You have to promote the business, but with book shops the trick is to attract attention. Book shops are in an industry based on voluntary buying, and it's more important that people know where to shop, than what to buy.
You have some choices in how you promote your book shop. There are a few standard approaches to marketing:
Thanks to the internet, the school books approach is on the way out, and it has to be said that only pushing one line of stock isn't always the best method of promoting your business. The things people really need to know about your shop are: |
That's easy enough to do in a letter, but because you're a generalist business, spraying promotional materials around can be expensive and useless. The best approach is an in store promotion. You give out your promotional materials with each purchase.
This has the added advantage that you can do a generic letter, a few at a time, and just modify it when you have new materials to advertise.
The example here is a local bookseller who wants to move some stock as special offers. This is written something like a newsletter, current information. There's no need to mass produce these letters, they can be used to target customers on a needs basis.
Example:
Business letterhead
No addressee
Contacts
Dear Customer
Greatbooks Special Offers Greatbooks is pleased to announce great savings. We have a huge range of offers on fiction, non fiction, biographies, reference books, and classics. The Orion Classics series These Orion series books include all the great classics, Tolstoy, Dickens, Shakespeare, Shaw, Wordsworth, Bacon, Chekov, in fact everything from Aesop to Zola, all $3.95! |
Orion Biographies
The Orion biographies are reprints of earlier biographies which are now almost impossible to get. These are the main sources for the modern biographies, and they're quite dazzling reading. Also $3.95, great value!
Film stars: Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Lloyd Bridges, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and many more.
Politicians: Churchill, De Gaulle, Roosevelt, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Gandhi, the whole range of 20th century political movers and shakers.
Historical Bios: Napoleon, Robespierre, Wellington, Nelson, Talleyrand, The Hanover Dynasty of Britain, Bismarck, a huge selection of titles.
Non Fiction
There are so many books we'll stick to subjects as a description: History, science, military, environment, sciences, philosophy, culture, travel, you name it, we have it.
Fiction We have all the current New York Times best sellers, on a regular basis. Orders with Greatbooks We've got one more trick up our sleeve. You can order any book you like, even if it's out of print, and we'll find it for you if it can be found. We'll give you some quotes for prices, and you make the decision to buy. You can call us anytime to check what we've got, or check out our website, www.greatbooks.com. |
Happy reading,
Greatbooks
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