As you create your own uncontested market space, per Blue Ocean Strategy encouragement in your marketing approach, you’ll need to analyze your results and analyze the results. This is one of the cornerstones of the Blue Ocean Strategy called Value Innovation. As quoted on the official site, “…is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost, creating a leap in value for both buyers and the company.”
As stated in my video about Blue Ocean Strategy, don’t confuse low cost for free or detrimental to your business brand. Nay, instead it should be finding the avenues where costs can be lowered for you to provide avenues of entry for new readers. It could be promotional periods of discounted prices, contests for giveaways or premium materials, such as autographed manuscripts. However, it has to be what is best for business.
Are there short stories that could be given away for free, or cheap, those are closely tied to a trilogy of books you wrote? Sure, it may not bring you much profit, if at all, directly. However, what if the short stories are as well crafted as your trilogy? Wouldn’t that drive customers to want to continue the story of the characters and world you’ve built?
It’s also relevant to know that oftentimes writers that give their books away for free see better sales when they just reduce prices or do a promotional period where the book is discounted. Why? It’s because several hardcore readers don’t see the value in a free book, it couldn’t have been that well written if the author thinks their book is literally only worth the time it takes to download a file. They need to know that the experience they’re headed into is worth their time, money, and effort.
So what are the practical approaches in creating value innovation? The website asks four questions for you to analyze your strategies, find weaknesses and emphasize upon the beneficial elements.
- What factors can be eliminated that the industry has taken for granted?
Are you engaging saturated markets and writing for trends? They’re likely not going to gain you much. As a result, you’d better be dedicated to the books and willing to accept the fact that they might not sell well at all. So think about what you write carefully and decide what can be eliminated from your time to ensure better results.
- What factors can be reduced well below the industry’s standard?
This goes further into it with the analysis of what is working, and what is eating your time? Can you gain the same amount of followers on social media by sending only a few Tweets per day versus blurting out dozens and spending your time that way? Are there certain categories of blog posts that receive fewer visits on a consistent basis? Dissect your statistics and time management; find out what can be eliminated.
- What factors can be raised well above the industry’s standard?
The opposite of the previous paragraph, are there posts showing impressive statistics? If so, would increasing your presence in those categories be beneficial to increase traffic and awareness? For example, marketing posts on The Writer’s Conquest are performing consistently better than the writing advice side of the posts. As a result, after this first season of videos is over, writing articles may be altered, reduced, or eliminated, based on the numbers. It’s simple fact, if you’re seeing better results elsewhere, wouldn’t it be beneficial to embrace, and increase what works?
- What factors can be created that the industry has never offered?
This goes back to differentiation and what you can do, as a writer, to create your own uncontested market space. If there are unique experiences or platforms to place your writing, it can help you in your Blue Ocean Strategy. It’s a repeated notion, but there’s a reason. Unique, high quality, experiences are what makes your writing separate from the pack in the slush pile, or differentiated in the endless results of books on Amazon or on shelves at your local store.
On a quick side note, a very special thanks to the Blue Ocean Strategy official website for sharing the previous articles on Red Oceans and Blue Oceans on their blog roll. It has generated a great amount of visits from international audiences. The Writer’s Conquest has seen unique visits from 26 countries on 6 continents in the last 30 days, most of who came through the posts relating to Blue Ocean Strategies. So many thanks to all who have shared in what could be the most successful month of The Writer’s Conquest yet, now if only some poor isolated Antarctic research team would give a click, then all seven continents would be covered.
Where are you going to create value innovation? Chime in with the comments section. The conversation’s always live on Twitter @ThomasAFowler, and keep checking my official website for the latest updates. Thanks so much for taking on the Writer’s Conquest.
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