1 Marketing and marketing in publishing
What marketing means in publishing
Checklists for achieving good marketing
Segmenting, targeting and positioning
Integrated marketing communications
The relationship between the publishing industry and marketing has long been ambivalent. The industry’s products and services can be isolated as ‘public goods’, supporting literacy and culture, but how that relationship is to be funded, if it is to continue, needs firm consideration. It is a frequent comment that today’s publishing industry is driven by marketing; decisions about what to publish and the quality of content are subsumed into overriding concerns about whether or not material will sell. All stakeholders in the process – authors, agents, publishers, retailers and wholesalers – are looking for markets with a need for content and a corresponding ability either to arrange funding or pay, and for which resources can be developed, marketed and sold.
We will get into the detail of what marketing is and how it works (both generally and within publishing) shortly, but before going any further it’s helpful to highlight three very important issues.
• First, the publishing industry is a business, and if it is to survive it must either make a profit, or find funding from elsewhere
Sir Stanley Unwin’s famous comment that the first duty of a publisher is to remain solvent1 is worth remembering in this context: if you publish material that is esteemed but does not sell, or sells but does not prompt a desire within the market to buy from you again in future, unless you have significant personal or external funding, you are unlikely to stay in business and hence be able to publish again in future. Successful publishing houses spread their risk by offering a range of materials, established and new, and for a range of markets, just as stockbrokers hedge their bets by diversifying their purchases across market sectors, enabling vulnerabilities in individual markets to be offset against each other.
While there are many good reasons for finalising content that do not involve its subsequent presentation and sale – family or organisational histories, personal reflections, picture books of holidays – this book is predicated on an understanding that the reader is motivated by a desire to market and sell material.
• Second, books (or any published content) compete for spending power against a whole range of products, not just other books
A manager may select an online consultancy service rather than an expensive reference work; a windsurfing enthusiast may find a short film on YouTube preferable to buying a book on the subject; a school principal may decide to commission a promotional film about the institution rather than spend money on publishers’ teaching resources. And the amount of advertising competing for our attention and trying to direct our pattern of expenditure is enormous. By 2015 it is estimated that the total spend on advertising will be more than £20 billion in the UK, and US$600 billion worldwide.2
• Third, marketing is much more complicated than it looks
Marketing at its most effective appears simple: the slogan so appropriate that it is instantly memorable; the email that makes a product sound such a specific and personal match for individual needs that the recipient responds immediately. Making sweeping generalisations about how this is achieved is similarly popular – ‘all you need is Facebook and a good headline’ and the job is done. In reality this simplicity is not easily achieved; the marketing processes and the creation of effective marketing materials are much more complex. Effective marketing depends on a deep understanding of the chosen market and product, within the context of contemporary society and the available resources, and effective management of marketing tends to emerge through detailed research and planning rather than formulaic application of rules.
Whereas marketing may operate in an atmosphere of frenzy and participants may feel that simply by being busy they are fulfilling their goals, in practice the habit of planning marketing strategies – aims and objectives – is important to acquire. Drawing up a marketing plan acts as a mind-focusing exercise, encouraging clarity of thought and helping you prioritise. And, of course, carefully planned campaigns stand a very much better chance of achieving their goals. Remember too that effective marketing planning is vital in acquiring as well as selling published content. Agents or authors offering titles to prospective publishers will place considerable importance on suitor companies’ various abilities to present (and deliver) coherent marketing plans.
Mike Markkula wrote his (marketing) principles in a one page paper titled: ‘The Apple Marketing Philosophy’ that stressed three points. The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: ‘We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.’ The second was focus: ‘In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.’ The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasised that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. ‘People DO judge a book by its cover’, he wrote. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.3
Broadly defined, marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organisations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.
(Kotler et al 2013: 5)
This is one of the shorter definitions of marketing in circulation. Some are based on a series of present participles (‘informing’, ‘advertising’, ‘selling’) that relate to stages or techniques, others use a range of nouns (‘wants’, ‘demands’, ‘products’, ‘markets’) and link them with a series of abstract nouns (‘satisfaction’, ‘exchange’, ‘fulfilment’). Each marketing trailblazer has their own personal philosophy (and vocabulary to describe it). Even academics teaching and studying the subject cannot agree and a paper seeking to define the problem came up with more than 50 definitions.5
The reason for this diversity of meaning is that marketing is both a management philosophy and a function in an organisation. As a philosophy it insists that an organisation is focussed on the needs of customers. As a function, it includes activities which affect customers such as pricing, advertising, selling and market research.
(Stokes and Lomax 2008)
But boil down all the seminal texts and jargon and you are left with a relatively simple concept: marketing means effective selling; meeting customer needs profitably. So if marketing appears in your job title, it means you are involved with presenting and selling what your company produces. Whether or not you count the cash, you help prepare customers to part with their money and, in the longer term, to remain satisfied with the transaction – and hopefully return to buy again from you in future.
