Collect Data and Drive Sales Through our Marketing Services

December 1, 2022
Davina Powell
,
Kim Hadney
,
Erin Cox
Collect Data and Drive Sales Through our Marketing Services

When it comes to data, less is sometimes more. The days of marketing blindly are behind us, and no longer will publishers settle for a marketing strategy that equates to throwing darts at a globe while hoping there’s oil in that spot. In response, many are moving towards advertising to smaller yet targeted lists, while straying from larger groups.  

But what if you could have both?

Ingram's Consumer Marketing Services were developed for you by you. With publisher direction and feedback, we are able to provide access to tools that help you market your books to millions of active readers who have shown interest in your titles. Through our three services, depending on the needs of your business, you will be able to access:

  • Millions of verified and segmented readers from Ingram’s own platforms and partners  
  • A fully managed digital marketing service that will broaden audience reach and increase e-commerce sales

1) Ingram iD

There are over 5 billion internet users in the world today with an average of almost half a million new users every 24 hours.

Of those new users:

  • How many are active readers?
  • How many are looking for your title?
  • Where are they going to find them?  
  • How much money will be wasted on those eyes that don't render results?

To help focus your marketing power towards high-value customers, we created Ingram iD. an easy-to-use advertising platform giving publishers access to millions of verified readers.  

What are Verified Readers? 

We have defined verified readers as a target audience of active readers who have recently expressed interest in a specific book category by engaging in content related to it.  

For instance, these readers have:

  • Reading book reviews in a specific genre
  • Checking out lists of top books in that category 
  • Browsing preview pages to those titles 
  • Opening emails focused on new releases in that genre

The goal is to take this important group of readers who have executed the action above within the last couple of months and define them as verified readers. 

Where Do Verified Readers Come From?

Thanks to Ingram's family of brands, we’ve been able to source active readers and help connect them to your titles.

Page & Pairing 

Page and Pairing is a great online newsletter that curates book recommendations and pairs them with a drink recipe. Every two weeks, a new pairing suggestion is sent out. It's book recommendations and author content driven, so this is a specific type of audience. They bring something new and something different, and that is one of the baselines of where we're getting our verified readers. 

Her Promotion

Her Promotion is a go-to resource for modern businesswomen providing tools, and strategic advice from experts through their weekly newsletter, downloadable guide, and empowering community.

Shelf Savvy

Shelf Savvy is an online hub to find the best deals on paperback, hardcovers, and ebooks. Since this platform deals with books featured in sales, new deals are added every day, which brings us a specific group of readers. 

Little Infinite

Little infinite is a poetry lifestyle site that celebrates the intersection between classic prose and modern explorations of life through verse. It’s one of our largest sites, and it's dedicated to cultivating a specific type of community while exploring the new and evolving world of modern poetry. 

Bookfinity

That is a personalized destination for readers to discover titles, learn about books, and track reading lists within the industry which include experts, insiders supporting diversity, and literature in local stores. 

These five platforms are where we source many of our verified readers, though it’s not the only place. This is the foundation, but we have other platforms and partners that help get us to millions of subscribers and over 100,000 followers on social. Ingram has built a sophisticated database for verified readers and audience profiles that not only focuses on where they go but also what they do once there. 

So what is Ingram iD?

It's a self-serve and easy-to-use advertising platform enabling you to advertise to Ingram's verified readers. You will gain access to our millions of verified readers in 40 unique audience segments who are actively buying and engaging in books and genres that you have to offer.

We reach audiences on Facebook, Google, and Amazon. And in the future, we'll be adding Instagram and Instagram's reader brands as well.  

Our millions of verified readers can only be accessed through Ingram iD. This tool was made to fit seamlessly into your marketing toolkit and enhance your efforts.

While using Ingram iD, you’ll:  

  • Market your titles across social and retail websites from one integrated platform offered exclusively by Ingram.​
  • Have access to a self-serve advertising platform–no contract, no invoicing, and no set spends. Set up for credit card payment, the tool lets you set your budget and calendar.​
  • Not have to worry about unwelcome surprises for your budget. Easily manage your ad spend for all your ads in one place. ​
  • Be able to view real-time reporting for each campaign's clicks and impressions, or export the data to use outside the platform.​

2) Ingram Marketing Advantage

This fully managed digital marketing service is designed to broaden audience reach and increase e-commerce sales. How? First and foremost, through product page and metadata optimization, the consumer is more likely to click your buy button. 

