Is Book Of The Month Worth It??
Book of the Month (BOTM) subscription service captured many millennial readers, including myself. Growing up holding the actual book and not reading it on the phone, I longed for the day I could do that again. BOM targeted millennial females, those that are used to buying subscription boxes and shopping online. Each month the service offers books from emerging and mainstay fiction writers.
These days, subscription services are popular, especially to the millennial crowd. Today, BOTM is owned by John Lippman, who re-launched the company in 2015, transformed from the 93-year old Book of the Month Club. When Lippman purchased and remodeled their marketing strategy, he described his approach completely opposite of Amazon’s. He didn’t want to be a place where they can serve any one reader, rather be specific and target specific demographic: millennial women. He also doesn’t want to be a service of only best sellers. The service is focused on emerging authors.
Having a very specific audience allows BOTM to target primarily women in their 20s and 30s. Paired with the age demographic, the target market also loves reading paper copy books. BOTM’s current customer base is about 100,000 with consumers purchasing six or more hardcover books. Their target market is someone that orders cosmetics or food from a subscription service. This subscription service is web-based and social orientated.
Knowing their target market is very visually orientated I would focus on social media platforms where photos make a difference: Instagram and Pinterest. Currently BOTM has 1.1M instagram followers and 78k monthly Pinterest viewers. Each month, BOTM releases a small selection of books. I would post images of the book covers, attracting customers’ eyes. I would also consider cross markets of book lovers and what other topics they might like. Book lovers also engage with wizards, food and shopping. Cross marketing would broaden the target market to increase sales. Each month their subscribers can choose which book they want delivered. This eliminates the surprise and consumers are happier with their end product. They receive and read a book they wanted. BOTM has a unique branding element. All of the subscription’s books are branded with the BOTM logo, their book is printed in house so you can’t return the book to a local store.
Selling products and/or experiences is a primary goal of any company. Knowing target markets makes executing a reliable marketing campaign easier. Your target audience’s needs and goals are front and center, making it easy to capture someone’s attention. When a target market is identified it helps a company develop many marketing/communication strategies. A company can hone in on their target market and spend more time on people that will purchase their items. All around, using target markets is cost-effective marketing strategy for any business.
Defining a target audience also defines the direction your company goes. If your target market is millennial, similar to BOTM, you won’t put many tweets together since that platform is primarily men. You are better equipped to focus your strategy on that audience to gain and keep satisfied customers. Knowing your target audience is almost a peek in their living room window, you know what products they are in need of. All companies need to do is listen, pay attention, and then meet those needs.
