eMarketing Thoughts: 1. Show Me the Results

We aim to write four more articles this week to expand our views on eMarketing; the use of widgets, digital inspection copies, catalogues and the creation and management of context and content.

Marketing holds the biggest digital prize for the book industry in these changing times. Some have long argued that Context is more valuable than Content. In the late 90’s we were responsible for the highly acclaimed publishing research programme ‘Publishing in the 21st Century’ and some would suggest that our most significant report that we published was ‘N to X : From Content to Context’.

Today’s task is not finding digital content but finding good or the right digital content. Its about finding the digital needle in the digital haystack. We have many sources of information, many degrees of detail, many different ways to look for and value content and content itself is no longer a single format.

We are moving away from the advertising budget being spent on full page spreads in the trade press to viral and direct marketing, from scattering seeds in the wind to running campaigns where every hit, click and resolution can be tracked and the marketing department held accountable for spend! We know can find out not only what we know but potentially what we don’t know.

In yesterday’s world we produced glossy printed catalogues and posted them to anyone standing. Yet we had no idea who read what page or even opened them. Did they themselves provide all the information needed to make a decision or merely opened the door? We distributed advance information sheets which fell somewhere between a flysheet and a genuine information sheet and often ended up being filed with the waste paper. We spent money advertising to the channel to get the book on the shelf and had little left to promote the book to the public. The trade magazines were happy to take the money for the full page colour advert but did it deliver, give demonstrable results, or merely spend the money?

As we move it the digital eMarketing world we are not obviating traditional spend but supplementing it with more auditable and accountable campaigns that can even be integrated into the whole process and help join the dots from Author to Reader.

Supply Chain Thoughts Part 2

How many books are given away as review, gratis, or inspection copies? In the academic world, inspection copies can often account for a double digit percentage volume of the initial print run. Someone said to us recently that the practice of passing around review copies like confetti had long stopped. We merely asked them to swivel round in their chair and describe what was on their shelves – free books. Of course you can’t sell anything if you don’t promote it and show a sample of it, but all too often, the giving is still easier than the monitoring.

Then we have the catalogues, flyers and advance information sheets. Digital marketing has certainly cut down the realms of glossy paper circulated in hope. However, given today’s technology and tightening credit squeeze, which comes first the physical flyer and catalogue or the digital one?

Digital marketing ensures that the control of the asset remains at the source, that the latest material and its consistency is guaranteed and interestingly you know what was read, when, in the case of direct marketing by whom and importantly what wasn’t read or even opened.

The ability to drive both bibliographic and marketing from digital content today is very real. There is no reason why the digital widget should be restricted to today’s ‘look inside’ only functionality. Widgets should be containers that are capable of distributing the richest information on demand; related tiles, web links, podcasts, videos, authors notes, reviews , advanced metadata, whatever. The question of then embedding widgets within widgets and creating digital catalogues is just a natural step.

We suggest that this perspective of digital marketing and metadata distribution changes not only what is distributed and working practices, but how it is created and aligned to digital content.

Google's Digital Book Jigsaw

First we had Amazon’s Search Inside, then the explosion of widgets in every shape, colour and format. Now we have the mobile phone application. Being able to search discover and qualify, or ‘browse before you buy’ is clearly here. So where is it going and who are the potential winners and the also ran’s? As with any venture, who pays and what is the return on the investment? Finally, are we now seeing the blurring of digital content and digital context (the metadata that helps you qualify and value content)?

Google has announced an Android search tool called the Barcode Scanner that recognises through the phone’s camera a book's barcode. According to Jeff Breidenbach, Engineer, Google Book Search, "it will automatically zoom, focus and scan the ISBN - without you even needing to click the shutter...You'll then have the option to search the full text of the book on Google Book Search right away"

There are limitations on the bar codes being post the mid 90s and of course the books being in Google Book Search. But then what? Some would argue that you already have the book in your hand so why do you need Book Search? Others may point out that the next question is that of price and availability and although you may have it in your hand would you transfer the sale to someone else if it where cheaper and delivered to your home? Some say that it provides additional digital services to explore external links, reviews, and perform keyword searches.

The arguments are immaterial, what is important is that the technology to link a mobile camera application, a bar code and Google Book Search is now a given. Why Google developed it and what they intend to do with it is subjective, the fact is they have.

Will there now be an iPhone, Blackberry or Symbian follower and will they link to Google or some other repository? It’s almost certain. Is it an application for librarys, retailers or consumers, remains unclear. The questions to ask are what can be achieved through this mobile linkage, where is the value and its potential within the Google world.

Publishers Weekly report that Borders has also stepped into the Google contexural world and have enabled Google Preview on their site. Borders joins Books-A-Million and the Blackwell Bookshop in using the service. The enhanced version of the Preview software enables the retailer to offer Google Preview to books they stock and that are within Google whilst effectively locking them into the retailer’s site. The interesting aside is that the majority of retailers promote non stocked inventory, so this feature could potentially obviate the publisher’s own widgets and also those supplied by others such as wholesalers.

If we step back and look at the various pieces of the Google Book World jigsaw we see many that could easy fit together and offer not just a solution that covers digital content but digital context and digital rights. Interesting times!

What’s in Your Widget?

We have seen the emergence of the mighty widget - the ‘live’ jacket that with a single click, opens up the book for the buyer to briefly evaluate and qualify for purchase. Whether its called Search Inside, Browse Inside, View Inside, Look Inside, they all work fundamentally the same and offer that enriched customer experience. They bring much of that bookstore ‘touch, smell and feel’ to the online world.

Today’s widgets offer limited pages views, text search, linking, table of contents, customisable ‘buy now’ resolution and the ability to copy and distribute the widget. So is that the end of the story or the beginning of a new one?

Today we can see the availability of more supplemental information that could be used by retailers, librarians, consumers etc. So can the widget be extended from being content into a container that holds content, context and even rights? Imagine clicking on a jacket and having the option to hear the author via a podcast or see them via a video, read authoritative review, link to other titles. The interesting thing again is that widgets may be dispersed to the four corners of the Internet but they are rendered dynamically from a single source. That model enables the publisher to update information as it changes and maintain its currency over its life cycle.

Imagine a world where all we pass between us is a widget, a jacket image, a persistent resolvable URL. It makes you think about the waste, the duplication and the lack of consistency that happens today.