What marketing means in publishing
Marketing in publishing has a more recent history; in the past 30 years there has been a complete revolution. Thirty years ago some firms had only Publicity Departments – and no formal marketing responsibilities; marketing activity was generally product-orientated rather than market-orientated (commission products and then think about whom to sell them to rather than base commissioning decisions on what markets want and need). Today the marketing function is ubiquitous and of rising significance: publishing companies used to be run by editors; today they are largely run by marketers. There has also been an accompanying, and significant, cultural change, with an industry formerly characterised as one run by gentlemen opening up to the realities of business, including the social connotations of involvement in trade. The merits of this are debated. Some argue that high editorial standards are being sacrificed as firms spend ever-increasing amounts on pushing the product, irrespective of its merits. Others, that the money made from mass market titles and celebrity autobiographies has an important role to play in widening involvement in literacy and providing the profits that can be invested in new writing.
What you are up against
How many titles are published worldwide each year? This is a deceptively simple question with some very complicated answers.
If the latest Wilbur Smith gets translated into 50 languages, is that 50 titles or just one? If a book comes out as a hardback, then a trade paperback, then a B format paperback, then an A format paperback, each with a different ISBN, is that one title or two or four? What about the export edition or the airside edition (sold in duty-free bookshops at airports)? There are print-on-demand (POD) titles: some are new books, some are old books prevented from going out of print by going POD (with an old or new ISBN, depending on the status).6 And then there are ebooks. An ebook may be available in ten different e-formats, but is that one book or ten – or is it none because it is available as a printed book and counted as that? What about novels disseminated as podcasts or as text messages straight to your mobile? Looking away from print, how should you count audiobooks, whether as downloads or physically formatted items?
Even if there is no consensus, a working total is useful. Nielsen Book estimates that there were 184,435 English language titles published in the UK in 2013 (a combined total of books published with an ISBN in printed format, ebooks and self-published ebooks).
Within the world as a whole, the total of English language titles published in 2013 rises to 1.8 million, of which 1.4 million were published in the US. And this is not counting the non-English-speaking world, of which China is the largest domestic market.
Also complicating the picture are the rapidly increasing number of titles being self-published, whether by the author or one of the self-publishing servicing companies that are growing in number. Those with an ISBN are counted in the figures above, but it is difficult to estimate the number of titles circulated without an ISBN but that nevertheless impact on the amount of reading material available to the public and competing for their attention – and which may make them more resistant to buying at full publisher price (or, if badly presented, more resistant to reading in general):
Romance and literary fiction have helped drive the number of US books self-published in hard copy up to 234,931, an increase of 59% compared to 2011.
Research by the book data company Bowker, which counts all the ISBN numbers issued to self-published works, suggests that electronic titles bring the total for US self-publishing up to 391,000. This figure – which does not include titles published without an ISBN and may include some electronic editions of books also published in hard copy – represents a 59% increase on 2011’s total and compares with 301,642 produced in hard copy by traditional publishers in the US. No figures are available for the number of ebooks issued by traditional publishers in the US.7
In short, there are no available numbers – or, to put it another way, there are too many. Google your question and you get lots of interesting leads. One thing is universally accepted to be true: the number of books published (however you define it) increases every year.
An understanding of the breadth of the market should help you to guard against complacency. Having seen a forthcoming title on the publication schedule, it may feel very familiar to you – but there is no reason why the retailer or consumer should be equally knowledgeable. Cross-check your enthusiasm with an understanding of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs8 – using his scale that ranges from physiological to self-actualisation, just how important are these products? And if you want instantly convincing proof of how much material is jostling for the attention of potential purchasers, look online at the ranking numbers for titles in a category in which you also hope to launch material, or take a trip along to your nearest bookstore and examine the shelf on which the forthcoming title will hopefully sit, and in what company. The answer is usually ‘lots’.
If you can get a local bookstore to take you on, a couple of days helping out will teach you a huge amount. Try to find out how many emails are received each day, or arrive when the post is being opened to see how much information a store receives in a single day; notice how much gets deleted or rejected, without even being looked at, as simply inappropriate. Even if you cannot work in one, acquire the habit of visiting – and buying from – bookstores at regular intervals. See how busy they are (particularly in the run-up to holiday or festival seasons); watch how customers peruse the stock (browse the top copy but take a fresh copy to the counter); listen to the scanty information they have about the titles they want. (‘Do you have a book that was on the radio within the last month? I think the author was Joanne something.’) Get used to the retail price of books (rather than always factoring in a publisher’s discount, which distances you from what real customers pay), make comparisons with what other things cost – and so understand the choices consumers make, which may be more due to the consumer need that the book is fulfilling (relaxation, education, distraction) than perhaps the requirement to own another volume.
