just to get people thinking about ideas rather than going deep on them. So as you're listening to this, if you've got any questions or want us to go deep on any particular subject, then just either leave a comment on the on the podcast page or shoot as an email to podcasts@90minutebooks.com and more than happy to go into a bit more detail in a future show. But so moving into spring, the couple of examples that I was thinking about was kind of like realtors and home renovations, all of that kind of spring cleaning type side of things is definitely something that happens at that time of year I guess as well. We're coming into tax time. The, well, you know, January as we're recording this. So the end of this month beginning through into next month. If you're in the uk, listen to this tax time. It's more around the beginning of April rather than the end of January. So all of those things are calendar based elements that we know are coming up. So both books on those particular subjects and campaigns around those subjects are likely to get a lot more traction. And again, I think thinking about. We were talking before about some industries are very obvious. Other industries are less obvious. The tax planning one might be or even the home renovation one is something that's very legitimate leverageable across different industries. So and we've at the beginning of the or the end of last year we sent out an email to say hey, do you want to get started? Because you could. You can always jump on board and get ready to write your book this year being 2018, but then complete it next year 2019 so that you get the text. You can then write the have it as a deduction in 2018. So there's always a way of leveraging other people's calendars or other people's other industries the time constraints that they've got for your own business. Anyone having anything to do with remodeling or home renovations or decorating or landscaping can take advantage of a peak in the real estate industry in spring. More people can come out of winter and start thinking about listing than later in the year. Can you think of any others that we've got around that beginning of the year time

Guest: after you get taxed home home selling people prepping that real phase is obviously probably the one bigger one, you know.

Stuart: Yeah. Summer vacations is the one I guess the other one as well. You see Disney advertising quite a lot of this time of year. The Viking, the river cruise company which actually as a sad. Now I was talking to Phil yesterday I popped down to Fort Lauderdale Delta same and he was talking about the Viking guys. Apparently they started that with a relatively small loan and rebuilt a barge in I think the Netherlands or Belgium for a little barge and started doing a. A cruise off one boat. We were trying to look for the exact year and and didn't find it at the time but that was kind of around the early 2000s and now it's a billion dollar company.

Guest: It's Wow. Y. I have a. I have a pamphlet on my desk right now. I do, I do. Because that's something that we're looking at doing in the fall. Right? Yeah. I've taken a great interest in in the river European river cruises. So and there's one of their pamphlets, you know. So but this pamphlet is like a specific to 2020. Like they're really pushing 2020.

Stuart: Right.

Guest: I got it like a week ago and and most. I mean there's some stuff that I have to go to their website to find anything before before then.

Stuart: So that's interesting because that's to us as we're talking about now at the beginning of 2019, that seems like a long lead time out. But knowing your own industry cycle, they'll have data and intelligence of how far in advance people are booking that type of vacation. So if you know that you need that much lead time to make a decent number of conversions, or that the average interest to conversion cycle is that long, you really then can start backwards planning from there and putting things in motion. I guess even things like going back to the calendar cycle, knowing that their cycle had such a long lead, or seeing what their advertising was or when in the year their advertising was. If you had any business that had anything to do with people going on river cruise type vacations, then structuring a whole campaign or even a whole book around that particular thing, you can imagine a scenario where you knew that Vikings spend 80% of their budget in January and February marketing to US customers for European river cruises because they know themselves that people are usually planning for that bigger trip from here to there. That bigger trip is usually like an 18 month planning cycle. So if you were a luggage company or if you were a chateau on one of the Viking routes and you knew people were coming into town, then writing a book targeting the same demographic in the same place at the same time type time of year, helping people plan for the perfect river cruise either or make the most of your river cruise even though you're not a river cruise company itself. The whole purpose is to get people to raise their hands who are at that kind of target market.

Guest: Okay, this is a little off subject, but the funny thing is I started looking at these cruises and I said to Mike, I said, are you looking for new luggage? And he said no. And that had been all the ad. Those are the ads that I hit with. And I'm like, that is so you know, and that's exactly what you're saying. Like, okay, you may not be, you know, exactly in the river cruise business, but hey, the luggage company, the air travel company, you know, there's all these things. But I thought that was hysterical because I thought, and it just dawned on me that I thought we just bought luggage like last year. So I thought why would he be looking for luggage? But he wasn't. It was just that, that thing and watching us and yeah, so that was funny example.

