Marketing Proposal for Cover-to-Cover Bookstore
Cover-to-Cover Bookstore is celebrating its tenth year in New York City! Located in a busy part of Manhattan, the bookstore is home to avid readers, creative artists, coffee lovers, and remote workers who find a quiet spot on one of the five floors filled with nooks and crannies, books, paintings, and curiosities. The bookstore owner has requested proposals from local university students who would like an internship at the bookstore working with the Manhattan creative agency whose principal loves the store.
The owner realizes that they need to take a more strategic approach in marketing to ensure that the community knows the quality of its offerings is unmatched in the area. Some of the events the owner would like to prioritize for the marketing are artist paintins, new author release parties, and historic fiction readings with characters in costume. The bookstore is also increasing its Wi-Fi and technology offerings for remote workers and adding rooms that can be rented by digital nomads who would like to access a conference room, advanced technologies for client meetings, and shared workspaces.
Campaign Objective
The marketing campaign objective identified for this proposal is informative. The campaign theme will be “Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!” Stories of influencers in Manhattan that love the bookstore will be featured, including the policy leaders of New York City, celebrity authors and artists, and entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Each story will feature the influencer’s favorite book, art, and story about their experience with Cover-to-Cover Bookstore that will be published as a short story book to be given away at the open house.
Target Audience
The target audiences for the informative campaign are those who want to experience their stories at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore. The segmentation criteria for the target audience will be based on three main criteria as prioritized below.
- Influencers in Manhattan that love the bookstore and visit regularly
- Those who are passionate about independent bookstores and want to
“Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!”
- Those who work, live, and play in Manhattan, New York City The segmentation criteria focus on psychographics and geographics rather than demographics. Each village in Manhattan has its own groups of individuals that are diverse in a multitude of ways, which makes it nearly impossible to segment on age alone. The creative strategy will be adapted to address each of the target market segments.
Content Strategy
The “Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!” campaign will have three elements that will address each of the three segmentation priorities.
- First, the campaign will showcase influencers in Manhattan that love the bookstore and visit regularly. Marketing will feature photos of policy leaders of New York City, celebrity authors and artists, and entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Images and stories that share how influencers have enjoyed previous artist paint-ins, new author release parties, historic fiction readings, and remote workspaces will be featured. Each campaign element will be designed using period art that represents the specific genre or art time period they enjoy most.
- Second, the campaign will attract those who are passionate about independent bookstores and want to “Discover Your Story at Cover-toCover Bookstore!” This element of the campaign will be designed like a treasure map that lays out the various stories, bookcases, time period rooms, and newly designed themed workspaces and conference rooms. For example, one ad will be designed to showcase how the conference room can be used to host “high tea” for a creative client meeting.
- Third, the campaign will focus on providing directional hints to find the bookstore for those who work, live, and play in Manhattan, New York City. New Yorkers like directions from the Subway, village centers, and major parks, so the campaign will promote the new bookstore app that will provide directions to the store from wherever they are located. When an individual downloads the app and visits the store, they will receive a code for a free book and coffee.
The owner plans to hire a small, independent marketing boutique to design its campaign, pretest its content with each market segment, and post-test the content to measure the campaign effectiveness. The pretest will allow individuals to provide input into the ads and content, while the post-test will use unaided recall to determine if the defined market segments recall the ads and if they responded favorably.
Digital Marketing
The campaign will use digital marketing tools to address each of the marketing segments as shown below.
- Influencers in Manhattan that love the bookstore and visit regularly will receive content marketing and email marketing through the app and website. These individuals will learn about the app when they visit the store and will receive a free book and coffee the first time they download the app in-store. They will also receive mobile push alerts throughout the campaign, especially for the special events. The goal for this digital marketing segment will be customer satisfaction and stabilization of sales volume.
- Those who are passionate about independent bookstores and want to
“Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!” will receive contentbased digital marketing when they visit independent bookstore websites and social media. They can also review the “Readers’ Riot!” blog and online forum to learn about the bookstore. The goal for this digital marketing segment will be spreading of information and stimulation of demand.
- Those who work, live, and play in Manhattan, New York City will be able to receive email marketing if they have opted in to the city’s “Manhattan on the Move” event-based social media. This opt-in list has over one million active users! The goal for this digital marketing segment will be the spreading of information, stimulation of demand, and managing cost of customer acquisition.
Budget Approach
The “Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!” campaign will utilize an objective and task method of budgeting in phases as prioritized below.
- Influencers in Manhattan that love the bookstore and visit regularly will be allocated approximately 50% of the total marketing campaign budget. Since the goal for this digital marketing segment will be customer satisfaction and stabilization of sales volume, the bookstore will work to achieve an 80% customer satisfaction level with the campaign and an additional $100,000 in sales from existing customers for the first month of the campaign when events begin.
- Those who are passionate about independent bookstores and want to
“Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!” will be allocated approximately 35% of the total marketing campaign budget. Since the goal for this digital marketing segment will be spreading of information and stimulation of demand, the bookstore will work to achieve a 50% level of unaided recall from those who are active users on the “Readers’ Riot” blog and New York Metro Area Independent Booksellers website and $50 in sales per new customer from these media sources in the first month of the campaign when events begin.
- Those who work, live, and play in Manhattan, New York City will be allocated approximately 15% of the total marketing campaign budget. Since the goal for this digital marketing segment will be spreading of information, stimulation of demand, and managing cost of customer acquisition, the bookstore will work to achieve a 25% level of unaided recall from those who are first-time visitors and $25 in sales per new customer from this media source in the first month of the campaign when events begin.
The objective and task budget approach will be critical to Cover-to-Cover Bookstore to achieve its reach and frequency goals. The bookstore will host weekly events in the first month of the campaign, and staff will be providing QR codes at each event that link to a digital survey that asks individuals to provide their personal information, how they heard about the event, and offers them a special gift for their submission. This will allow the bookstore to track event attendance, document specific information about media use and customer acquisition, and establish a long-term relationship with each individual.
The owner of Cover-to-Cover Bookstore will continue to work with the creative boutique agency for six months and then evaluate its budget concerning reach and frequency. A nice benefit to the partnership is that the agency principal will set up an office in the bookstore to ensure that the owner implements new customer relationship management software that supports all the data collection, marketing analytics, and ongoing brand building that the owner would like to achieve. The agency principal will be the first influencer featured in “Discover Your Story at Cover-to-Cover Bookstore!”