If you are a publisher, the aim of all this is to encourage you to stop viewing your list of titles as an interesting whole, united by its single publisher, and to see it rather as the consumer (whether individual or retailer) will see it, as a series of individual products. Your eventual customer will probably be more familiar with your authors’ names than that of your publishing house or imprints. If you are an author or agent, this will hopefully help you appreciate that, while your title matters hugely to you, other options for reading time exist. For each title, rejection is the easiest option, and reasons for stocking and purchase need to be fully spelt out.
So where do you start in trying to develop coherent plans for your marketing? By thinking more closely about what marketing means, and how to achieve it. Happily the marketing world is able to offer a range of advice, including some snappy checklists.
Checklists for achieving good marketing
Here are two short summaries of what marketing is about. The first is a four-part definition of what marketing means in practice;9 the second, a checklist for ensuring your marketing is on track:
Requirements of effective marketing
• Developing a customer orientation so that their needs, wants and values are prominent in your thinking; being market-orientated (‘what do my customers need?’) rather than product-orientated (‘to whom can I sell this?’). Customer satisfaction is a vital organisational aim. Not only do happy customers act as a source of regular revenue (rather than to your competitors), they act as your ambassadors. They are also vastly cheaper to maintain than acquiring new ones. Estimates that it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one are widely accepted.10
• Taking a long perspective and proceeding logically. Marketing often suffers from an image problem; it can be viewed as a flurry of activity resulting in forcing unwanted goods on the unwilling. Allocating a huge marketing budget won’t produce enormous sales the next day (it may even have the opposite effect: alienating your market by making you look cash rich and your products overpriced). Understanding markets and their needs, and the likely products they may require, takes detailed study and hence time. True marketing means planning what you want to achieve and how to do so, then implementing and monitoring it.
• Promoting organisational integration as a business philosophy. Marketing won’t work if it’s only seen as important by the marketing department or if it attempts to work in isolation. The whole organisation needs to be involved and committed; ideas communicated and shared with colleagues, absorbed and passed on by them too, and the experience of the customer consequently seamless. Similarly, relationships are crucial in supporting marketing, both within and beyond the firm: with the market; with shareholders; with the next generation of customers – and potential employees. If the exchange of the product or service you are offering and what your customers are receiving is based on a relationship that is valuable to both parties, that relationship can grow in future.
• Innovating and being flexible. Markets and customers change all the time; their only abiding loyalty is to their own interests. Even bestselling products can become boring. If you want to stay ahead you have to think ahead.
The second useful checklist of ideas to ensure you stay on track has been credited to a variety of different gurus. The fact that it is so generally attributed perhaps shows its widespread adoption and relevance. Marketing is about offering:
• the right people;
• the right product;
• the right price;
• the right promotional approach;
• the right way;
• at the right time;
• in the right place.
Applying this checklist to publishing is a useful way to start thinking about how to plan your marketing.
The right people
For the marketing-orientated publishing company, the customer’s needs should come before product or service development; products should grow out of an understanding of customer requirements. In exploring customer needs, a variety of different sources of information may be used: specialist knowledge from your authors and other content contributors; feedback from retailers and wholesalers including the sales pattern of related products and services; socio-economic data; website traffic and conversations from relevant forums, both on- and offline; relevant memberships and associations; general knowledge – talking to people and observing trends.
Whereas publishers’ products often come from their own enthusiasms, and in the process of making such material available you may well find other people who feel as strongly as you do, for full exploitation of market opportunities it is vital that wider markets are explored, appreciated and their tastes and needs understood.
The right product (and for this also continuously understand service) is the one that customers want, or one that they will be prepared to want – and pay or secure funding for – once they have been informed of its existence. The manufacturer’s initial concept should be refined until it meets this standard and, once established, undergo regular updates to ensure it remains relevant to market needs as they are developing. In addition to the particular format, and associated benefits presented, the product will include its brand image, packaging and after-sales service.
Applied to publishing, this means considering the best format (which is not necessarily a book – the market might find an app or magazine more useful than a single text, or prefer a combination of elements such as textbook, teachers’ notes and supporting website). It can include changing the level at which the product is pitched, the cover, number of illustrations or price to meet the anticipated needs and preferences of the market. Although active involvement in this process may well occur only higher up in the publishing organisation, you should bear in mind that the author’s first submission of text is not necessarily what will finally appear in published form (whatever medium is chosen). Appropriate and professional presentation to a specific market is a very important part of the publishing process, although one that content providers are not always inclined to acknowledge.