Stuart: I had exactly the same. So we're doing a whole 30 through January. So that's relatively, it's not quite keto but it's relatively keto. The strong matches with kind of both paleo and keto diets. So some of the stuff that I've been looking at is bit more in that camp. And then having seen one or two Instagram ads for keto stuff which is of interest. So clicked on that. And if you looked at my feed today, as opposed to even a month ago, I'd never seen keto ad before. Now probably 60, 70% are keto ones. Yeah, it's really, you really get that kind of filter bubble effect going off. But I mean big organizations do it, put a lot of money behind it because it's worthwhile. So we're not talking about spending the same budget, but having a similar approach or leveraging some of the techniques that the bigger guys use. Definitely worthwhile. And if you are in an industry where it's like you're not an accountant, it's not super obvious what things move the calendar at different times of the year, then just leveraging off competitors is a perfect way of still trying to get some of that movement. And whether it's to the extent of writing a book individually targeting that particular subject, or whether it's just taking an existing book and targeting the campaign to it, definitely worthwhile. And I would struggle to think of an industry that I'm sure whatever industry is out there, we can, we could think of a way of leveraging some of some stuff that other people are doing. Okay, let's dive down this list a little bit more and try and quick fire some more of these. So tax time we were talking about, there's a whole kind of replanning and reporting side of things. There were specific deadlines laid down that people need to meet. So both in terms of what people immediately need to do, and then the more broader goals, financial goal setting or broader planning type steps, there's this early time of year, there's a big spike in activity there, moving kind of into Easter, April, May time of year, you've got all more fitness stuff. As summer's getting closer, really starting to come out of fall and spring and weather's warming up. So people are thinking about it a little bit more. All of the sporting activities that have been shut down over the winter or curtailed over the winter available again. So thinking like a lot of the outdoor water sports, tennis, golf, all of those fitness type things, and the apparel and the equipment industries that are built up around them, they're all big springtime type events. I guess then as we move into the summer, you're getting into wards or late spring, early summer, I guess you're getting into exam prep. A lot more of the academic subjects are coming up as people are testing and then also thinking about schools for the fall. So there's a lot of that activity that goes on around that time of year again, whether you're specifically an education provider or kind of in the ancillary industries big time to get stuff picked up. Then more outdoor things like gardening I guess and landscaping. All of that starting to pick up again. We do a lot of work with the mosquito authority guys. They're very much a summer based business in the sense of spraying. It really quietens off a bit over the fall period and winter. So having things. We're now doing some campaigns and building up towards that activity, picking up again in the summer. I guess one of the other things around, I'm just looking down on the notes again looking back to the tax time thing. The other thing that. The other element that's tied into that is all the legislation for many, many different industries. I think some things around legislation, like what's an example, building codes and things that don't necessarily have a time based component to it that's not quite so relevant because if someone's doing some renovation work on their home and it falls into that category, then all of the legislative side will just become apparent as and when they're doing the work. So it's not like everyone's trying to hit a particular deadline. But if there are changes to regulations, if there are new rules being put in place in the local area, if planning permissions changes, if some again financial again, but tax legislation, changes on properties or investment properties or anything like that, any legislative change that has got a date associated with it, which obviously a lot of them do, then that's a great way of tying things in because those ones particularly might be things that the average person isn't aware of. So all of these things that happen in the background, the kind of industry you really got to be involved in, the industry to know all the details. Not only have you got a time based trigger to capture people's attention and have that kind of deadline associated with it, but there's the details that what does it mean to me, what does it mean for me type thing as well of actually this is happening and you need to know about it now and here's what you need to do about it before this certain time. So there's lots of opportunities around legislation I think and even things like, what's it called? Cpd. Continual Professional Development. All of those things where people need to get in a certain number of hours per year. I know a lot of medical professions have that. Accountants and financial have that. I think even the real estate guys have that. There's a certain amount of professional development they need to do each year for licensing, their own industry licensing. So if there's a deadline, people need to do it within a certain calendar year, then that's another big external motivator for people to do something and do it now. Yeah, okay, that was a bit of a tangent. Where did we get to. So we were talking about.

Guest: But that's all good stuff. You know, thinking about that in the spring. And then we always talk about the summertime and exam prep and graduation and, you know, the college tours and things like that. And then you have back to school come August. And that so many, you know, areas around just not, not necessarily being an educator, but all the things that go around there, you know, either preparing to leave for college or preparing to start school or, you know, there's so many, so many subjects that are. Could possibly come up.

Stuart: The whole. Yeah, the whole housing thing around summer, the whole kind of parents nervousness around kids going away for the first time. There's lots of industries around that. The traveling back and forth, insurance, Getting kids set up in dorm rooms, mattress companies. There's so many things association.

Guest: You think about all the things that are just. And I'm speaking more probably more from a college level, but just anyone going off to school or, you know, of all those things that you need to do. And you think, I was just going out to school. But you know, you said, oh, parents, excuse me, worrying about going out to school, like that's a whole. That's like a. That's like an anxiety book, like a medical book, a psychological book, you know, because you start seeing people talking about that and then, yes, all the way down to, oh my gosh, we have to buy coat hangers for our child. I mean.

