F14 Readers’ Advisory Outside the Box: Marketing Experts Reveal Strategies on Promoting Books and Reading

Organized by the BCLA Readers’ Advisory Interest Group, this panel of experts from outside the world of libraries will weigh in on best practices and innovative ideas for marketing books and reading. These experts from local marketing, publishing and art curating disciplines will discuss “out-of-the-box” marketing strategies, and how they can be applied in a library setting to appeal to customers and potential customers. The panellists will cover digital, word-of-mouth, and display/merchandising strategies. Generously sponsored by Library Bound.

My panelists included Alison Cairns, an online communications and marketing expert, and Lorna Brown, a Vancouver-based artist, curator and writer whose recent projects include Digital Natives, a public artwork commissioned by the City of Vancouver.

My approach to the question of what marketing and promotion lessons librarians can learn from publishers was to look at Harry Potter, not as the smash hit it became but about 3 of the factors in place that contributed to that success.

Lorna spoke second about Digital Natives, the history of the project and the outputs (the sign at Burrard St Bridge, the website, the symposium and the media coverage).

Alison then presented 3 marketing case studies from her time at Douglas & McIntyre. As the online marketing manager for D&M, her work always dovetailed with traditional marketing in order to optimize the campaigns for success. Her case studies highlighted three different aspects: marketing the press, marketing a book, and marketing an author.

Marketing the Press

Alison shared details of the marketing planning for D&M's 40th Anniversary. They chose some D&M classics to digitize and make available on Kobo readers as a way to communicate the strengths of their past and their initiatives moving forward. They also produced some short videos with co-founder Scott McIntyre. Some were informative, and some were just for the fun of it, like the one below.

Marketing a Book

Alison used the example of a collection of short stories from a new author, which is always a difficult marketing task because short stories are notoriously hard to sell and even moreso when from a new, unheard of author. In this case study, they selected one of the short stories to publish as an ebook single for $0.99. The single was used as a promotional tool to help gain the author and the book more exposure.

Marketing an Author

John Furlong was the leader behind the team that organized and delivered the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paraympic Winter Games. When D&M published Furlong's book Patriot Hearts, they knew they had a big name author with a huge fan following, in particular 2010 Olympic voluteers who would do anything to help John. As part of the launch plan, D&M organized a flash mob on the transit system. Olympic volunteers donned their blue jackets, stormed a particular transit station and all pulled out copies of the book. They read the book in the station and then all boarded the train. Translink even got involved and ensured that the train car named in Furlong's honour was on the tracks and in the station during the media scrum with John.

Thanks to our moderator Heidi Schiller and to the BCLC for inviting me to present. 

1. Custom Reports

The problem with Google Analytics' basic reports is that the Conversion column is missing. Traffic reports, for example, will show the volume of traffic coming from each source and some on-site behaviour metrics like Pages/Visit, Avg. Visit and Bounce Rate.

Just looking at the above Sources > All Traffic report, you might deem Facebook worthy of more marketing attention and budget due to its higher volume. Or you might see Twitter (t.co) as more valuable due to the longer Average Visit Duration and Pages/Visit.

Now, if you are running an ecommerce site, the decision point should really be which channel generates the most revenue and has the higher conversion rate. So how do you get that Conversion column to appear? With a custom report.

See: How to Set Up Custom Reports

2. Custom Alerts

I don't have time to look at every client's analytics every day but I do want to know on a daily or weekly basis if something significant is happening like a big traffic spike or dip. With Custom Alerts you can set up a text or email alert for a wide range of data changes in comparison to the previous day, week or month.

Increases/Decrease you may want to track: Visits, Visitors, Pageviews, Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, Revenue, Transactions, Average Order Value, Average Page Load Time, Changes in Organic/Referral/Social traffic, and, if you're running Adwords, Impressions, Clicks, Cost, CTR, CPC, etc.

Set up Custom Alerts under the Admin tab > Assets. Alerts appear in the Reporting interface under Intelligent Events.

What I'm tracking above is when Google Organic Search Traffic drops by 50% in comparison to the previous day. There are many other alert conditions. Just experiment with the dropdowns.

