Maartje Blijleven knows how to organize communities and is an expert at helping businesses maximize their social reach.
It should come as no surprise that she was able to organize her community around her book, We Love Communities, and rocket to the #1 spot for a month on the bestseller charts in the Netherlands by organizing her community.
Over the past 20 years, Maartje has developed thriving communities and has built an incredibly strong network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and corporate professionals.
Her book, We Love Communities, contains not only her wisdom and experience but the interviews of other experts in the field who share their tips on strengthening communities in business.
Becoming a Chart Topper
Maartje knew how many books it would take for her book to compete with the current bestsellers in her genre.
In order to maximize the number of pre-orders of her book at full retail price, Maartje had to get creative and offer incentives that would appeal to her ideal reader—businesses, entrepreneurs, and conference leaders looking for keynote speakers.
Because Maartje was focused on getting a large quantity of pre-orders prior to her book’s release, her pre-order campaign looked something like this:
—Pre-order 10 books and get the ebook one week before it’s official release (savings of 30.50)
—Pre-order 25 books and get access to her 10-week online training program on building communities (savings of 888.25)
—Pre-order 50 books and get 1:1 VIP strategy coaching from Maartje herself at an incredible discount (savings of 1920)
—Pre-order 100 books and get a remarkable 75% discount on her keynote speaker fees (savings of 3490)
You can see that with each reward level, the savings get greater and greater and appeal directly to her ideal reader.
How did Maartje learn this pre-selling incentivized-rewards selling technique?
She took the self-paced online course, Crowdfunding for Authors, and got tons of feedback on her landing page.
Click here to learn more about the course so you can rock your book’s pre-sale campaign.
Lessons Learned
Maartje worked with a traditional Dutch publisher and experienced all of the same writing anxiety and self-doubt every writer faces.
“I felt very vulnerable. Creating something out of nothing feels like you’re asking everyone to take a look inside your head. You cannot hide.”
“At first, I felt insecure to show people my work at an early stage. If I could do it over again, I would’ve involved people sooner in the process so I could have more time to process all of the feedback. The book is so much better with people’s input.”
Tips for your Pre-order Landing Page
1. Know your goals
Do you want a high number of pre-orders like Maartje had or are you trying to raise extra funds to cover the cost of production?
2. Keep it simple
Maartje directed people to pre-order their books on the Dutch equivalent of Amazon.
People who pre-ordered their books then filled out a simple form indicating which reward they ordered.
Maartje offered four (4) reward tiers. Too many options will spoil the soup.
3. Offer rewards your IDEAL READER wants
Maartje was releasing a book around community development so all of her rewards were specifically targeting what people in the community development space needed and wanted.
4. Build your community FIRST
Maartje had 20 years of experience working with businesses, entrepreneurs, and developing a strong network of people who would not only support her book launch campaign but also wanted to employ her services and speaking opportunities.
Without a community of people to whom you launch your book, you’re launching to crickets.
5. Promote your pre-order campaign
Every campaign needs a deadline for people to take action. For Maartje, she started promoting her pre-order campaign on August 3 with a September 24 deadline—so nearly 60 days of promotion.
Would Maartje do it again?
When asked if she’d do it again, Maartje said she would definitely run a pre-order campaign like this again.
With over 1,000 books pre-ordered, future keynote speeches confirmed, and a slew of new clients, the results speak for themselves.
Bio
Maartje Blijleven is a digital community expert and has been building successful online communities since 2000.
As a co-founder of the communities IncludeNow. & WomenTalkTech knows how to start and grow a community.
With We love Communities she helps entrepreneurial professionals and entrepreneurs to be successful with their own online community: for different companies, people and purposes.
Connect with Maartje at her website: https://welovecommunities.com