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<a
href="http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=
25734&picture=child-and-books">Child
And Books</a> by George Hodan
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Georgia has an 8.6% unemployment rate, according to the Georgia Department
of Labor. If higher unemployment breeds a much more competitive market, how do
you find an edge to keep ahead of the race? Not only do locally owned book
sellers in Savannah have to compete against the nearest Barnes and Noble, but
against online companies like Amazon.com. “There’s nothing that they’ve said
that any one of their competitors can’t claim. Who’s going to say ‘we don’t
have good customer service’ or ‘no we don’t have experience’ or ‘no we don’t
know what we’re doing or ‘no we’re not professional,’” said John Powers, a
professional marketer for over 20 years. “There’s too much competition just to
think you can hang your hat on one thing . . .there’s too much going on.” Finding
out what is unique about your bookstore can be difficult, but there are three
easy steps that can change how you present the look of your store and even
improve your sales.
Identify your top five customers. Though telling people that you
are reliable or that you have good customer service can be cliché, see if your
customers are willing to give a testimonial about your store: “then it becomes emphatic,” Mr. Powers said. It’s
easy to sell yourself, but harder to get people to believe your marketing
scheme unless someone outside your store can back up your statement. But more
importantly, Mr. Powers said, “take each of those top five clients, not the top
revenue, but the best clients that you have, take each one of them to lunch one
day next week and ask them why they do business with you and they will tell you
what your edge is.”
Set Yourself Apart. Once your best customers have
told you what they love about your store in particular, you’ll need to market
that information. For more information on marketing, see the article Four Steps to Marketing Your Bookstore.
Though we live in an age of technology, don’t go right for the computer screen,
or email: “People are so flooded with stimuli now—email is a hard way to sell
because it’s just like snail mail, you’re thumbing through your mailbox looking
for what you can throw away.” Mr. Powers recommended something all together
forgotten--faxing: “Because nobody sends faxes anymore.” Most businesses haven’t
gotten rid of their fax machines, though they remain silent most of the day.
When people do receive a fax, they tend to look at them because information isn’t
flooding through them. Another technique is something that Mr. Powers specializes in—business
to business dimensional mail. After using it for more than thirty years, he has
yet to see it fail: “You’re not sending coupons for 20% off furniture or your
next rug cleaning. In business to business direct mail, the objective is to get
somebody to talk to you. You’re not going sell anything in direct mail, you’re
trying to facilitate your approach.”
Capitalize on Being Local. Mr. Powers described a locally owned
bookstore as an intellect small based business. “Those are the kinds of things
where there is an appreciation among people if you can let them know of your
availability,” Mr. Powers said. In a locally owned store, there is a feel for
the community that doesn’t exist in a corporate store. Barnes and Noble can
sell books by a Savannah author, but people prefer to get them from a local
store. E. Shaver, Booksellers capitalizes on this point by being the exclusive distributor of The Oglethorpe Press. Even attending a book signing is a
different kind of event. If there is a Savannah author doing a signing at
Barnes and Noble, they have to compete with the hundreds of other things going
on around them, like people trying to get a Starbucks coffee or look at the new
e-reader. Mr. Powers said, “You can have the same signing at a local store like E.Shavers
where the only people that are there are riveted on that specific book.” There
is also the time old argument that when you buy local, the money stays in the
community, it doesn’t go corporate. “Plus the fact that local bookstores aren’t
about the 750 copies of the newest James Patterson novel,” Mr. Powers
continued. With small businesses, owners get to know their clientele. With a
corporate bookstore, there are a number of part-time employees who know how to
operate a computer and tell you if a book is on the shelf or not. “They don’t
know what you’ve read before, they don’t know what you like, and they’ve never
spoken to you. The owner of a smaller business, that affinity with the clients
. . . you walk in, they go, 'I knew you were coming in, I’ve been holding this
for you, you’ve got to read this because I know this matches your tastes.' That’s
the edge to me.”
Blurb:
Find Your Edge: Mr. Powers gives a few examples on dimensional mailing.
- I might do something as crazy as sending somebody a 12 inch piece of 1x6 lumber. And say, "If your bookshelves are looking like this, you need to come see us."
- Go somewhere and buy a bunch of shoe soles. Have some kind of theme that revolves around, "You won’t wear these out looking for what you want at our store."
- In reference to a magic eight ball: “Is this what it feels like when you’re looking around a big box store?”
- Send out some el-cheapo dusters and say, "Don’t bring these to our store, we like our dusty little corners."
- Maybe send out a miniature blanket. The message is, "Nobody ever cuddles up with a good Kindle.”
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