3. Custom Segments

Custom Segments are used to segment out some part of the traffic so you can compare it to another. There are a number of default segments, including one for mobile visitors, but there is no corresponding non-mobile visitors segment. To compare mobile traffic to non-mobile traffic on the site in order to see the differences in acquisition, behaviour and conversion performance, you need to set up a custom segment. Plus, the "mobile" default includes tablets and you may want to separate mobile phones from iPad and other tablets, which means setting up a custom segment for that as well.

To shortcut that for you, I've shared an example segment below. Click on the links to add the Advanced Segment to your Analytics profile

Add the Mobile—No iPad segment to your profile.

See: How to Set up Custom Segments

4. Filters

I've talked about profile filters before (see my YouTube 1-Minute Marketing Tip on this) but not Regular Expression filters. Regular Expressions used in Google Analytics are backslashes, dots, carats, dollar signs, question marks, pipes, etc. I use them in a number of reports to include or exclude data.

For example, in my dashboard widget for top non-branded keywords by visit, I use a Regular Expression filter to exclude terms with my company name, as well as not provided. It looks like this.

(boxcar|boxcarmarketing|not|content|user)

This is an old post on LunaMetrics with a great overview of Regular Expressions.

5. Universal Analytics

Not a single feature, but rather a full set of new features! Google’s Universal Analytics is a new code snippet that provides access in Analytics to a set of features that was previously only available in the development environment, in particular the ability to set exclusions, timeouts, custom dimensions and metrics, as well as multi-platform tracking (track more than just websites, including customer loyalty cards).

If you already use Google Analytics, then the recommendation is to implement Universal Analytics on all pages concurrently with your existing GA but use a new account (new UA-number). 

New Features include:

• Customize organic search sources
• Session and campaign timeout
• Referral exclusions
• Search term exclusions
• Mobile App Analytics
• Custom dimensions & metrics
• Multi-Platform Tracking

See my full post Google Universal Analytics in a Nutshell  for details on each of the above features.

New Code
Based on what I've read, the best thing for existing sites already running standard Google Analytics is to implement Universal Analytics on all pages concurrently with your existing GA but use a new account (new UA-number) for Universal Analytics. Do this so you continue tracking data in the standard analytics and also because there are some features of standard analytics that are not yet available in Universal Analytics.

New Features

1. Customize organic search sources
2. Session and campaign timeout
3. Referral exclusions
4. Search term exclusions
5. Mobile App Analytics
6. Custom dimensions & metrics
7. Multi-Platform Tracking, online/offline tracking (currently in public beta)

More Details

1. Customize Organic Search Sources

Some background: Analytics attributes incoming traffic to a source using a priority list. For example, organic search traffic is assigned to the first search engine on the list that matches the domain name and query parameter of the incoming visit.

If google.com is first in the list and images.google.com second (and both sites use the same query parameter, like q), then all searches that happen on images.google.com are attributed to google.com.

This feature in Universal Analyitcs lets you reorder the search engine list to prioritize how visits are attributed. In the above example, you could list images.google.com before google.com and your organic search traffic would then be properly attributed.

You can also remove search engines from this list, which means that traffic is reported under Referral Traffic instead of Organic.

2. Session and Campaign Timeout

By default, sessions end after 30 minutes and campaigns end after 6 months. With this Universal Analytics feature, you can alter the settings to suit your business and promotions.

For example, if your site content demands user attention for longer than 30 minutes (such as an online training site) then you want to set the Session Timeout to be greater than 30 minutes. Session timeout ranges from minimum 1 minute to maximum 4 hours.

With Campaign Timeouts, change the settings to match the campaign period. For example, if you're running a quick contest via social media with a one-page microsite, you may want the campaign timeout to be a few days vs. 6 months. Campaign timeout cannot exceed 2 years.

3. Referral Exclusions

Is your own domain listed in Referral Traffic? If yes, this feature omits your site as a referring source. A common use case is when you use a third-party shopping cart and don't want customers being counted as a new session or referral when they return to the main site after order confirmation or checking out.

4. Search Term Exclusions

You can exclude specific search terms from your analytics reports. For example, if you want to exclude branded terms, like your company name or domain, then this feature excludes the term from the keyword queries report and shows it as direct traffic instead.

