Marketing Traditional Products, with New Technology
May 12, 2008 Advertising, Blogs, Books, Marketing & Communication, Microblogging, PR, Social Media, word of mouth
My career path has been a bit scattered, having now worked in the toy industry, house wares industry and previously the book publishing industry.
Traditional Publishing
Publishing at the time ran as it traditionally did as far as marketing was concerned. Agents brought books to publishers, or occasionally a book came in “over the transom” (by mail or carrier pigeon- no agent affiliations – just a find in the slush pile). Books were published on the whim or gut feeling of a passionate editor. Sales people sold the book into book retailers (a few years ago there were more then one!) on its storyline, content and author’s background. Then “Publicists” pushed the book out to the press, primarily the book page editors, via ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), and hoped desperately for coverage. A book with a larger budget (usually an author with a decent track record, or a book on a newsworthy topic) might have a few newspaper ads – Globe and Mail book section. Some authors were honoured with a “author tour”. This was the extent of the “marketing plan” for books even just a few years ago.
Word of Mouth Marketing
How could there possibly be “bestsellers” with this kind of minute marketing support? Well, books handle themselves really well with “Word of Mouth”. In fact, if you are a reader, chances are you get your recommendations from others on most of the books you read. This was the case before the Internet. Before Amazon. Before literary blogs. Before podcasts.
Imagine, an industry that has always existed by incredible “word of mouth” in the traditional sense (one friend tells another, who tells another, who tells another…), and it manages to create block buster hits with minimal marketing dollars. Now, imagine, an industry that harnesses the power of online reviews, blogs, literary video summaries, podcasts, and overall web content. That industry just might overcome their biggest threat – the Internet itself.
Threat to Traditional Publishing
When I went to Publishing school, and when I began working in the industry the big question was how will E-books affect the traditional book. Would audio books stunt sales in books due to illegal copying? Will people read everything online and give up on paper books? Similar to the fear felt in the music industry, these issues were discussed ad-nauseam in classes, seminars, at the water cooler and during sales meetings. Unlike the music industry, I believe the book industry moved on, understood the potential issues with E-books and illegal copying – and then harnessed the power of the Internet to power even more word of mouth for their books.
New Technology, New Marketing – Traditional Product
The book industry has been helped along by technology. Online reviews on retail sites such as Amazon, and avid readers were given the chance to “publish” themselves by writing their own blogs.
Next, innovative publishers spread their tiny marketing budgets further by going digital. HarperCollins Canada* for example has been doing some innovative projects online in the past few years due to passion of their Director of Digital Marketing – Steve Osgoode. **Full disclosure- I used to work there
I was reminded of this when their Digital Marketing Manager contact me through this blog to see if I would be interested in reviewing business books. (hell, ya!).
Some of the things HarperCollins has been doing:
- First Look – Consumers can sign up to receive advanced reading copies that they review 2-3 months prior to the book being published
- Book Trailers – For a few books they have created video book trailers, posted on YouTube and other sites to build buzz around the titles
- Podcasts - Amongst others, they began the Foreward Thinking Business book podcast with host Mitch Joel
- News letters
- Blogger Outreach – As mentioned above they contact bloggers to review books that may interest them
- Twitter – Harpercollinsca
- Blog at SavvyReader
I bet some of these projects have garnered more word of mouth, more recommendations, and more sales than most of the traditional methods previously used in publishing.
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May 15th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Speaking of marketing traditional products with new technology, I was recently approached by a PR firm – they wanted to know if they could add me to a list of people to do product reviews and post them on my site. I said hell yeah! Free product? OK! So what if I’m pimping my blog (Queen of Spain would be so mad at me)! They wanted me to “let my readers know” about a new cell phone product, but their client isn’t willing to send me one to try – that’s where I draw the line, they also weren’t willing to pay for the “word of mouth” advertising on my blog. Hey – there’s a topic – is blog/twitter/forum posts the equivalent to word of mouth advertising? Is this the new word of mouth?
May 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
New blog post: Marketing Traditional Products, with New Technology http://megoagain.com/?p=190
May 18th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Hi Mom on the Run,
As a marketer and a blogger I feel that the best way to pursue product reviews within blog posts is transparently. I don’t mind reviewing a product for a company – but I would want a few things to be clear:
- I need a product to review (I will return it if that is required – at their cost of course!) I refuse to review something I never used!
- Full transparency. My blog post will state that company X gave or loaned me a product to review.
- I can’t promise a good review. Simple as that. I will be fair, but if I dislike something about a product I will tell my readers. Credibility matters. I will not be paid to review a product or service positively.
On the topic of Word of Mouth – the Internet and the tools like blogs, twitter etc – have simply made it easier to share our opinions with more people. We are no longer limited to our friends, or our geography. Which makes tools like blogs and twitter amazing word of mouth tools – however, PR professionals and bloggers alike need to be careful – if too often consumers feel that bloggers are not being honest and transparent – blogs themselves will lose credibility – and cease being a caveat for word of mouth.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Great blog Michelle!
I totally agree with your comment about “transparency” on blogs.
I think Steve Osgoode is brilliant. He’s done so much for HarperCollins that has put them out front in some many ways as far as digital marketing goes.