The right price
A product’s price is integral to the offering made to the customer; it will be understood as part of the package, not something apart. There are a number of elements to be juggled to achieve the best outcome. The price is what the customer eventually pays, but it will be discounted to retailers and wholesalers who sell on the organisation’s behalf, the discount allowing for the costs they incur during the selling process (premises, stocking, advertising and promotion, postage, discounting, etc.).
A starting point for establishing the retail price quoted to the customer is often to consider the costs of producing and delivering the product to the market, plus a percentage to allow for profit, but there may also be issues of lifestyle (‘Does ownership enhance my image?’) or timing (‘I am an early adopter and like to have access before other people’) for which the customer may be prepared to pay more. Customers who want a product tailored to their specific needs may be willing to pay a significantly enhanced fee direct to the producer in return for a bespoke service. And here it may be the convenience or discretion of direct supply that appeals, as much as the product itself.
Price is also often understood against a variety of other factors: what else is available; how great is the customer’s need for the product; does it offer value for money; how reliable – long term – is the organisation doing the selling (and retailer reputation will be important here too)? Consider too the cost or value to the consumer of obtaining the product. So while one consumer may buy books online to reduce the associated costs (petrol, car parking, risk of a parking ticket) and to minimise out-of-stock issues, another may make a conscious decision to visit a bookshop and buy in person to spend some leisure time; to enjoy the physical pleasure of the environment, the company of other like-minded people and perhaps at the same time do some additional shopping in other stores nearby.
Within the international publishing industry, it is interesting to note how books currently cost very different amounts within different cultures, and whether in future worldwide sourcing will result in more uniform pricing.
The right promotional approach
Marketing information may be presented through a variety of different channels, from PR and sponsorship, through advertising and direct marketing, to the selection and management of appropriate distributors and effective sales management (all will be covered in more detail). Those responsible for marketing have to decide on the promotional approach most appropriate to both the market and product and achieve the best outcome within the marketing budget available. This is usually a matter of considering the options, and deciding where the associated budget can be spent to best effect.
Taking the selection of sales benefits a stage further, what offer in combination with your product is more likely to persuade the buyer to purchase? General advertising yields lots of examples: the free extra if an order is over a certain value; the complementary voucher that accompanies student bank accounts; the cast-iron guarantee of a refund if the customer is not completely satisfied. In general, it’s better for organisational finances to give added value to the customer (giving them more of your product, which may be merchandise that is in any case spare) than to reduce the amount of income you receive (by giving a discount).
For some publishers, notably those catering for specific markets, in particular professions or educational institutions, methods of informing customers of new products may be well established, although it is important to remain alert to new methods of reaching markets (email alerts based on your previous purchases; blogs that are widely read; professional associations that now offer lively forums). General publishers, or those taking a speculative approach to new areas of content creation, may be forced to experiment from the outset, combining formal marketing avenues with social media campaigns, aiming to track which channels are particularly effective in reaching markets and then building the relationship.
The right way
This means the right creative strategy (style of copy, format, design, typography and so on) that allows the message to speak clearly to the market. Here selection is important, so rather than listing every possible sales benefit, concentrate on those that are most relevant to the market. For example, tyre manufacturers could stress a variety of different product benefits: competitive price, road-holding ability, value for money and longevity. They usually concentrate on a single one: safety.
So, when selling business information to companies, your tone probably needs to be clear, professional and centred on the potential competitive advantage you are offering. If writing copy for point-of-sale material to be used in children’s book departments, the image chosen must both attract children and appeal to those who will make the buying decision.
The right time
The right time is the best time to be marketing. Advertising Christmas decorations in July, or ‘beach reads’ too long before the time when most people take their summer holidays may achieve some sales but will probably not produce the best possible results. Pharmaceutical companies producing drugs for seasonal illnesses frequently secure the best response if they time their marketing to doctors carefully, for example by circulating information on hay fever remedies when the pollen count is high.
For publishers it’s particularly important to note that not all markets behave in the same way. The best time to contact teachers with information on an educational publishing programme is when they are thinking about how to spend their forthcoming budget or at the beginning of the new school year. If you send out information during the final weeks before the long holidays they will all be too busy to read your material. On the other hand, contacting university academics at the same time will frequently find them still at their desks and keen to make decisions about new titles for the year ahead, so that retailers have time to stock them for the start of the new academic year.
The right place
The right place is the most appropriate sales vehicle; the place where the largest number of your prospective customers will read your message and be able to buy what you have to offer. For example, in order to reach doctors you might decide on an email campaign, space advertising in a relevant publication or instructing a team of freelance representatives (reps) to take your product into medical centres. All three are different ways of reaching the same market. As part of the decision-making process you will have to consider ease of relationship management (are staff able/willing/equipped to sell your product range; have they sold books before; do they need special presentation and storage materials?); retailer image (will your market be confident to navigate their website or feel comfortable entering their premises?); management issues (can you agree on terms of supply and payment; how user-friendly are they to deal with?) and associated logistics (where are they located; can you make this work?)