5. Mobile App Analytics

Mobile App Analytics captures mobile app-specific usage data and integrates it with your Google Analytics account. App performance metrics include:

• Number of installations
• Devices and networks used to access app
• Geographic location and languages spoken by visitors
• In-app purchase totals
• Customized tracking of special content, like video
• Number of screens seen per visit, and visitor flow (or order) through these screens

6. Custom Dimensions & Metrics

When creating custom reports, you select from a pre-defined list of dimensions and metrics. In Universal Analytics you can set custom dimensions—hit, session, visitor level—and custom metrics—integer, currency or time.

7. Multi-Platform Tracking

Most exciting for retailers with online and bricks-and-mortar sales, Universal Analytics lets you track the same user, for example, on a work computer, mobile device, home computer, or RFD key (swipe card/loyalty card). By consolidating various login IDs, as well as customer loyalty cards, Universal Analytics can track offline and online purchase behaviour. Again, very exciting for retailers. Other applications? How about display booths at conventions and the fancy nametag swipe readers that add attendees to a mailing list or enter them into a contest? That data can be aggregated, made anonymous and correlated to online conversions in Universal Analytics.

Cool changes to Analytics are coming. 

The study highlights the online challenges and opportunities faced by Canadian companies, from SMBs to large enterprises. It includes insights from 69 eCommerce Managers on issues like online marketing priorities, training of eCommerce staff, and preferences in employees' skills/ educational background. 

This survey was undertaken by Axel Kuhn and John Foreman, both University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (SCS) instructors, with the goal of helping Canadian businesses better compete in an increasingly competitive online environment.

The SlideShare is embedded below and details can be found at: http://ebusinessconsultants.ca/2013/04/2013-ebusiness-canada-survey-report/

Download the PDF report here.

In broad strokes, the study explored critical elements of the eBusiness manager’s role, including:

• Roles and Responsibilities
• Skill Development and Career Paths
• The eBusiness Team
• eBusiness Drivers and Priorities
• Challenges and Opportunities

The results don't surprise me. 

Internal development (75%) and direct hiring (67%) are the most common techniques used to bring the required eBusiness skills onboard, which suggests a corporate interest in building the eCommerce side of the business. Yet the 1:1 interviews suggest a different story.

"Although I have full control of my eCommerce group, I'm quite constrained by corporate strategy. The traditional 'bricks' part of the business still determines the overall business strategy. They set my budgets."

Or, my favourite, "the challenge I have is getting them (corporate management) to buy into the online opportunities. Make the needed investments. Unfortunately we're typically Canadian. We don't like risk."

When online marketing is treated as a "have to" vs. a "want to" it means that Canadian businesses will continue to lag behind the US. If you don't want to address online as a rapidly growing segment of your business, with needs and wants independent of the bricks-and-mortar side of the business, then the management conditions for eCommerce success don't exist because there's limited innovation in the business model—especially in terms of pricing and product delivery (Canada is big, we know, deal with it), opportunities are missed because customer relationship management and data analytics aren't a top priority and high-performing team members seek employment opportunities elsewhere. 

I'm looking forward to how the UofT program develops and whether Canadian businesses will turn the survey findings into actionable insights.

Above are the slides for my recent webinar for eBOUND Canada members on Google Analytics for Publishers. In the presentation, I reference a number of resources that are availabe on the Boxcar Marketing blog so I thought it would be helpful to compile them here. 

1. Getting Started (or making sure you're on your way, the right way)

a. Start with the slides above and this companion blog post on Google Analytics for Publishers

b. I always like telling people to think like a pirate when it comes to ABC Metrics and understanding the customer lifecycle. Here's the background on that.

c. If you're new to Google Analytics or implementing it on a new website, follow my Google Analytics Setup Checklist. If you have analytics already installed, it's still good to review the checklist and update or modify any settings that are out of date.

d. This 1-Minute Tip on setting multiple profiles is worth watching because I highly recommend you have a Raw Data profile before you start implementing goals or filters on your data set. Filters, in particular, change the data permanently.

.

