For the Kindle Marketing Case Study project, its been a quick 28 days since the last case study update. Last month I set the goal to test the $2.99 price point for Project Management Interview Questions Made Easy by Andrew Makar. If you recall, I cringed at releasing a product for such a paltry amount, but I was willing to let the Amazon marketing engine work its kindle marketing magic.
Let’s jump into the numbers.
Sales Figures Video Summary
February 2013 Sales Figures
US and India Net Sales
[twocol_one]
Sales
Borrows
Returns
Averages Sales per day
Sales Price Point
Reviews
Average Amazon Kindle Overall Rank
Approximate Revenue
Profit
[/twocol_one] [twocol_one_last]
158
6
4
5.64
2.99
2
27,611
$427
$331
[/twocol_one_last]
In total, 158 people paid for the eBook and 2 more people left excellent reviews with 5 star ratings. By tracking sales daily, I found the book sold better in the night than during the day. I’ll need to test the emailing an offer at night to see if further sales convert better. The book is a career development book and buys likely think about their career on their downtime than during their work day.
CreateSpace Sales
On February 11, the CreateSpace version of the book also launched and at a $9.99 price point, 16 copies were sold yielding a $53.76 profit. By offering the product in a physical book format, I’m meeting additional customers who seek a physical book rather than a digital one. The CreateSpace process was a surprisingly easy experience and I’ll be sure to highlight the lessons learned in a future blog post.
Prior Month Comparison
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January 2013 Sales
February 2013 Sales
[/threecol_one] [threecol_one]
67 units @ 4.99
158 units @ 2.99
Difference:
[/threecol_one] [threecol_one_last]
334.33
472
137.67 (increase)
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The $2.99 price point definitely converted more sales and generated a bigger profit. However, January was the 1st month using the Amazon marketing engine and it also included the free KDP launch. I like the idea of reaching more customers interested in my topic however, 158 sales @ 3.99 would’ve been an additional $158 in revenue. Consider my other professional project management tutorials sell for $24.95 each, I’m adopting a low-cost approach to get the Tactical Project Management brand known.
Insights and Lessons Learned
How well does the Amazon page convert traffic?
On February 7th, I started tracking the number of views to the Amazon page in comparison to the total sales from February 7th to February 28th.
Based on 1641 hits and 158 sales, I have a conversion rate of 8.17%. In comparison, a ½% or 1 sale out of every 200 visitors is generally accepted as a good conversion target for web traffic. Understanding how well the page converts the traffic helps to assess how changes to the Amazon product description or price point affect overall sales.
Based on those sales numbers, in order to generate $1000 at $2.99, I’d need 334 sales. At an 8% conversion rate, I’d need to send 4096 hits to the Amazon sales page. The past 30 days of traffic has resulted in 1,967 clicks so I need to find ways to double the amount of traffic. Thankfully, my SEO work has helped contribute to the SERP rankings to further drive traffic.
SEO Contribution to Traffic
As of March 1st, my title ranks #2 for the search term. The search term gets 6600 traffic per month in the United Status and using the statistics from Tim Yow’s Google Love presentation, the #2 position should receive 13.45% of the traffic or 888 clicks per month. Based on the conversion rate that’s at least 72 copies or $216.78 in sales from Google traffic alone. Knowing the #1 position gets 54% of the search traffic encourages me to further apply the SEO strategy for the search term.
Increasing Screen Capture DPI
Another lessons learned was working with screen captures and increasing the DPI (dots per inch) for both the print and electronic books. Screen captures using tools like SnagIt or good ‘ol Alt-Print-Scrn capture images at 72 dpi. Print books want 300 dpi and it doesn’t hurt to improve the dpi in the Kindle books either. I’ll be increasing the dpi for the images in the book to improve overall quality. If you’re looking for a simple tutorial on how to increase your screen capture images for 300 dpi, please see Getting a printable image from a still-screen capture by Ryan C. Davidson.
Marketing Actions For Next Month
1. Test the 3.99 price point
2. Issue a press release for Project Management Interview Questions Made Easy
3. Withdraw from KDP Select
4. Complete the first draft of my next Kindle Technique
I’ve got good rank in both Amazon category and the SERPs. Now is the time to increase the price and test a new price target of $3.99. If the sales conversion holds, I’ll make a greater profit than the previous $2.99 price and still capitalize on the higher number of purchases. Remember when the book was selling for $4.99, I had only gained 67 sales.
I’m also removing the book from the KDP Select program. I know…Shocker!
KDP has done well to do a book promotion in January and get additional reviews. The reviews provide social proof that the book deliver. My search engine rankings, overall Kindle ranking and conversion are healthy.
By removing the book from the KDP program, I can also pursue selling the book in iBooks, Kobo and Barnes and Noble PubIt.
March will be another good month exploring Kindle publishing, marketing and sales!
Has this series been helpful?
If you’re a fellow Kindle writer, I’d like to hear about your experiences and lessons learned. If this series has been helpful to you, please comment below, tweet, FB Like and Google Plus the article!