You may also hear the above list referred to as the marketing mix – generally as product, price, promotion and place (all of which can be cross-referenced to the headings above) but this list expanded to include other Ps such as personnel/people (those who retail your product become part of the customer experience), process (logistics, delivery, returns, guarantees, etc.), period of time (crucial in many areas of retailing) and physical evidence (what you can observe and learn from).
What is the difference between marketing, sales and promotion? Which role should be higher up the organisational hierarchy?
In that the aim of marketing is to produce sales, the separation of sales and marketing into separate roles is often seen as sleight of hand, particularly by those without an understanding of either function. ‘Promotion’ or ‘promoting’ are terms that are often used to mean marketing or selling and so further confusion arises.
In general, marketing staff research and recommend how a product or service should be presented to their customers; they segment the market, isolate groups worth targeting and recommend the approach or message most likely to prompt orders. Their sales colleagues target, ask for and take the orders, and in particular record outcomes so that future plans can be based on actual results. Within small organisations the two functions may be amalgamated into a single role. In larger organisations the roles are generally separate – but need to work closely together for maximum impact. Even if they are amalgamated, thinking of them as two functions is helpful; both need to be aware of the customer’s alternative options – including spending nothing or buying something completely different.
Promotion (and promoting) are terms that get routinely used in the area of sales and marketing, but it is helpful to consider their more precise meaning in a marketing context, which is a strategically planned activity, temporarily negotiated, and with a specific aim in mind – for example to raise awareness, generate a short-term demand, get new customers to try a product, convert sales leads, encourage existing customers to buy more, get existing sales in more quickly or persuade them to pay in a more cost-effective manner. Thus a firm may organise a price promotion (e.g., a discount), a promotion to persuade the customer to buy more (e.g., multi-buy for an enhanced discount; buy two get one free) or use a promotion to establish a longer-term relationship (e.g., subscribe to our journal for a full year and receive a free pen).
You may also hear the promotional mix talked about. This generally refers to a range of different techniques – personal selling, social media, advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion and publicity. The promotional mix specifies how these are to be prioritised and costed within an overall marketing plan. Allocations of time, money and methods will be based on the nature of the market being approached, the goals of the organisation and the staff and money available, but in general there will be several constant requirements: to present information in order to enable the consumer to make a choice; to differentiate products and services in the consumer’s mind; to increase demand.
Segmenting, targeting and positioning
In order to maximise the potential response from the market, and produce an income that supports further developments, it is important to concentrate marketing efforts and decide which parts of the potential market are most worth pursuing. For this purpose, markets are segmented into useful groups, targeted for their attractiveness and then communicated with by offering ‘positioning’ statements on a concentrated range of products and services designed to influence the thinking and behaviour of the customer.
Segmentation involves identifying different groups of potential customers who share similar needs and display similar characteristics. Segmenting a market makes sense in order to produce more manageable numbers and concentrate resources appropriately – and efficiently. Segmentation is an important strategic planning tool and promotes more precise definition of the market, enabling you to get to know both your customers and your competition better, to respond to developments within the market quickly and to test ideas before making them more widely available.
How to go about segmenting a market
You could begin by asking yourself some initial questions:
• Are there subgroups within your market with similar characteristics? For example, are they of similar age, gender or occupation?
• Is there information that will enable you to identify these segments (a) in existence and (b) available to you? If it is available but you are denied access and the cost of building it yourself is prohibitive, it may be wise to proceed no further.
• Is segmentation likely to be profitable? If you are to pursue them effectively, segments need to be measurable, identifiable, accessible and viable, and if the costs of building and achieving access are unlikely to be offset by resulting revenues, a detailed segmentation may not be a useful approach. Even if a sector is unlikely to yield a profit, you may find that someone else may pay for it as a philanthropic route. For example, many book promotion schemes to segments of society who are under-resourced with reading material or lack a reading habit have been developed in this way.
Case history in segmenting
A business publisher was approached by an organisation representing a group of professionals who were clearly identifiable, were confident of their expertise and specific role, and viewed their membership organisation as a valuable work and social forum. They did, however, have few specific resources published for their particular professional needs, and this contrasted with other markets with which the publisher was involved. The publishers decided to respond to an invitation to bid to publish the organisation’s annual yearbook. They did so in order to explore the sector, thinking that this would give them the opportunity to create a range of bespoke resources for a market to which they would thereby gain direct access.