2. Get to Know Your Audience

a. Advance Segments let you parse the data to answer questions like how do mobile visitors perform on the site compared to desktop visitors. Additional custom segments can be added, which are handy for tracking marketing campaigns or understanding visitor behaviour. See the video tip below and the link to my blog post on it.

b. Blog post: Using Advance Audience Segments

3. Conversion Tracking

a. Blog post: How to Set up Goal Tracking

b. Make sure you assign a Goal Value. Watch the 1-Minute Marketing Tip on this. 

c. Events can be set as Goals too. First step is setting up the event. Second is assigning the event as a goal. Here's a blog post on How to Set up Event Tracking.

4. Ecommerce 

a. Multi-channel conversions explained

5. Reporting Options

Custom Reports

a. Blog post: How to Set up Your Own Custom Reports

b. Shortcut: Use my custom report for Site Performance. You'll have to update the goal columns to match your goals. Just click on the link and you'll be prompted to select your Analytics profile. Then the report will be available in your account under the Custom tab. 

c. Video tip on setting up custom reports

Dashboards

d. See the below video tip for how to set up your own Dashboard. 

e. Or use my Publishers KPI Dashboard template. Click on the link and follow the prompts to add this dashboard to your Google Analytics account. You'll have to click the edit icon on some of the widgets and update to your own site goals or metrics.

Have Questions?

Use the Talk to Us About Your Project form, Contact Us or post your question in the comments.

With that musing in mind, and knowing that things are busy at this time of year, here is round up of articles you might have missed: 

5 Tips for Working with Graphic Designers

Jessie Ford's article on how to best work with a graphic designer is a great checklist for marketers and anyone hiring or working with designers. My favourite point is to avoid instructions like "make it pop" or "surprise me."

5 Blog Redesign Mistakes That Kill SEO

Last year I wrote this post for WordStream: A Steady Stream of Search Marketing Smarts and several clients have recently asked SEO questions related to blog re-designs or website re-designs in general. So, I point you in the direction of this article.

7 Lessons from the World's Most Captivating Presenters

Usually these types of articles are written just to get links and shares on social media, but this one is actually quite a good round-up of presentation tactics. No. 1 is to start with paper not powerpoint in order to figure out the story you are trying to tell first before getting into the technology and being distracted formatting bullet points.

2013 Technorati Digital Influence Report (PDF)

Two key findings in this year's report are that Social Scoring is losing traction (as in brands are less concerned with follower numbers when seeking influencers) and blogs are still the way to reach influencers and their communities (i.e., blogger outreach vs. a brand's own social media page is a greater influencer of purchase decisions).

1-Minute Marketing Tip on Creating Facebook Targeted Ad Campaigns

In case you missed this tip from Mar 5, here's the summary: Facebook ads offer great opportunities to highly target specific audience groups. But that means your audience is could be seeing your same ad over and over again. This tip offers a suggestion for how to keep people's interest and increase engagement.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

When it comes to core strategies for online marketing, many people get distracted by the new growth—apps like Vine or the next big thing, perhaps it's Google Glass? But if we focus on the old roots, the deep roots, of online marketing, then even more new growth is possible.

3 Overlooked "Old Roots" of Online Marketing

1. Email

Email is the most underappreciated marketing channel, I suspect because it's an old diehard. Nothing kills email, look at the volume of it in your inbox! But don't disparage marketing emails. The key is to focus on increasing the size of your list to account for natural attrition of that list. Next start correlating subscribers to user logins or memberships or online orders to understand more about your customers buying behaviours and demographics. Start creating audience segments and building campaigns to target each segment.

Focus on email first. The caveat is that if the email is sending people to an outdated, non-converting site or one that's not mobile optimized, then focus on the website first, then email marketing.

A subscriber equals someone who is saying "please keep me in the loop about your products and services." Your job is to make that information valuable, timely and exclusive to this willing audience.

Watch Monique's 1-Minute Email Marketing Tips.

2. Video

Consider product videos, even service videos.

For example, EPH Apparel provides custom suits made to spec. They use video in the online ordering process to help customers understand how to do each measurement correctly. The videos are a reassurance of accuracy. https://ephapparel.com/

Boxcar Marketing friend and colleague Alexandre Brabant uses video on the home page of his Search Marketing website in order to introduce himself to potential clients and to explain his process. His video is about likability. You are hiring him and the video provides a short introduction. http://www.emarketing101.ca/

3. Facebook Ads

Ah the network I love to hate. Regardless Facebook provides great targetting options because of the member data people readily provide in their profiles. For example, a children's book publisher could target Kobo users who are parents of 0-3 year olds and who live in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. No other wildly popular social network offers advertising options that are that specific.