Stuart: And it's a good reminder of this separation that we talk about between the profit activator number two of identifying people in the target group, identifying, getting them to raise their hand so they're identifying themselves. And then profit activator number three, kind of patiently and systematically educating and motivating people to take the next step with you. That separation, I think is key to remember all of this because too many people would think, imagine you wrote something that was the checklist to send your kid off to college. And it was a book that talks about, okay, here's the 25 things that you really need to remember and address the top 25 things you need to address. And just take a little bit of time to think about what that book would be and list it all. And you were a mattress company and as part of the 1 in the 25 was. And bear in mind that they might be sleeping on a mattress that 60 kids have slept on before and goodness knows what's going on. So for an inexpensive cost, One of the 25 things should be buy them a mattress as well. That as a lead generation piece. Your target market for this campaign is identifying parents who have got kids who are going away to college for the first time. It's not necessarily. You're not trying to just identify the parents of kids who are trying who are sending their children off to college for the first time and who now think they want a mattress that's secondary to it. The first one is identifying that group of people out of everyone in the country who is the small subset of people who could potentially be your customer and then identify them and then follow up with them to educate and motivate them on why it's important that they should also think about investing in a new mattress for them as well. So lots of things that we talk about, people try and cut to the chase too quickly and want to do the sifting and sourcing as part of the identifying. But all of these things, these calendar based ideas for getting it out there and giving people a way of raising their hand, it's a separate job. The job of work is just to identify that group of people and then separately educate and motivate them in various different ways that we've talked about before and we'll no doubt talk about again. But yeah, separately. Separately do the job of sifting and sorting. I think that's an important thing to remember because otherwise people will they try and they limit the opportunities of collecting names for the sake of trying to sift and sort at the same time. And they're definitely two different things. I have we're running out of time because we've got a bit of a hard out today. I'm just going to quickly do a blast through the rest of this list and give people last couple of ideas. So towards the end of the year then we were talking about back to school. As we're moving into the fall, we've got things like winterizing homes and houses and boats, getting ready for Christmas and Thanksgiving. So more family based holidays, clocks changing, it's getting colder. All of these things that are happening that might trigger Trigger things in your customers minds as to why now is the time to do this thing. And then towards the end of the year just had a couple of other things like all of the. We talked about the summer sports coming in early in the year. Of course, you're all the winter sports coming in later in the year and then we start again with background at Christmas and New year. A couple of the other things that came to mind as we were talking through then are things like industry and national awards. So award ceremonies tend to happen at certain times. Again, it might not be absolutely specific to the customer group, but there might be a way of pivoting or leveraging things that those conversations that those award ceremonies kick off that might start conversations in your customers minds and then you can kind of join in with those conversations at the right time. Rules and legislation changes or calendar based elements for rules and legislation, both kind of national and industry wide or locally you've got customer cycles in the sense of, well, like we said with river cruises, Viking will know their own data and that's where they're starting things 18 months in advance. If you know that like realtors have got very clear peaks, Fitness place have got very clear peaks. So depending on what your customers are doing, think back from the end purchase back through to their buying decisions and how they're educating themselves beforehand. And think about what in the calendar might trigger those weather events. An obvious one kind of as seasons changes. We've kind of talked about that already and the last one that I had on the list was competitor calendars. So have a look to see what your competitors are doing and how they're advertising and when they're advertising and what points they're picking up on, what activities are they doing that will get some traction, will get some news cycles, will get some interest and some conversations going and then what can you do to leverage off that and make the most of it as a way to get in front of people and have this calendar based element to really trigger them to take care of or encourage them to take that step now. Okay, all right, that was the rest of that list. The other thing I'd suggest people do is over on 90 Minute Books, if you go to the gallery link at the top or 90 minute books gallery, there's a whole load of covers that we've got there for many of the other books that we've done and scroll through that list and you'll see some time based ones specifically in there. But also just look at the titles and see what people are talking about. And then for your own peace of mind, your own exercise, go through and think about what elements are. What elements also have a sense of urgency attached with them. So whether it's the title, whether it's the subheading, whether it's the image on the COVID don't necessarily get too caught up on the specifically what's there, but think about. You just use that as an idea to pivot over into your own stuff and think about what you can create either book wise or campaign wise to to get that message out there. Okay, let's leave it there. That, I think is a good start back. Thanks for your time. Thanks for everyone listening. Note show notes, as always, are across@9minutebooks.com podcast this was a bit of a surface level hit on a lot of stuff. So if you do want us to dive deeper into any of these particular ideas, then just shoot us a note to podcast at 90 Minute Book. 90 Minute Books, sorry. And we'll get that and pick it up and be able to dive into it in a later show. Apart from that, we will catch you in the next one.

Guest: Very good. Take care.

Stuart: Thanks Betsy. Bye.