Once the yearbook contract had been won, and the working relationship progressed, it turned out that the professional organisation took another view. They saw the contract for the yearbook as an annual and discrete project, and would not counter any developmental activity with their membership that did not involve them too – and for this access they wanted significant up-front fees. As an organisation they had high institutional costs (expensive London premises), were cautious decision-makers – but they also significantly overestimated the profitability of the yearbook to the publisher. The result was that publisher commitment to the relationship was severely compromised and the publishing opportunity of creating content for an underdeveloped market segment not pursued.
Lessons
Given that the publisher’s interest in the organisation was based on a range of future options for developing the market segment to which they would be gaining access, rather than the initial project in hand (the yearbook), the feasibility of these options should probably have been explored in more depth before proceeding. This could have been tackled on the basis of considering the wider aims for both organisations: in the case of the publisher, developing content for an established market; in the case of the professional organisation, to continue to be seen as being responsive to members’ needs. Perhaps a lighter touch could then have been explored in order to limit risk; subsequent publishing would have offered the professional organisation the chance to present their brand to their membership, without significant investment costs, and this could have been achieved in return for a percentage of sales revenue – thus tying their remuneration to achieved results and limiting the publishers’ risks.
The overall message is that a segment may be evident, under-utilised – and hence attractive. But if you can’t access it without excessive cost, it may not be worth it. Relationships established in order to develop sectors that are mutually interesting need particular care and attention, bearing in mind the long-term aspirations of all stakeholders. An arrangement that only suits one of the parties will never be seen as fair or a good basis on which to build – and as a result all may lose out.
Factors to consider when segmenting a market
For those dealing with segments that are also mass markets, and hence generally equipped with correspondingly large budgets, there is a range of service organisations available to you, offering software that can analyse your database of customers and enable you to find other markets and prospects likely to be empathetic towards your product range. Bear in mind, however, that the more you seek to know about a segment, the more you may have to spend on acquiring the information.
In the life of the publishing executive, the opportunity to formally analyse a market segment may be rare, but spending some time considering the different reasons customers have for buying, and the ways in which they do so, may open your eyes to individual differences – and this can be done informally (and cheaply). For example, you can segment by:
• geographic factors (e.g., where are they? Rural or urban location; close to a bookshop or literary festival or not?);
• demographic factors (e.g., what age, sex or religion are they? Do they have any dependents? There are options for exploring their family circumstances, life choices, income, education, nationality.);
• behaviouristic factors (e.g., what do they do in their free time? What kind of organisations or groups do they belong and contribute to? What does their purchasing pattern tell you about how they like to buy? In what combinations do they tend to order; when; what kind of offers do they respond to; how often do they order – and when was the last time they did so? Are they spending their own or someone else’s money?);
• psychographic factors (e.g., how do they feel about your product or where it is sold? What are the associated lifestyle and personality issues?).
Here general publishers are at a disadvantage, as selling through an intermediary (online or physical bookshop) means you have little direct customer contact and hence may miss this valuable information. Options for developing greater connectedness and building communities of customers with whom you remain in touch will be explored in Chapter 9.
The outcomes of such analysis may be various. At the very least you may gain some new angles for copywriting about a particular product – or in the process decide to invest in an additional experimental marketing campaign, making a specific pitch towards a hitherto neglected group. You might decide to concentrate resources in future on one particularly profitable segment, or to develop differentiated marketing, which involves developing different products and approaches for different sectors – bearing in mind that the associated logistics can be tricky. Alternatively you might find that even though you discover people use your product in different ways, for reasons of cost or ease of management, undifferentiated marketing (one product or approach for all segments) may still be the most effective response. These choices will be influenced by various factors from company resources, the product range to be offered and the organisational or their competitors’ past experience.
The concept of a brand comes from a system for marking cattle with the owner’s name, and this is a helpful way of thinking about how to confirm identity.
Brands today can be both powerful concepts and valuable assets; an organisation which can communicate a message that can reach beyond boundaries, get absorbed by others and projected onwards is a valuable asset to an organisation in a world packed with competing marketing messages and where getting heard is difficult.
Within publishing, while certain big brand publishing names exist (Elsevier, Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins, Pearson), your authors’ names are probably better known than organisational brands, and some authors take branding a stage further by using different names for different kinds of book (Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks; Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt; Joanna Trollope and Caroline Harvey).
But branding is not the preserve of large organisations alone. Maintaining a company ethic – and ensuring that potential customers understand it – is a particularly useful practice for independent and small presses to develop (think Faber & Faber in the UK or Coffee House Press in the US). Tell your customers a story and they may buy into it, feeling they have discovered something worth supporting. For example, you could consider telling them how you came to set up the firm, why you do what you do, what you did before (even better if you left a corporate lifestyle to publish what you care about). Quality of life and work–life balance are issues that have a wide resonance today, and describing how you came to find yours may bring both customers and long-term recommenders of what you are doing. Interestingly, this recommendation may start from the moment you first find an enthusiast. It used to be believed that a customer had to experience years of good service before they would start recommending you, but recent research has shown that, given the taste for the new in society, enthusiasts tend to pass on the name of their latest find immediately.11 Consider how quickly you can start turning those who buy from you into advocates.
