Tony Robbins Used Content Marketing to Make His Latest Book a Best Seller
Photo from TonyRobbins.com
Tony Robbins isn’t just a great motivational speaker, author and coach.
He has now stepped into the financial advice arena.
In case you haven’t heard, his latest book is Money: Master the Game.
I got the book a month ago and have started reading it. I really like it so far.
But what I am writing about today is NOT Tony’s financial advice.
It is his content marketing skills.
He’s a great marketer. In fact, he used content marketing with superb mastery to propel his book to become an instant best-seller.
- It’s currently in the #2 spot on The New York Times best sellers list (under Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous).
- It’s #3 on the Amazon Best Sellers list (under Business & Money).
- It debuted at the #1 slot on the Los Angeles Times best sellers list.
He’s obviously doing something right!
Today I want to take a look at the content marketing methods he used to make this book a best-seller, so that you can launch any of your products or services using some of the same principles.
But first, I want to reveal to you a very important marketing concept that Tony understands (and that you need to too). Then I will show you how he used this understanding and tapped into the power of content marketing.
What Tony Robbins Understands About Marketing That You Need to Know
One well-known marketing principle is that you need, on average, 7 marketing touches before your marketing gets through to someone. That means it takes minimally 7 marketing touches to produce a sale.
I believe this is true today more than ever.
In fact, with how flooded our lives have become with marketing and advertising hitting us from all directions, I’d say that you need much more than 7 touches. Why?
Because with so much information coming at us we’ve learned to block most of it out. Even if we see an ad, and have interest in what is being offered, we usually will forget about it unless we act on it right away.
The problem we have nowadays is that we’re all much less trusting of people, businesses, and organizations. We’ve been burned too many times by false promises to believe everyone.
How does this impact us? It keeps us from acting on things right away, because we don’t want to look stupid. Instead, we want to wait and find out more about this thing, person, or service. We want to make sure we don’t move too quickly and look stupid.
That’s why multiple marketing touches are needed today.
But the question is: how does a business do that nowadays – without looking pushy and without being drowned out from all the other marketing noise?
Content marketing is the perfect way to create these touches.
And Tony realizes the need for multiple touches and the need to harness content marketing to overcome this issue.
Watch how he does this…
8 Methods Tony Robbins Used to Master the Content Marketing Game
In order to make sure that he could implement these multiple marketing touches he used what I call “compound content marketing” and “content collaboration“.
Here are the 8 content marketing methods he used:
1. He appeared as the cover story of a major magazine.
The first one I saw was Tony Robbins, The CEO Whisperer in Fortune magazine.
2. Weeks before his launch, he had business associates and friends begin promoting his book with a special offer to get the book before it was released.
If you simply paid for the shipping and handling cost, he would ship you a book. You can see an example of the offer here on Michael Hyatt’s site.
3. He was a guest on various podcasts.
You can see an example here on Joe Polish and Dean Jackson’s podcast: I Love Marketing podcast.
4. The day his book released, he had a “worldwide premiere” that was hosted by Brendon Burchard.
You can see the premiere here.
5. He wrote an article on Entrepreneur the appeared the day after the book released called The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your Financial Life.
6. He did video interviews.
You can see an example of one on Marie Forleo’s: Marie TV.
7. He did some media interviews on local news networks.
You can see an example of one on My Fox NY.
8. And guess what I just saw a couple days ago? He’s on the cover of Success magazine for January 2015.
It’s called Tony Robbins on How to Achieve the Extraordinary.
It was these 8 powerful methods used in numerous different ways that made Money: Master the Game climb the best seller lists.
Use These Four “Content Marketing Hacks” to Apply These Methods in Your Business
Do you see how Tony implemented multiple marketing touches without looking pushy?
The 8 content marketing methods that Tony used can be condensed down to four “content marketing hacks” that I mention in my new book 51 Content Marketing Hacks. Here are the four hacks:
Content Marketing Hack #4
Start your content promotions much earlier than usual and plan out how to build momentum for your content marketing.
Tony didn’t wait until the day the book released to start promoting it. He set things into motion (such as the “shipping only” offer and Fortune magazine article) that would begin to put his book on his prospects minds way before it was available. It worked. Because that is how I first heard about the book and decided I wanted it. You need to do the same thing with your products or services. Do just put them out there. Launch them.
Content Marketing Hack #24
The power of endorsement is “social proof” on steroids. Think of ways you can create content (or have others create it) that shows people in your market using your product or service.
Tony didn’t create all of the content himself. In fact, he didn’t create most of it. He wrote some articles, but other than that, all of the rest of the content was created by others. Why would they do that?
Because Tony has a relationship of some kind with them (business or personal, online or offline). You can do this too. Before you’re ready to launch your next product or service, contact the people that you have relationships with and ask them if they’ll help promote it for you. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many are willing to help you.
Content Marketing Hack #11
Tap into the power of interviews as content marketing for your product or service that is created by others.
There are many websites and publications that are continually in need of content. Providing them with interviews is a great help to them. The more you’re interviewed from sources your prospects trust, then the more they will begin to trust you.
Content Marketing Hack #28:
Average content marketers create one content stream (such as a blog) and then they wonder why they don’t see much momentum. Top content marketers create multiple streams of content that play off each other, promote each other, and have a compound effect.
The more content streams that you can create (or have others create) the better. Each content stream helps to build momentum for your product or service and helps provide more social proof for them. This will also help your product or service to stand out and become more memorable.
Make sure that you, at least, check out a few of the ways that Tony implemented these four content marketing hacks, because they’re such great examples.
Then try implementing some of them to launch one of your new (or current products) or services. Who knows? Maybe it’ll help you to have a “best seller” yourself!
I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999.
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Hey great post Scott! I’ve seen those tactics you talk about that Tony used. I didn’t actually think why he was doing that at the time it just made me want his Book! And it’s the same with Brendon Burchard’s book The motivation manifesto, luckily for me I got the book for free just for posting and packaging! Frank Kern also uses the same tactics. All 3 are awesome marketers so they must be doing something right. Great post man and it all makes much more better sense!
Thanks, Alan. Glad you liked it. You’re right. All of those guys do the same types of things. Take care.