Marketing

I designed this comprehensive marketing campaign for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent nonfiction bestseller as my WR563 Book Marketing capstone project, planning a traditional print and web campaign as if I were launching Coates’ book as the spring season’s lead title with the budget and resources of a large-to-midsize press. My marketing campaign includes a tipsheet outlining the book’s positioning and key sales points as well as detailed plans for consumer promotions, a website, direct-to-consumer emails, social media outreach, sales materials, and advertising media-buys. I wrote original advertising and catalogue copy as well as a press release and pitch letter for the journalists and reviewers identified in my media pitch list, and I planned a multi-city author tour and book launch event aimed at leveraging my budget to make Coates’ book the bestseller it has become.

I applied the principles of transmedia storytelling and marketing best practices to create this comprehensive plan for a community service event and coordinated social media scavenger hunt aimed at building engagement with Ooligan Press' young adult outdoor adventure novel. The transmedia marketing campaign I designed includes a partnership proposal with REI as well as area high schools and nonprofits. Based on my audit of REI's existing social media presence, I drafted a corporate sponsorship pitch letter to REI and used my research to create a best practices guide to soliciting event sponsors that Ooligan's Marketing Department has since adopted as a training resource. Together with my reflection on the transmedia theory that informed my campaign strategy, this portfolio of step-by-step plans for a small-press transmedia marketing campaign inspired Professor Kathi Inman Berens to memorably comment, "I'm not wearing socks anymore because you’ve knocked them off!"

I collaborated closely with my project team to develop this marketing campaign for our second-time author’s young adult novel. Our marketing plan includes a tipsheet informed by our market research identifying the book's target audience, main and crossover markets, comp titles, and key selling points; a list of media outlets, partner organizations, and bookstores to pitch; proposed promotional materials and sales kit collateral; and potential book tour events and partnership opportunities to promote the book up to and after launch.

I collaborated closely with my project team to develop this marketing campaign for our debut author’s short fiction collection. Our plan includes a tipsheet informed by our market research identifying main and crossover target markets, comp titles, and key selling points; an audit of the author’s social media platform and potential marketing resources; a list of media outlets, academic programs, and book stores to pitch; a cross-platform social media strategy; links to our sales kit, marketing copy, and collateral; and proposed book tour events and partnership opportunities to pursue to promote the book up to and after launch.

Based on the best practices I developed for pitching a corporate sponsor in the course of my "Books in the Wild Transmedia Marketing Campaign” research, which Ooligan’s Marketing Department has since adopted as a training resource for future students at our nonprofit teaching press, I drafted this letter to Stumptown Coffee pitching a potential mutually beneficial partnership aimed at promoting Ooligan's Siblings and Other Disappointments to our shared target audience of Pacific Northwest coffee addicts.