First Marketing Meetup of 2020 Highlights Successful Marketing Strategies

The first American Booksellers Association Marketing Meetup of 2020 took place on Thursday, January 2, and consisted of an open conversation amongst bookseller attendees that focused on marketing ideas and strategies that did and didn’t work in the past year; marketing plans for the upcoming year; marketing meetup topics that stores benefited from over the past year; and what booksellers might like to see covered during meetups in 2020.

Here are some of the marketing strategies that worked for booksellers in 2019:

• Creating video “commercials” through Facebook Live, as well as participating in the #HarperCollinsLovesIndies Facebook Live program
• Being sillier and having more fun with social media posts
• Participating in social media takeovers with authors
• Creating a backlog of store stock photos that can be used in social media posts

Here are some of the marketing trends expected for 2020:

• SEO is expected to play a key role in organic search; of note, at ABA’s Winter Institute 15 in Baltimore, there will be a live Marketing Meetup on this topic
• Chat services like Facebook Messenger are expected to play a role in marketing
• Influencer marketing is expected to grow
• Pre-recorded and live video is expected to grow
• Visual marketing is expected to grow
• Marketing based on customer retention, rather than marketing based on seeking new customers

ABA offers two opportunities for live online education: a twice-monthly Marketing Meetup and a monthly Technology Meetup. All member booksellers are invited to participate in these online discussions; subscribe to the mailing list here to receive invitations for the Technology Meetups, Marketing Meetups, or both.