Integrated marketing communications (IMC)
An understanding of IMC is helpful in working towards the objectives of a marketing campaign. IMC promotes the coordinated use of different promotional methods and the application of consistent brand messaging across all the marketing channels used, whether through traditional or non-traditional means, off- or online.
Brands are, at some level, just communities of interest and, with the internet, it’s become so much easier to harness these communities to allow new connections to be formed. It’s essential that externally facing departments work together co-dependently to ensure the right outcome and joined up thinking. It doesn’t matter what the structure is, but to succeed in today’s communication- and information-rich environment, departments must work together with the same outcomes in mind.
Cathryn Sleight, marketing director at Unilever12
For organisations relying on a range of different supplier services (e.g., advertising agencies, branding agencies, direct marketing agencies, website services) harnessing all the outputs to benefit the commissioner, rather than allowing energy and spend to dissipate into services differentiating themselves from each other, is a challenge. The publishing industry’s tendency to resource its own needs, and rely less on external help, has been a protection up to now, but as more firms use marketing services from external suppliers, and organisations increase the range of methods through which they share marketing messages, this needs vigilance.
New theories about marketing come and go, but relationship marketing is one that it is particularly helpful to explore: the promotion of customer satisfaction and hence retention, rather than focusing on shorter-term sales transactions. Rather than highlighting advertising messages or short-term promotional strategies, relationship marketing concentrates on the longer-term value of customer contact.
For publishers this is a sound strategy. Most customers only buy a single title once, and so persuading them of the value of your brand and general output can motivate them to be in longer-term relationships. In the case of educational or professional titles, working with customers to create longer-term satisfaction can be hugely profitable. The concept of relationship marketing has been much discussed in the marketing literature and press – and is now often referred to as CRM – or customer relationship management.
Concluding case study: Susan Curtis-Kogakovic of Istros Books – bringing the best of the Balkans to UK readers
The start-up small publisher specialising in literature in translation
The concept and objective of Istros Books dates from 2010, when I was still resident in Zagreb, Croatia. As a writer and book lover, I had made a lot of contacts in the region over my 6-year stay, and knew very well how woefully little of the literature ever made it to the UK market. With a desire to change that, but with very little experience of the publishing industry, I registered the company online and swiftly got down to the business of applying for funding.
As every publisher of translations knows, the translation itself is most often the most expensive part of the book. This is one of the reasons why so little of it is published on the UK market – that and our (miscalculated) idea that the English-speaking world gives us enough of a multicultural view. So one of the ways to cover the cost of an expensive translation is to apply for institutional funding; from ministries of culture, cultural organisations or the EU Culture Fund. I started with the latter, applying for four titles picked from Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia, after first securing the services of experienced translators from Serbo-Croat to English. I also looked to other funding for my Romanian and Bulgarian titles, relying on the auspices of the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, respectively.
The foundation of a good publishing house is, of course, the quality of its writers, and in the case of Istros, also of its translators. However, this is only half the battle. Once I had relocated permanently back to London in the summer of 2011, the hardest part began: those slippery twins, marketing and PR! Although I had two titles ready for publication early in 2011, and had even found a designer and a printer by the autumn, they came out to a resounding silence. The truth of the matter is: if a tree falls in a wood and there is no one to hear, then it doesn’t make a sound. If a book is published without any marketing input, then it does not exist on the market.
Istros’ first step in the right direction came with the securing of a UK book distributor, in this case, Central Books, which has been providing this service for small publishers since 1939. Through them, it was also possible to reach out to book repping companies who represent small publishers on the UK market by their direct outreach activities and relationships with wholesalers and booksellers across the country. If a small publisher is to succeed on the open market, it needs to let book-buyers know about its titles and therefore needs the help of professionals. Before Istros Books was taken on by Signature Book Representation (UK), only a handful of books were being ordered from the distributor, whereas afterwards I had orders coming in from the wholesalers Bertrams and Gardeners, as well as individual bookshops nationwide. And each new title that we published was now accompanied by an Advance Information sheet and listed on all the necessary sites, so that it could be introduced to the buyer in good time. The reps also serve as a ‘market voice’ in that they quickly inform me if they think I am doing something wrong – from cover design to blurb description – emphasising the needs of the book-buyers and ultimately the customers. While I can get lost in the world of editing and funding applications, they keep me on track in terms of remembering the needs of the buyers.
