With Book Printing field, similar with other industries, the marketing activities can be placed under the four general headings of what is known as the marketing mix, product, price, place, and promotion. For lead titles, marketers will prepare full marketing plans which assess the target market for the title and lay out strategies for reaching that market. The marketing department plays a full role in the development of new projects, from coming up with new ideas and commenting on editors proposals to market testing new projects during their development. Marketing will also be involved in commenting on the books cover design and whether it fits the needs of the perceived target market. Market research can inform decisions about new projects, covers and marketing ideas. There is a lot of cynicism around consumer research, but it is so important to talk to your customers and find out what will excite them. Magazines seem to have very interesting detailed data on who buys what, which competitions will work and so forth. Research into the book market can be commissioned from specialist organizations such as BML (Book Marketing Limited). Regular data on the sales of individual titles, their demand curves, and books by category is available from Nielsen Book Scan. Sales rankings on Amazon are a free alternative. Publishers of educational titles have less interest in consumer sales information, but when developing a new textbook they will certainly want to assess market trends in terms of student numbers in that subject, and evaluate the competition. They will also conduct primary research in schools, and major new textbooks will be concept tested using focus groups. An academic publisher may seek the views of librarians to a proposed online database of key texts and journal
|
