Market Profusely

"Don't blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive." -John D. Rockefeller

You need to get the word out about your new service, product or publication.  You need to market it to others.  You need to be the primary spokesperson for what you have to offer.  No one else will be able to share it like you.
 
How do you do it?
 
You have to make marketing a multi-layered endeavor.  You need to be sure that you cover at least three primary areas with your immediate marketing strategy.
 

• Market Personally: Tell all of your personal family and friends, both near and far.  Let them know that you published a book.  Share how excited you are about this new service that you are rolling out for your clients.  They may not be able to do much for you if they are not in the market for it themselves, but they certainly can keep you in mind when their child's class needs a speaker about literacy or their buddy who just launched a new business needs a techie who can build a website.  Speak up and speak out to the people who may be able to serve a mid-level spokespeople for you and your business.
• Market Professionally:  Business people interact and share a lot at the executive level.  Look at Google and Facebook.  The people who were in on the initial wave of these Internet gold mines actually started and funded other online ventures.  Business people talk to other business people, and since you are in business, you need to be talking to other business people, too.  Make yourself part of the conversation.  Develop genuine relationships with business decision-makers such as purchasers, presidents, executive managers, and the like.  You never know who you may meet at the local chamber of commerce luncheon or Kiwanis golf tourney.  Be sure to stay in the loop with your local business publications and calendars of upcoming events.  Make an appearance when you can.  Send an email apologizing that you cannot make it and would love to stay on the mailing list.  Try it and see what types of responses you get.
• Market Publicly: It sounds absurd, but you have to market to the general public intentionally.  Bus stops, billboards, gas pumps, atop of taxi cabs, and whatever else may reach a new market.  If you write books, market to readers.  Direct your "public" marketing dollars towards those areas where you can reach a plethora of readers.  Get in BookPage with a simple and small ad.  Get in touch directly with local book clubs.  Post articles at sites where readers go to read and hear directly from authors like www.redroom.com and http://www.gather.com/.  You need to do what you have to do to get in front of your market of readers and increase readership. That's just one example.  I can think of tons of others, too.

The point of all of this is for you to embrace a new way of approaching marketing beyond simply creating a brochure on your desktop and some matching bookmarks or business cards.  Take the time to invest in marketing to these three immediate areas and expand your marketing to niches as you start to prosper from your immediate marketing efforts.  It's worth the initial investment.