Our strategies are all data-driven. We pull in analytics from our and retailer systems and layer them together to make decisions for marketing campaign optimization.

Now, what is it that makes Ingram Marketing Advantage different from a traditional ad agency? 

  • We are format agnostic—we promote all possible formats of your title: hardcover, paperback, and ebook, to improve overall title reach and e-commerce sales. 
  • We work through your distribution partner—which means we are working directly with you, your client manager, and your sales team. A triangle of Ingram support is all around you, and we are all working together towards your goals. 
  • Finally, there are no secret recipes here—we will be transparent, keep you informed through marketing updates and sales reporting, as well as learn along with you. And we will always remain flexible with our approach.  

There are Three Ingram Marketing Advantage Services  

1) Metadata Optimization

Our team of marketing experts will look at your catalog and run a comprehensive analysis of your title list to identify potential gaps and opportunities for title enhancements. 

We're looking at your BISAC codes, descriptive copy, keywords, and conducting extensive research to determine what improvements can be added to your existing metadata that will impact the title's overall organic discoverability. 

And as a reminder, we are format agnostic, so any metadata changes that are made will be made to all formats. 

2) Backlist Marketing Service

For many publishers, it can sometimes be difficult to spend the same amount of marketing and advertising attention on backlist titles that you do on new and upcoming front-list titles.

If you find yourself in a similar position, that's where this service will come in handy. Our team will run a full analysis of your titles that are aged 24 months and older. All applicable titles over the course of a year will receive full metadata optimization.  

We will also fully manage marketing and advertising for titles where we see promotional opportunities at no cost to you. This could range from ads on Amazon to daily deals on BookHub. There is no financial risk to you as a publisher for this service as all Ingram Marketing Advantages are based entirely on sales growth. 

3) Front List Marketing Service 

Prior to you signing onto our front-list marketing service, we will develop a high-level marketing plan that will include potential audience targets, our recommended strategy, and an overall campaign timeline with social channels that we believe would be the strongest targets for advertising.

Our marketing plan is based on your publication goals. Out of the three services within Ingram Marketing Advantage, this service mimics working with an ad agency the most. Once you have approved the campaign, the title will receive full metadata optimization, and we will fully manage your social and retail advertising.   

As mentioned earlier, we are integrated with your Ingram sales and distribution teams and can provide a coordinated response to sales efforts. So if the mass merch sales team has sold your title to walmart.com, we can target specific advertising to Walmart shoppers within the age bracket of the anticipated readership for that title. 

Publisher Testimony

We’ve had a lot of success with publishers that we have partnered with for front list campaigns. Two of which are Spiegel & Grau and Welbeck, who were both kind enough to write about their experience working with Ingram Marketing Advantage.

Consumer Marketing Services 

What makes Ingram’s consumer marketing services stand out is the preciseness in our data, the target audience, and planning. These verified reader audience segments and strategies have been grown and cultivated over time through our own platforms. This was to ensure our publishers could access quality data and not just irrelevant groups bought through an unverified and untested email list.   

So not only are you:

Reaching millions of readers through Ingram iD, you are also reaching millions of verified readers that are segmented into categories that show interest in certain genres through their online activity. 

Collecting data through Marketing Insights, you also can now translate that book and audience data into book sales.

Receiving a full-service digital marketing agency through Ingram Marketing Advantage, but you’re also increasing your eCommerce sales through metadata, backlist, and front-list services for all of your title formats while collaborating with your Ingram sales and distribution teams.

Collect Data and Drive Sales Through our Marketing Services
Davina Powell

Davina Powell

Consumer Marketing Services Manager

Kim Hadney

Kim Hadney

Sales Manager, Consumer Marketing

Erin Cox

Erin Cox

Sr Manager Consumer Sales

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