Marketing and Publicity for Books and Brands (PART ONE)

Imagine that you are the head of the marketing department of a publishing house (reporting to the president of a major division) and your current department is organized around a traditional publishing model and long-standing customer base. You see the shift in reader tastes and new trends in consumer behavior. Your publishing house will release new books that are sure to appeal to a wider range of new readers. As part of the conversion, you will need to utilize additional resources and tools to identify new readers, generate new copy and keywords, market and advertise to the audience, and engage with them.

Prepare a memo to your team (no more than 2 pages), identifying how you propose to transition your department organizationally and functionally, to focus on this new customer segment. Your memo must include a list of 3 titles targeting the market, goals, timetable, process outline (specifically how you would engage a new audience to drive awareness and sales of the new titles), resource allocation (anticipated investments/savings, simple P&L projections), as well as your supporting rationale and metrics you will employ to gauge success. Be specific with how you intend to execute change.

Prepare a brief (5-minute) overview of your proposal that can be shared and discussed at your next department meeting (PowerPoint or some form of visuals are always helpful). Presentations should be summarized versions of your memo and should NOT exceed five minutes.

Ad Copy

The words in your advertising messages to customers. Ad copy can be the headline of a display ad, the subject line of a marketing email, the call to action (CTA) of a Facebook ad, or the script of a video or TV spot. Ad copy is distinguished from ad design elements such as photography and illustration, although copy and design should always work together as a whole.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Ad Network

A service that offers online ad space for sale to advertisers. This space can represent inventory from hundreds and thousands of websites. A general rule is that some inventory is more valuable than others, so it costs advertisers more. Think of buying a TV ad placement during “the big game” versus during a mop infomercial at 3 am. Depending on the ad network, the payment structure may be based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), or cost per acquisition (CPA).
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Analytics

What I sometimes refer to as the “eyes” of inbound marketing, analytics is essentially the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data. When referred to in the context of marketing, it’s looking at the data of one’s initiatives, analyzing the trends, and developing actionable insights to make better informed marketing decisions. Hubspot: The Ultimate Dictionary of Marketing Terms You Should Know

Ad Copy

The words in your advertising messages to customers. Ad copy can be the headline of a display ad, the subject line of a marketing email, the call to action (CTA) of a Facebook ad, or the script of a video or TV spot. Ad copy is distinguished from ad design elements such as photography and illustration, although copy and design should always work together as a whole
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Ad Network

A service that offers online ad space for sale to advertisers. This space can represent inventory from hundreds and thousands of websites. A general rule is that some inventory is more valuable than others, so it costs advertisers more. Think of buying a TV ad placement during “the big game” versus during a mop infomercial at 3 am. Depending on the ad network, the payment structure may be based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), or cost per acquisition (CPA).
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Audience Buying

Using anonymized aggregated data to inform their decision-making, marketers can deliver relevant advertising directly to custom audience segments like “new parents” or “in-market car shoppers,” wherever and whenever they are watching.
The bottom-line impact: By thinking beyond traditional demos, and opening up buying to all audiences, marketers can better engage their most likely current — and future — customers and unlock access to consumers 
MediaPost

Advertising Budget

The money a company puts toward promoting its products and services to its target audiences. An advertising budget typically spans the cost of paid media, photography, printing, mailing, and the support of advertising professionals. Some businesses set their advertising budget based on a percentage of sales. Whatever your method, keep your return on investment (ROI) in mind. Any vendor should be able to give you a clear idea of what you should expect in return for the expense.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Affiliate Marketing

Marketing based on a relationship between an online advertiser and website publishers where the advertiser pays for leads or revenue that comes from the publishers’ sites. It’s a form of value sharing or commission sharing. Partnering with affiliates extends your advertising reach and increases your relevance with target audiences for a limited investment. You only “pay for performance.” Bloggers can make great affiliates.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Audience Segmentation

A marketing strategy based on identifying subgroups within the target audience in order to deliver more tailored messaging for stronger connections. The subgroups can be based on demographics such as geographic location, gender identity, age, ethnicity, income, or level of formal education. Subgroups can also be based on behavior such as purchases made in the past. Psychographics come into play when you have access to insights about your audience’s values, attitudes, and beliefs.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Author Track

Sales of the author’s previous books. Retailers consider how well the previous books performed when considering the next book by the author. A strong performing previous book could result in strong placement at retail, whereas a poor performance on the previous book could result in a retailer not taking the next book.

Brand

The experience a customer has with a product or service that makes it different from others in the same category. More than just a name, a brand is where features, benefits, and customer perceptions meet. Successful brands have a unique identity, image, and emotional connection with their customers. It’s why we choose a brand over another every day. When thinking about book publishing, the publisher is a brand, its imprints are each brands, and the book or series can be considered a brand, and the author can be considered a brand.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Call to Action (CTA)

What you want your target audience to do after receiving your marketing message. The call to action (CTA) clearly articulates the next step: learn more, contact us, shop now, follow us, sign up. A/B testing offers a great opportunity to experiment with different calls to action and optimize your messages with the CTAs that get the best audience response.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategy that businesses use to attract, engage, and retain customers by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell. 

Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Content Management System (CMS)

A web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users with content editing and more "behind-the-scenes" work like making content searchable and indexable, automatically generating navigation elements, keeping track of users and permissions, and more.Hubspot: The Ultimate Dictionary of Marketing Terms You Should Know

Conversion Rate

The percentage of user actions taken after total clicks on a display ad or other digital asset. Your marketing strategy defines your actions, which commonly include clicking on a second link, downloading an asset such as a B2B (business-to-business) white paper, or signing up to receive special retail offers. The formula is: clicks / actions = conversion rate. The higher your conversion, the more successful your campaign.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost Per Click (CPC)

A fee that a website publisher charges to serve your display ads on its site. Instead of paying for your ads to simply show up, you only pay when the audience interacts with them. Google is a major publisher of cost-per-click (CPC) ads, and it contracts with other publishers to distribute them to other sites, too.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Cost Per Thousand (CPM)

Cost per thousand impressions of an online ad. When an ad is served to a user, it’s counted as an impression. If an ad network charges you $1,000 for delivering 1 million impressions, your CPM is $1. A CPM model can be a good strategy if your campaign goal is to raise awareness of your brand. If your campaign goal is to increase user interaction with your brand or prompt users to take a specific action such as signing up for a loyalty program, a cost-per-click (CPC) model may be a better choice.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The practice of customer relationship management (CRM). The goals of CRM are to retain current customers, increase their spending, and convert prospects into new customers. CRM technology is used to manage information such as a summary of each consumer interaction, indicators of intent to purchase, and purchase history. Analytics are also used to provide real-time insight into cross-sell and upsell opportunities at the individual customer level. A database of email newsletter subscribers is an example of a very simple CRM tool, especially when a publisher sells their products directly to consumers. 
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Customer Data Platform (CDP)

A customer data platform (CDP) is a central location for customer data from a variety of sources. It aggregates and organizes that data to create a single customer profile that can be used to optimize marketing and customer experience initiatives. This may include data from the company’s website, email service providers, and social media channels.
Mailchimp Marketing Glossary

Data-Driven Marketing

Data-driven marketing is the use of data acquired through customer interactions and third parties to gain insight on customer motivations, preferences and behaviors. Data-driven insights enable organizations to enhance and personalize the customer experience.
Gartner

Earned Media

Earned media describes the attention you receive from sources that you do not control. This includes websites, review sites, media outlets, and blogs mentioning your brand. While these mentions are valuable for readers to discover, word-of-mouth mentions from friends or acquaintances can sometimes be more beneficial when trying to convert a consumer into a customer.
Earned media happens when a third-party endorses your brand.
Meltwater

Earned media, or earned content, is any material written about you or your business that you haven't paid for or created yourself. Although this type of media is always published by a third party, there are ways marketers can position themselves for earned media opportunities.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-earned-media-faqs

Editorial Calendar

It's like a road map for content creation, showing you what kind of content to create, what topics to cover, which personas to target, and how often to publish to best support your strategy. Maintaining an editorial calendar will keep you more organized and show you any gaps you may have in your content library. It also helps ensure you're doing the right things for your personas and not going way off-track with the topics you're covering.
Hubspot: The Ultimate Dictionary of Marketing Terms You Should Know

Engagement Rate

A popular social media metric used to describe the amount of interaction— -- lLikes, shares, comments— -- a piece of content or a digital ad receives. Interactions like these tell you that how well your messages are resonating with your fans and followers. 
Hubspot: The Ultimate Dictionary of Marketing Terms You Should Know

Google Analytics

• AdAge https://adage.com/section/marketing

• Content Marketing Institute https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/

• SmartBrief https://www.smartbrief.com/industry/marketing-advertising

• Marketing Sherpa https://www.marketingsherpa.com/

• Neil Patel https://neilpatel.com/

• Seth Godin https://www.sethgodin.com/

• Pamela Vaughan https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/author/pamela-vaughan

• Gary Vaynerchuk https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Tools

• Google Analytics https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

• Google Ads https://ads.google.com/home/#!/

• SEMrush https://www.semrush.com/

• Cision https://www.cision.com/

• MailChimp https://mailchimp.com/

• Constant Contact https://www.constantcontact.com/

• Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/

• Google Surveys https://surveys.google.com/warm-welcome?dest=%2Fyour-surveys

• Facebook Ads Manager https://www.facebook.com/business/tools/ads-manager

• Facebook Ads Pixel https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-pixel

• KISS Metrics https://www.kissmetrics.io/

• Moz https://moz.com/

• Canva https://www.canva.com/

• Creatopy https://www.creatopy.com/

Books

• Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller

• Conversion Optimization by Khalid Saleh & Ayat Shukairy

• Data Science for Business: What You Need to Know about Data Mining and Data-Analytic Thinking by Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett

• Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pullizzi

• Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads: On Strategic Marketing

• Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion Hardcover by Robert B. Cialdini PhD 

• Positioning by Al Ries & Jack Trout

• The Six Disciplines of Agile Marketing: Proven Practices for More Effective Marketing and Better Business Results by Jim Ewel

• Social Media: How to Engage, Share, and Connect by Regina Luttrell

• This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See by Seth Godin