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Ci7 Education: Marketing Events to Ensure a Home Run [5]
- By Liz Button [6]
The “Advanced Bookselling & Special Topics: Marketing Events to Ensure a Home Run” education session at the American Booksellers Association’s seventh annual Children’s Institute [7] in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, featured panelists who shared tips on best practices for creating marketing campaigns to make your bookstore event catch fire.
Booksellers can watch a full video of the session on ABA’s Education Resources page [8] (a BookWeb username and password are required; e-mail [email protected] [9] for login credentials).
The June 27 session [10] featured bookstore marketing and events managers as panelists, including Nichole Cousins, manager of White Birch Books [11] in North Conway, New Hampshire, who served as moderator; Joy Preble, children’s and teen programming director at Brazos Bookstore [12] in Houston, Texas; Colin McDonald, marketing manager for Seminary Co-op Bookstore [13] in Chicago, Illinois; and Stephanie Heinz, children’s buyer and events coordinator at Print: A Bookstore [14] in Portland, Maine.
During the session, booksellers shared ideas for opportunities for advertisement; areas for potential partnerships for cross-marketing; marketing timelines; using social media methodically to get the most out of your posts; and thirteenth-hour efforts for the final push. Here are some of the tips and to-dos the panelists shared during the session:
Social Media Advertising
- Develop an editorial calendar
- Schedule posts for times of increased traffic
- Coordinate posts with your social media team
- Make sure the “voice” of your posts taps into your store’s personality
- Create event banners for Facebook, images for Instagram, and link to event on Twitter
- Use Canva [15] as a resource to create images
- Make sure your marketing brand is cohesive across all your social media sites
- If you have one, boosting your events on Facebook is a good use for your ad budget
- Look at what other stores are doing on social media
- Don’t hesitate to explore design styles, images, color palettes in your branding
- Schedule posts ahead of time (you can even schedule day-of reminders months in advance)
- Create a social media style guide and share with your marketing team, if you have one
- Use Edelweiss for high-quality cover images
Other Forms of Advertising
- Reach out to parent and community bloggers online (blogs, Facebook groups)
- Create a community newsletter and include a “Coming Up” section
- Advertise kids’ events in your existing adult-oriented newsletter
- Place ads where other events are being advertised
- Make sure to keep author’s publisher in the loop
- Use both physical and digital versions of fliers for events
- Stay aware of where community calendars are available (community websites, newspapers)
Suggested Marketing Timeline
- Four months out
- Communicate with staff about your plans for the event
- Reach out to any community partners you want to work with
- Aim to get your event posted on social media
- Once the event is booked, ask publishers for more galleys for staff to familiarize themselves
- Two weeks out
- Send list of reminders to partners/event contacts
- Check with partners that agreed-upon tasks have been completed/resources gathered
- One week out
- Send managers complete information on featured events
- Tell staff at register to remind customers about event
- Ask school librarians to put up large-print, kid-friendly fliers promoting the event
Forming Partnerships
- Partner with related organizations
- Offer special perks for partnering
- Tackle marketing efforts as if you were putting on the event alone
- Add the publisher as a co-host (with permission) to expand marketing reach, resources
- Contact writers in the schools to introduce events
- Think of your local partners (librarians, schools, organizations, businesses) as well as publishers and contact them for promotion help
- Reach out to any authors who live locally as event partners
Tips for Pre-order Campaigns
- Market pre-orders in conjunction with your events
- Get the publisher and author involved in the campaign
- Offer swag to customers who pre-order
- Create a landing page for pre-orders on your website so you have an easy link to send the author to post on social media
- Designate a point person to handle pre-orders
- Follow up with authors to make sure they are sharing links you send
- For pre-orders with school visits, have a one-sheet for librarians and teachers. set minimum sales goal for schools
- Think hard about which pre-order campaigns you choose to plug, based on personality of your store
Creating Your Own Event Persona
- Give events a personal touch in any way you can, find your brand
- Introduce interactive components
- Offer food, drinks, and goodies
- Be yourself, even if you’re a bit weird. It’s that spark of individuality that makes you different. Loosen up!
- Create a monthly theme, echo theme in social media, ask local artist to paint themed mural on front store window
Last-Minute Marketing Tips
- E-mail librarians, schools, and organization contacts with whom you have established relationships
- Reach out to specific individuals you know would be interested in attending the event
- Invite local authors and illustrators to the event
- Cross-post on your social media pages
- Involve staff in talking to customers about the event
Booksellers can find Joy Preble’s own list of tips for running successful children’s events [16] in BookWeb.org’s Education Curriculum section, as well as a video recording of the session [17].