It looks like Amazon is getting into back-to-school mode by announcing they’ve added “textbooks”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/15115321 to their Canadian site.
It’s interesting to note that they’ve had to make the process of finding books a little more complicated, effectively putting an advanced search on the “Textbook Store main page”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/15115321. This is probably too be expected given the obscurity of authors and topics for some required texts, and the duplication of titles in this space (“Introduction to Economics” generates 314 results).
They are also really emphasizing the value of resale by giving half of the page to explaining how you _sell_ your textbooks.
Think about that for a moment – a good chunk of their sales floor is taken up with information on _selling, not buying._ Why might that be?
Month: August 2005
Fortune Magazine‘s August 8, 2005 issue has a series of great cover stories related to “The Future of Advertising.” (I bought the Canadian edition but it looks like it has all the same stories as the US copy.)
I believe all Internet marketers (and advertisers) should get this issue and read every story. The articles are very informative and support what a lot of us know and think: more ad spending is going online, whether for:
* Search Marketing
* IPTV
* Better Targeting of Marketing Messages
Julie Roehm is DaimlerChrysler’s director of marketing communications and oversees the sixth-largest pool of ad dollars in the US. Last year she spent 10% of the budget online; this year she is allotting closer to 18%; next year, she says, she will allocate more than 20%.
More and more this is the trend and those people who know online will benefit.
With their buying power and trend-making prowess, teens and young adults have always been popular targets for interactive marketers. In the past, we’ve looked to email marketing and instant messaging as our means of connecting with this demographic, but reaching today’s teens requires an understanding of an entirely different online animal.
Social Networks are the newest way for teens to connect with their friends online, partake in online discussions, meet new people, even create their own blogs. Exchanging email and instant messages remains a popular pastime, to be sure, but increasingly it’s these online communities that are receiving the lion’s share of young peoples’ time. For marketers, these sites open up a whole new world of advertising opportunities. Designed around communication and effective at engaging consumers, social networks lend themselves well to such interactive initiatives as contests, quizzes, games, and branded content.