HARO Ad Drives Sales of Strategic Public Relations
On Fri., Jan. 22 our book, “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR” jumped to the number two spot on Amazon’s most popular books on public relations. While our book has received strong reviews and positive mentions in several publications, including The Costco Connection and PRWeek.com, this was quite a jump in the rankings and it was due to an increase in the sales of our book.
So what led to the sales increase and jump in our book’s ranking on Amazon.com? Our book was not photographed on the floor of Tiger Wood’s car, nor was “Strategic Public Relations” selected for Oprah’s Book Club.
Instead, as part of our integrated communication strategy, we decided to advertise the book on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO). In the ad, which Peter writes himself, Peter included the following testimonial about our book,
“Check out Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR – A new book that I read, liked, and recommend. The principles in the book are straightforward and simple, so they can be applied to any business.”
The HARO e-mails reach a targeted audience of more than 100,000, many of whom are focused on public relations and communications. This, coupled with a 75 percent open rate, ensured the message about our book was going to reach individuals interested in strategic communications.
The HARO e-mail helped spread the word about our book and Peter’s endorsement influenced readers to purchase our book. The day our ad appeared on HARO’s morning e-mail, sales of “Strategic Public Relations” significantly increased.
We are thrilled with the results. We anticipate January will see our highest number of sales from Amazon since the book was published last year. We have also seen an increase in Web site traffic.
The bottom line is that we are huge fans of Shankman’s HARO. If you have a product or service that is relevant to his audience, we encourage you to reach out to HARO as it can be an excellent vehicle for increasing visibility and driving awareness.
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR
17 Comments
Sabrina Kidwai |
Great post! I love HARO!! I’ve gotten some great placements, and I tell everyone about the list! Peter and his staff listen to HARO members whenever we give feedback! Congrats on the new book!
Sabrina
Jeff Lindsay |
Smart move! I love the HARO concept that Peter Shankman has developed, and have already purchased an ad for my own book. Planning on more already!
I’ve been subscribing to HARO for about a year and have benefited in many ways, both by catching trends and from a couple of connections where my experience was helpful to someone else. Viva HARO!
Johnny Speakright |
The coin HARO is pulling in from ads must be astro-MONEY-ical… 🙂
Sheryl Kurland |
Ditto! I advertised my book — http://www.everlastingmatrimony.com — this morning (2/1/2010)on HARO…in time for Valentine’s Day. Sales are jumping! Thanks for inventing HARO, Peter.
Sheryl Kurland, Author
“Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More”
Justin Dotterweich |
HARO is the best! It is great to hear positive feedback from HARO advertisers too! May the HARO family continue to grow and become stronger.
Matthew Hooks |
I’ve been reading the HARO emails for several months now and always take the time to read the ad at the top. It always seems to flow well into the actual queries – very personal style to the writing which keeps it from sounding like too much of an ad. Glad to hear the ad and endorsement influenced sales!
Courtney Barnette |
Peter from HARO is number 1 in our book. We have done previous advertisements, and have another upcoming ad scheduled for February 2010. We launch our newest product: http://www.iPhoneSolarCharger.com we hope this goes through the roof, like former products did.
Brad Hauber @ Bubblegum Books |
Do you think you will ultimately get a good return on the money spent for the ad? With a 55% discount to Amazon and assuming another 15% for Xlibris, you would probably have to sell 150 books on Amazon to pay for it. If you get more publicity and sell enough books, probably worth it. I’m asking because we’ve thought about advertising our children’s books (http://bubblegumbooks.com) on HARO, but didn’t anticipate enough sales to cover the cost.
Colleen Moffitt |
Hi Brad – Thanks for your comment. We believe the return on investment is broader than simply book sales and includes increased exposure for our blog and firm. The original ad and subsequent blog post, which Peter has promoted as well, have driven a significant increase (more than 200 percent growth) in visits to our blog and Web site. Additionally, we have seen an increase in engagement from visitors to our blog – with more comments (both on the site and via e-mail). The decision to leverage HARO was an easy one as its audience is well matched to the folks we want to reach.
Debra Slover |
Brad and Colleen:
I feel you are both right. It really is all about a strategic plan and target audience. With a book on PR strategies, I can’t think of any better place to advertise.
However, as an author of books on leadership for children and adults, I realized after many shot gun and futile efforts, the dollars spent on marketing, advertising, and promotion must be strategically matched to the audience.
For example, with my new PR firm, one media contact in the right audience sent out a one day blurb about our Demonstration Projects. My web traffic soared, I made some amazon and web sales, received one new champion of our effort, and upon follow up to thank the contact, it garnered an opportunity to write an article for the same group in my target audience.
I am not saying I wouldn’t advertise on HARO if I had unlimited resources right now. I love Peter and his work. However, when I considered it, I realized I needed to refine my plan, get clear on my audience, leverage my resources, and hire a PR firm with the right media contacts for my brand of books and business (www.leadershipgardenlegacy.com).
Too many times as book authors, we try to use the same strategies everyone else is using to cause sales without a clear strategic plan and audience. I consider myself the poster child for using all the wrong strategies to begin. So I enjoyed reading this discussion.
Congrats Collen on your success and Brad maybe we should find out just how many of Peter’s 100,000 subscribers are in the market for children’s book? Or we could encourage Peter to create a collective ad for similar genres. The cool thing about Peter he is responsive to his subscribers.
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Matt Certo |
Hello. Thanks for writing this. We are planning on running an ad soon for our product: http://www.metricpulse.com. It is a dashboard tool for small business owners and marketers who want to monitor and visualize key Internet marketing metrics. Thanks for sharing your insights with us.
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