Digital Marketing Is Marketing

Digital publishing is not just about pouring the physical book into a digital container, or even about redesigning the content so it digitally stands on its heads, does a twirl and explodes in a sea of multi media. It is about revisiting everything from its creation and acquisition to its death, which in digital, could mean eternity. One of the latest areas to raise the noise levels within the market, is concerning how to market in the digital age. This is not just about marketing digital works, but all works be they physical, digital or hybrid. Here again the various sectors and genre are diverging often in different directions and at different speeds and what is clear today is that there is not one shoe that will fit all.

Today, the haystack of available works is getting bigger by the day. Not only do we have the book in print, but conceivably every book ever published and every aspiring work now being published directly by anyone wishing to express themselves. How do we find that needle in this haystack? How do we validate it? How do we value it?

Marketing a book in a mass market environment was often down to throwing money at the wall and hoping some sticks. Yes there was often some great marketing promotions and creative materials, but at the end of the day it often came down to that old retail adage, ‘if it ain’t on the shelf, you can’t sell it.’ The internet changed that and created the virtual shelf. Now the problem was not getting it onto the shelf, but making it visible on the shelf, getting it to the top of the pile and ensuring that it was suitably tagged to respond to searches. Customers also wanted to touch , feel and value inside the cover. Customers suddenly became known on the internet and their habits and likes were trackable, making direct marketing and upselling feasible. However, the customers were owned by the retailers and the publishers were somewhat kept at arms length so remained blind and locked into a mass market. Now we have social marketing, which differs from mass and direct as it is viral and can have a life of its own. It allows everyone to be known. 

We now have three marketing tectonic plates colliding each with different drivers, audience focus and potential results today and tomorrow.

The point that readers are often very eclectic can’t be forgotten. Not only do they often read a wide range of material, but they often do so in a inconsistent manner. We often look for different material according the role we are playing at the time or the need we are seeking to satisfy. The teacher will look for, validate and value course material differently from theirown leisure reading – same person, different roles. The student will look for, validate and value the same course material differently – same material, different role and values. These different perspectives of need and value are what makes marketing difficult and the ‘one shoe’ approach often unrewarding to the one person that matters – the buyer.  

The latest buzz word is ‘discoverability’. It as if we believe that correctly tagging and referencing material will make it discoverable and therefore a success. Suddenly, many believe everything will become simpler through technology  As we all discovered, merely piling money into schemes such as  Adwords may have got us to the top of the pile but didn’t guarantee a sale. Getting ‘liked’ in Facebook may give us a recommendation, but actually says little other that it was like for some reason. A Twitter recommendation is limited by its characters and often is like scattering gains into the wind. A lot of the social networking marketing appears to be more about ‘mass recognition’ than mass validation. Perhaps that is the answer, if we can get enough people to say they like it we all believe it has real value?

It would appear that the bottomline is that there is no right or wrong way to market a work. Like all marketing it is about understanding your audience, how to reach that audience, how to ‘connect’ with that audience, how you measure performance and ultimately where the money is today.  The challenge is how do you organise yourself to do this allowing the core to remain whilst experimenting and measuring the different approaches?

Bookish It May Be, But Is It Wise Dotcom?

In this new age of social networking we are constantly being reminded that books have always been shared, discussed and can provide a social hook. Because of this social aspect of books we all search to find that social platform and a big opportunity to join the dots and engage authors, readers, booksellers, reviewers, editors and anyone with something to say about books.

Many have tried and todate and it is fair to say none have succeeded. Amazon was first with their reviewer comments, Publisher’s have launched genre and author platforms, author signings have threatened to go virtual, those ‘like it’ thumbs up links now litter sites, in the UK Book Rabbit came up and went back down its hole and we have the social book site Copia, meandered around and wondering what it wants to be, the list goes on.

We now read that ‘Bookish’ is going to be the next big thing and will be where readers go to find their next book. Bookish believes that with the help of AOL and book publishers like Penguin, Simon & Schuster and the Hachette Book Group its going to change the social book network. According to their CEO Peter Lemgruber, ‘Nobody is more intimately familiar with the multitude of elements that make a book appealing than its publisher.’

Ten years ago the endorsement of AOL would have counted, but today AOL stands like Microsoft wondering what happened at their party and why all the guests appear to be leaving. As for publisher being the judge of book appeal, Lemgriber obviously doesn’t appreciate the gambling element of publishing and the fact that publishers publish books and retail sells them.

The mystery as to what will work and what will merely create noise and fail is as complex as the book market that they are trying to engage. Many readers can see through the ‘cluster bombing’ of marketing spend and inventory to make a best seller, celebrities still work but often can’t engage through their text and importantly people’s reading habits are often very eclectic and hard to pigeon hole.

Some say that reading others views really helps. However, this may be like reading comments about a hotel on a travel web site, a video clip on YouTube etc - it all helps qualify but are often not necessarily always trusted, have anything to say, or are authoritative.

Heavy readers probably already have their sources to help them select their next read. Perhaps those who read less often will never feel the urge to invest the time to engage in a ‘bookish’ place until their reading habit grows to need it.

Perhaps the challenge remains to get more people to read and read more.

Facebook Leaps Forth

At a time when all marketing eyes are either watching the move by the search engines into traditional advertising space or experimenting with social networks comes the latest figures on the later’s performance. It appears that not just the Labour party’s hopeful Deputy Leaders are using this channel.

According to a Hitwise report, MySpace still accounts for roughly 79% of social networking traffic. However, since the September 2006, Facebook has experienced a traffic increase of 106%! We must however note that they opened up their collegiate service in this time to all Internet users, so the increase may just be a blip.

Year over year growth is signioficant with Facebook 126% traffic increase and Bebo.com 184%. Again these figures look astounding but must be viewed in terms of their positions as relative new startups. The I nteresting insight is that MySpace accounts for roughly 24% of the traffic that hits sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Imeem. So social networkers are not satisfied with using only one platform and users appear to join all the new spaces as a way to meet even more people.

The message to online marketers is that the sector is growing and that there appears to be a clear need for users to maximise their reach to their ‘friends’. It will be interestingtoi see if this is that same with respect to other growing site Second Life.