Booksellers Blog

Have you thought about your marketing for Holiday 2009 yet? You’re probably finishing your fall buying about now, and getting ready to breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe you’re planning on enjoying the summer, handselling some beach-reads, and preparing for back to school. Not so fast. Now is the time to prepare for your holiday [...]

I’m still trying to condense my thoughts about BEA into a manageable post. However, I do want to highlight one of the best sessions at BEA. It was also the only BEA-organized (as opposed to ABA-organized) session that was targeted specifically to Independent Booksellers. In this video, Gary Vaynerchuk is talking to YOU. It is [...]

Chris Brogan has written a very clear post about the 5 steps in the continuum from getting a prospective customer’s attention through the purchase phase, and beyond. Awareness Attention Engagement Execution Extension These phases hold true both online and in the real world. Brogan’s post describes the five phases in some detail, and is an [...]

ROI. “Return on Investment.” It’s a phrase that comes up over and over again when reading about social media and online marketing initiatives. Everyone wants to know how to measure it. The truth is, it’s not always easy to measure. If you were an online-only retailer and your social media efforts were focused solely on [...]

I’m often surprised when people ask “what should I blog about?” and yet really, it’s a smart question. The answer would depend on what you want to accomplish. Use your goals to determine the primary content of your blog, and try to write your posts keeping those goals in mind. Blogging can make people feel [...]

Shop.org is a division of the National Retail Federation that acts as a trade organization for retailers interested in online and multi-channel retailing. Multichannel is a current marketing word for sales through both online and brick-and-mortar channels. As a result, many of the resources that Shop.org offers on its website should be of interest to [...]

In an earlier post, I wrote about the need to determine your goals before deciding on the tools to use to attain those goals.  When you read a newspaper article trumpeting that there are now 150 million members on Facebook, it’s easy to think “oh, my store has to be on Facebook!”  But that may [...]

I read a post this morning that floored me.  It was written by someone who is not in the book world, and only a small portion is about books. But it crystallizes one of the biggest problems facing independent bookstores right now. Sally McKenzie, a retail and e-commerce consultant, was browsing for books at Powell’s [...]

The first step in building or enhancing your online presence is to identify what you want to accomplish. What is the problem? What is your desired outcome? Many people equate this step to choosing the correct tool for the job. If you need to pound in a nail, you wouldn’t choose a screwdriver (unless you’re [...]

It’s 2009, and many people are making resolutions. Will you make a resolution to think about, plan, or start an online marketing strategy? Before you answer that, here are some things to know: Online marketing and Social Media are largely about building relationships. Just as in the “real world,” this takes time. You need patience. [...]