The thing to remember with Facebook ads and targeting is that you need to generate a lot of creative because this audience is going to otherwise repeatedly see the same ad. Change it up!

In summary, email is boring, video is hard and Facebook is ... I have nothing polite to insert here. BUT these three online marketing options should integrate well with any business' core marketing strategies and offer a lot of depth.

Did you know 75% of customers prefer a mobile-friendly site?* Does your business have one? If not—or if you’re not sure—today's guest post from Todd Sieling of Denim & Steel can help you understand some of the aspects to consider when going mobile. *Source: Google, July 2012

Taking your website to mobile compatibility can be daunting. Mobile devices are continually changing, while people's expectations for websites evolve as they get used to working with the web in more contexts.

That uncertainty pushes many into thinking that they need the most robust technology they can get. At Denim & Steel we know that the biggest size doesn't fit all, so we start by setting technology decisions aside, and do some research instead.

We start by looking at analytics, the statistics about website visits that, among other things, tell us how many people look at a website with a mobile device, and the characteristics of those devices. That knowledge informs us about the device capabilities in play, and what pages people try to get to on those devices. But analytics are only half the story.

We also get insight into what people want from a website when they're using a mobile device. Using surveys and personal interviews, we learn the places and situations people are in when they visit the site, and what they have in mind. This helps us understand what content is most important in mobile contexts, and the range of intentions we need to design for.

Next we look at the current state of the website to be updated. The reality is that some sites need only a few updates to account for most mobile devices and many situations, while others need an extensive overhaul that can deliver other benefits, but also requires much more effort and cost. This is also a good time to talk about the visual design of the current site, and whether there is room and desire to make some updates. If you're happy with how the site looks, that look can usually be translated into a mobile design that lines up nicely. If things are feeling a bit stale, the mobile view makes a good space to try out some new ideas and eventually roll them back into the main site, so that your look is evolving and not undergoing a major renovation. Knowing how people are trying to use your site on mobile devices, and what they're looking to accomplish, we can assess against the current technology and let clients know their range of options.

When its time to make changes, we often recommend working in sprints. Instead of embarking on a big, monolithic project, we look at what can be done in a shorter burst of time, say two weeks. We set goals we can meet in that time, and the constraints make priorities easier to decide and outs results within faster reach. Those results often go live at the end of the sprint, meaning customers start to see changes earlier. After the sprint, we review results and plan next steps, maybe with bigger goals, maybe smaller. This approach controls costs for clients, keeps priorities in view and results within a shorter reach of time. If we get to good enough, the client can park development until its time to make the next move.

Approaching mobile for us is different for every client, but has those three critical steps of research to understand the site and what people want from it, assessment of technology, and then working in bursts to deliver results incrementally so that risks are controlled and results happen quicker.

Guest Post by Todd Sieling of Denim & Steel. Denim & Steel provides invention for hire services that help people turn ideas into interesting and engaging products. From ideation and strategy through branding and interactive design all the way to coding and delivery, we find novel and trustworthy ways to put technology to work to make life better in sustainable ways. Learn more about Denim & Steel Services.

Photo Credit: sparktography via Compfight cc

Crissy has been a valuable part of the Boxcar Marketing team for 3 1/2 years so she will be sorely missed but we certainly wish her well in the new role. Crissy managed our day-to-day office operations with grace and was a reliable, smart and capable project manager. On behalf of Boxcar Marketing and the clients Crissy worked with, congratulations and we hope to cross paths again soon!

Stay in touch with Crissy via LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/crissycampbell

1. Post effective content to Facebook Pages: Max 3 lines of text (100-250 characters), posted 5x per week at optimal hours for your fans, likely during morning and evening commute and post-dinner web browsing times. 
2. Be relevant and compelling: Post unique content to Facebook vs. sharing the same info across multiple social media profiles simultaneously. Reward Facebook fans with special offers, exclusive content and early access to info. 
3. Make a visual impact: Mix in images with your updates so not every post is only text. According to Facebook's stats, posts with photos or videos have 180% more engagement than the average post. 

Source: Corp.Wishpond.com