Welcome to a special blog post all about Holiday Sales. As you gear up to plan these all-important campaigns, we’re pleased to share a comprehensive checklist to ensure you’re making the most out of your ReaderBound site this holiday season. And, check out examples of excellent work in this area from ReaderBound publishers.
Holiday Sales Checklist
✅ Promos and discounts. Be creative and roll these out throughout the season: percentages off certain books/series, featured books of the day, books for different people on holiday gift lists, books with holiday themes, bestsellers, favourite backlist, and so on. Lay these all out in a promo calendar.
✅ Sitewide alert banners. Make your campaigns visible from every page of your site, so visitors are aware no matter their point of entry.
✅ Homepage banners. Bright, colourful homepage designs that share promo codes and featured books.
✅ Free or discounted shipping. Stay competitive during this high-volume season and consider offering deals on shipping.
✅ Highlight shipping dates. Alert customers to shipping cutoff dates so they know their gifts will arrive on time.
✅ Book bundles. Group titles together and offer discounts or free shipping. Lead with popular titles.
✅ Build special gift bundles by pairing books with non-book products. Offer other gift items (such as tote bags, chocolate, tea, mugs, socks) to pair with books. Cross-promote your special offers with partner companies or other providers of those non-book items.
✅ Gift wrapping. If you’re a small press and shipping out of your office, offer free or low-cost ($1/book) gift wrapping.
✅ Promote, promote, promote! Activate organic and paid social channels, get your authors involved, and send out regular e-blasts.
Holiday Sales at the University of Michigan Press
With a new ReaderBound site in place, the University of Michigan Press’ holiday sales almost doubled from the previous year. “I immediately equate it to the site-wide alert feature,” explains Jamie James, Director of Sales, Marketing and Outreach for Michigan Publishing.
“The holiday coupon code was on every single product page. Any way a user came into the site, they would still see the sale. This was not a feature we had on the previous site.”
When asked about last year’s campaign and future plans, Jamie was quick to affirm its success. ”We plan to do the same thing again this year.”
Holiday Sales at Arsenal Pulp Press
Our thanks to Brian Lam, Publisher of Arsenal Pulp Press, for sharing the following insight into holiday sales.
“Sales from our holiday sale in particular are usually quite strong compared to other sales, obviously due to the gift-giving season. We usually commence it around November 10 for 30 days, knowing that December 10 is the cutoff if customers want their books by Christmas. Having said that, we usually make a “sale extended to December 25” on December 10, to catch those customers who may not need books by Christmas.
Website sales had increased 400% in the early days of the pandemic back in 2020. We haven’t sustained those numbers in the years since, given that folks have returned to in-person shopping and others like to order from online booksellers. But we’re pleased with the number and volume of current orders, enough so that we plan to continue these initiatives.
We’re hoping to implement some book bundles on our site soon. We promote the sale through an email newsletter and on all social media platforms (FB, X, IG). Authors also help spread the word by sharing the info on their social media.”
Sales Campaigns at University Press of Mississippi
Let’s take a comprehensive look at sales campaigns at the University Press of Mississippi, courtesy of Kristin Kirkpatrick, Electronic and Direct-to-Consumer Sales Manager. Many thanks to Kristin for sharing her expertise.
Creative Discounting
When we launched our new website in 2019, one of the first things we did was a deep dive into the backlist. We then offered select titles for $5, $10, or $15 each. At the time, it was the most successful online sale we’d ever had.
Since then, we’ve run quite a few sitewide sales. For example, in 2020 we had a 50th anniversary sale, where we offered every single title on our website for only $19.70 in honor of the year we were founded. We’ve also run sales that offered percentage off discounts. Our most recent sale was our most highly discounted percentage sale to date, offering 50% off every title on our website.
Keep it Fresh
We do try to vary the sales and discounts so that nothing becomes too routine or stale. For instance, in addition to varying the amount of the discount, we might sometimes offer free US shipping with no minimum purchase. We also held a sale earlier this year for only our pre-order titles to help drive pre-order sales.
We try to run at least three major sitewide sales per year, in addition to offering periodic specials via fixed price discounts or discount codes for various holidays and events. For example, we might offer a discount on all Women’s Studies titles for Women’s History Month.
Promote Vigorously
For all of the sales, we carefully craft an advertising campaign designed to help boost sales. This can include mailing postcards advertising the sale to our house mailing lists and previous purchasers of related titles, distributing postcards at various local events, running social media campaigns, and sending out emails to our email mailing lists. Of course, we advertise the sale on the website itself, with front page banners and a sale landing page that includes any "fine print" information. We try to work in a mention of the sale whenever possible in any routine marketing promotions that we might undertake while the sale is ongoing. We also try to activate authors by letting them know about the sale and inviting them to share the sale info with their family, friends, and social media followers.
Watch the Numbers Climb
The improvement in sales numbers has been staggering. In the first year of our new website, we saw a 300% increase in total online sales numbers. I’m also happy to report that that number has only increased, and that last year we achieved an increase of over 1000% in website sales when compared to our very best numbers when we had our old website.