Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Well, holy crap. This anniversary really snuck up on me. I realized the other morning that it has been five years since I first published the 3 Word Rebellion. Then when I sat down and I added up the numbers, I realized that I have now sold over 5,000 copies of the book, which blows me away. Like, I can't even begin to describe that to you. So today, I decided I wanted to take you behind the scenes and tell you the completely unglamorous story of what it took to sell that many books in 5 years. So let's do this.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:48]: Welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. The podcast that knows marketing is freaking hard, especially when you're a solo business owner trying to juggle it all. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, author of the 3 Word Rebellion and founder of the Expert Up Club. Forget the latest marketing fads and tactics promising social media stardom. I'm here with research-backed strategies to help you clarify your message and get twice as effective with your marketing. And while I can't promise you'll ever love marketing, I'm here. to make you hate it a tiny bit less.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:36]: The first thing I would like to say is thank you. Thank you to all the people who have read the book, who have reviewed the book, who have given the book to a friend to read and then bought a second copy for themselves.

Thank you so much for your support., I would not be here without you. I would not have reached this milestone in sales without you. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, what the hell is the 3 Word Rebellion? I've never heard you talk about this, Michelle. Don't worry. That is one of the big lessons of publishing a book or actually having any kind of offer, whether it's your podcast, your newsletter, or the thing you sell. There are always going to be people who have no idea that you did the thing, and that's why we need to talk about things all the time. Right? That's why we need a message and marketing and all of that. So if you don't know what the 3 Word Rebellion is, don't worry. I'll tell you a little bit about it before I talk about how I sold these books.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:50]: So the 3 Word Rebellion is a messaging framework that helps you craft a one-of-a-kind message that can be associated with your business. If you want to be known, if you want to be memorable, if you want to be the top-of-mind person for the thing you do, you have to capitalize on a powerful psychological principle called association.

Basically, you want to have a message that your business is associated with. So Simon Sinek, start with why, or Mel Robbins, the 5-second rule, me and the 3 Word Rebellion, and now Make Marketing Suck Less. Right?

So what is the message, the idea, the change that you want to create, that you want your business to be associated with? And so this book walks you through the process of creating the 3 Word Rebellion. Right? So it is the OG book for this. I still think it is the only book that outlines a process for finding what you want to be associated with. If you don't have the book, don't worry. You can buy it wherever books are sold. You can go to 3wrbook.com.

It's also an audiobook. And if you are a Spotify premium member, you can listen to the book as part of your membership on Spotify. Just type in 3 Word Rebellion into the search bar, and the book pops right up for your listening pleasure. Alright. So that's what the book is about. Now when I started, I had a goal of selling 5,000 copies. I remember clearly telling my coach, Stacy Fisher, about this. She and I talked about the fact that that was a fairly audacious goal, and the numbers I'm gonna give you in a minute will tell you why, and that it shouldn't have a timeline attached to it, that selling that many books was going to be a longer term project.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:04]: Now why is that? And I think the reason for that is if we look into the statistics of how many books are sold, you will find that according to, like, the NPD book scan, and I found an article on Brett Kohler publishers, says that most print books sell less than 300 copies over their lifetime in the US. And even if you count the ebook sales, audio sales, sales outside of the US, a newly published book will sell about a 1000 copies over its lifetime. And in the first year that I was promoting the 3 Word Rebellion, I was able to sell 1,300 copies. So this is remarkable for a self-published book to get to this goal of 5,000 copies in 5 years. Most books tap out at about one thousand. So, whew, that's a big deal. It's a big deal.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:17]: So how did I make that happen? And the first way I made it happen was the mindset shift I was talking about up top. What I see happen most often is somebody publishes a book, and what do they do? They promote it through the book launch, and then you never freaking hear about it again. And what a waste that is. I realized early on that if I wanted to reach that goal, that I was in a marketing marathon. Like, getting the book done was the first step. And for the past 5 years, I've been running the marathon to market the book consistently. So that's the first thing that I realized when I was starting out, that this just wasn't a one-time thing. This was a multi-year ongoing project. And then there were some other factors that I believe really set the book up for the success that it's seen.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:17]: So number 1 was a strong book launch. I created a lot of buzz around the 3 Word Rebellion book, especially on Instagram where I was really active back in the day. I had a book launch team who read early versions, who left reviews on Amazon, who promoted the book to their list, and told their friends about the book. Like, it was amazing. And without that strong team behind me, I wouldn't have had a great book launch. Book launches are something you can't do on your own. You need other people around you.