A favourite question in marketing is – who is your target audience? Well, for Istros’ titles, the focus comes under three umbrellas: those who hail from the region, or are connected to it through work or family; fans of literary translation; travellers to the region. Ironically for us, the groups are fairly airtight and there tends to be not that much exchange between them, so that even if a book gains an audience among translation enthusiasts, it would not be recommended to, or picked up by, people travelling to the country of the author.
In order to reach the first category, we maintain a strong relationship with UK-based cultural institutes and embassies, and often use their centrally sited London headquarters for launch events (e.g., the Romanian and Serbian embassies in the heart of Belgravia). For those who have a passion for literature in translation and writing from unusual places, we maintain links with people working and promoting in this area – the Free Word Centre, Literature Across Frontiers, PEN, European Literature Network, etc. The final group – those whose interest in the region stems from travel or holidaying – has been the most difficult to reach. Apart from the excellent policy of Daunt Books to shelf each title next to the travel books about the author’s home country, the potential of these customers has not been tapped. One idea, which never came to fruition, was approaching travel and airline magazines from the different countries, in order to place an article or advert for the books. While some local distributors – like BuyBook in Bosnia – have taken it upon themselves to place Istros’ titles at Sarajevo airport, others have not been responsive.
One of the main marketing questions for me was whether to focus on the writers as a group or as individuals? With the knowledge that most of my writers are endowed with names English people find unpronounceable – such as Koščec and Sršen – I decided on the former, hence my decision to group the 2013 titles as ‘Best Balkan Books 2013’. As the Balkans has been viewed as a place of bloodshed and superstition for a long time, I see part of my job as to ‘refine’ this image rather than trying to achieve the impossible task of superseding it. We have a plethora of negative stereotypes to deal with, and we come at them obliquely. Marketing Balkan books is not the same as selling romantic novellas to ‘ladies who lunch’; I go about it by drawing on the images of ‘bad, bolshie Balkans’, emphasising that we offer the edginess of subversive voices, along with an assurance of originality and authenticity. This originality has become a key part of our brand:
Amongst our authors we have European prize-winners, polemic journalists turned crime writers and social philosophers turned poets. Uninhibited by Creative Writing courses and market forces, all our authors write out of passion and dedication to good stories, so you can always expect to find fresh and exciting writing at Istros Books.
In order to reach out to potential readers, Istros has relied heavily on the openness and dedication of a band of literary bloggers who are invested in literature in translation for the fresh voices and new perspectives it makes available. Our ongoing strategy is to forge relationships with such individuals – whether working on their own blog or as part of online magazines – and to strengthen relationships with them, as they are our main allies. While the handful of daily newspaper reviewers still in existence may be overloaded with the mainstream titles, independents still have the luxury of making their own choices and following their own tastes. We have to make stakeholders feel that they have discovered something unusual, rare and with attitude – whether they be reviewers, buyers or readers.
Susan Curtis-Kogakovic, Istros Books Ltd, www.istrosbooks.com
Notes
1 Clee, N. (2006) ‘The last of the publishing mavericks’, The Times, 6 May, p. 6.
2 WARC (2014) UK Adspend to Hit £20bn+ in 2015. Available at www.warc.com (accessed 21 May 2014). Clift, J. (2014) Global advertising spend and economic outlook, 2014–2015. Available at www.warc.com (accessed 21 May 2014).
3 Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs, New York: LittleBrown, pp. 71–2.
4 There is a more detailed examination of the meaning of marketing, supported by a full explanation of techniques for conducting a company audit and drawing up a detailed marketing plan, in Baverstock, A. (1993) Are Books Different?, London: Kogan Page.
5 Grönroos, C. (2006) ‘On defining marketing: finding a new roadmap for marketing’, Marketing Theory, 6(4): 395–417.
6 The Society of Authors has been keen to insist that there needs to be a ‘meaningful level of sales’ or rights should return to the author.
7 www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/self-publishing-boom-increase-diy-titles.
8 A theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, Psychological Review, 1943 and much quoted ever since.
9 I am indebted here to the work of, and correspondence with, Professor Michael Baker of Strathclyde University; David Stokes and Professor Wendy Lomax of Kingston Business School and authors of Marketing: A Brief Introduction.
10 This is widely attributed to Frederick F. Reichheld, founder of the loyalty research section at Bain & Company (no date), for example: www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2013/02/18-customer-facts-marketers-cant-ignore.html.
11 Romaniuk, J., Nguyen, C. and East, R. (2011) ‘The accuracy of self-reported probabilities of giving recommendations’, International Journal of Market Research, 53(4): 507–22.
12 Quoted in Basini, J. (2011) Why Should Anyone Buy From You?, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, p. 114.