Marketing Monday - Sam Gosling

Sam Gosling, Ph.D., is a psychology professor at the University of Texas. Sam's research is remarkably well known. He studies personality.

Many psychologists study personality, but Sam is particularly interested in what we can learn about people without ever meeting them. He studies people's stuff. And he has done curious people everywhere a great service by writing Snoop: what your stuff says about you. I'll have more about Sam's book in my next post, but for today, Sam has agreed to share his experiences marketing Snoop.


What did Profile Books LTD do to market Snoop?

• [They] sent me on a 6(?) city book tour, where I gave talks at bookstores and local media.
• They sent out books and press releases to various media, with the greatest pickup in papers and radio.
• I did a day of radio interviews (where you sit in a room and do 20-ish consecutive interviews with regional radio).
• They had a double page devoted to it in their catalogue
• They sent out flyers to university professors who might adopt it.

What did you do to promote Snoop?

• I created a webpage where I posted a sample of writing, tour dates, etc.

How has the experience played out for you?

• There was a flurry of activity initially and there has been a modest but pretty constant stream of attention since then, with the occasional bigger thing.
• I also did a couple of days of media interviews in the UK.

In case you're curious what the "occasional bigger thing" might be, Sam was on Dr. Phil to discuss his book. He also put the contents of his book into action by snooping into the offices of Dr. Phil and some of his co-workers.

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