I also did a shit ton of podcast interviews. I think now I'm up to, like, 60 or 70 podcast interviews. And most of these podcasts, whether they happen during the book launch period, after, or within the last 5 years, all talked about the book. So what happened was I sold 250 books within the launch period, which was impressive. I was able to make my money back. I actually booked out my whole 1x1 practice from this book launch. It was amazing. So the book launch gave me the foundation to start promoting it. But one of the promotional strategies I wasn't even planning on happened for me, and that was word-of-mouth.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:48]: Early on, I realized that there were a lot of business coaches, consultants, copywriters who were giving copies of this book to their clients. Some of them would have me come in and speak to their groups and talk about messaging and the 3 Word Rebellion. Other people would just do a book club and lead their clients through the book, but I was consistently hearing from people, like, “Oh, my coach so and so recommended your book”. And I'm like, I don't know who coach so and so is. But that's the power of word-of-mouth. It's also the power of having that association with something. Like, my business was now associated with this idea of the 3 Word Rebellion, and it allowed the message to spread. It allowed people to talk about the book and talk about me, who I didn't even know.

That's what you want your 3 Word Rebellion to do. So that was should've been expected, what but was unexpected for some reason.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:56]: And the second thing I did was consistent promotion in emails, whether that is my signature line in my personal email, it still links to the 3 Word Rebellion, or the signature in the Make Marketing Suck Less newsletter. Every time I send an email out, I am promoting the book.

This next strategy is something I already mentioned is promoting the book on podcasts. If you are an author, you should be going on podcasts to talk about your book. It is such a beautiful way to promote the book, have conversations around the book. And for me, I love doing podcast interviews and having people ask me questions. It's kind of how I'm built. So podcast interviews are amazing.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:51]: And then the final piece of consistent promotion I was doing is something that is really overlooked for a lot of authors, and that's advertising on Amazon.

Amazon has a great advertising platform that is way different than Facebook. What I really appreciate about Amazon ads is that they only wanna put your book in front of the people who are most likely to buy it, vs. Facebook is showing your ad so that they can eat up your daily ad spend. Right? So my daily ad spend on Amazon is set at, like, $10 a day. And my friends, let me tell you, I have never even gotten close to spending $10 on Amazon advertising a day. Usually, it's, like, 75¢ or a dollar. But I do know that it's showing my book to the right people, and it is bringing in sales and building awareness of the book itself. So can't say good enough good things about advertising your book on Amazon. Alright.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:03]: So those were some of my consistent promotional strategies, but then I also was running campaigns. So after the initial book launch, I created occasional campaigns around the 3 Word Rebellion book. And, usually, these would be like a campaign on the podcast. Like, I would do a deep dive month talking about the 3 Word Rebellion. Or when I updated and launched the audiobook in 2021. That was another concerted push around the book. And then in 2022, I did a book club, which was fantastic. It was 4 weeks. We read the book together. We had some Q&A sessions. It was so much fun. I should do it again sometime, and I will.

But I would have these, basically, events where I could promote the book, and then people who haven't bought it yet or haven't heard about it yet could buy the book. So you might be asking yourself, are you done now promoting the book? You have reached your goal. And the answer is no. I feel like the 3 Word Rebellion book is more relevant than it has ever been, especially now that messaging is kind of at the forefront of people's minds, that other creators and business owners are talking about this idea of association. Like, your business needs to be associated with the idea, the result, the change your business creates, that means that there's still a market for the 3 Word Rebellion. There are more people to reach, so I will still be promoting the book. I'm gonna be doing little pop-up podcasts here, hopefully, telling some readers' stories. So if you have read the 3 Word Rebellion and created your own 3 Word Rebellion and want to share your story on this podcast, reach out to me at hello@DrMichelleMazur.com. I would love to hear from you. And I've also decided to expand how I work with the 3 Word Rebellion.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:24]: So in past years, the only way you could work with me to get your 3 Word Rebellion is to work with me 1x1, to do the 3 Word Rebellion and then all of the message that supports that 3 Word Rebellion. Now that is still very much an option.

However, this Summer, I am bringing the 3 Word Rebellion into the Expert Up Club. Because with the advent of AI and also seeing how that community works so well together, I think I have discovered a way to take the heavy lifting off of me, of doing all the analysis of finding your 3 Word Rebellion, and facilitating the community members in their quest to find their own 3 Word Rebellion.

So we're gonna be doing that inside the Expert Up Club this summer. If you're interested in checking out the club, you can go to ExpertUp.Club. You'll book a private tour with me. I'll show you around, show you how it can help and support your business. So still big things in store for the 3 Word Rebellion, even though my 3 Word Rebellion has evolved from 3 Word Rebellion to Make Marketing Suck Less. I always said in the book, these have, like, a shelf life of 3 to 5 years, and that proved to be true for me as well.

The 3 Word Rebellion is still very much a part of the work I do, my brand, and I am always so excited to bring it to more people.

So thank you for your support of this book, for reviewing it, for purchasing it, for sharing it with a friend. I really appreciate you. And if you haven't read the book, Go. Check it out. Do the exercises. It will give you clarity about what you want your business to be known for.

Michelle Mazur [00:16:23]: If the Make Marketing Suck Less pod is making your marketing more effective so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend. The easiest way to do that is through pod link. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player.

That's pod.link/rebel.

The Make Marketing Suck Less podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills, our executive producer is me, Dr. Michelle Mazur.

The make marketing suck less podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional lands of the coast salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past, and present.