This year's June Is Audiobook Month campaign was the industry's most successful to date. June audio sales were up 27.6% over the previous month, according to the Audio Publishers of America (APA) figures. Bookstore chains, independents and multimedia stores created diverse promotions and displays to entice customers to purchase audiobooks.
Musicland Group's Media Play and On Cue stores offered two of the most ambitious Audiobook Month promotions. First, the company sent a direct mail offer to its 300,000 Replay members, who earn bonus points for each purchase. When the customer reaches 10,000 points, he or she gets a $5 coupon good at any Media Play or On Cue store. For the month of June, the direct mail campaign offered an immediate 10,000 Replay points with any audiobook purchase.
"We saw an exceptional return rate for the direct mail offer: 12.7% of the recipients came in and bought an audiobook," said Tod Dalberg, director of marketing for Musicland Group. "It was a way to offer our most loyal customers a unique opportunity to try an audiobook."
In addition, a Media Play store in Buffalo, N.Y., partnered with Simon & Schuster Audio and 13 Valvoline oil change stations.
For the month of June, customers who got a full-price oil change at participating Valvoline stations received a free audiobook (their choice of Who Moved My Cheese? or Alice in Wonderland). Simon & Schuster Audio provided 2,000 audiobooks for the promotion. "We had promotional spots on a local radio station and TV station for it," said Dalberg, "and we saw a huge customer response."
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco created a display full of family-listening audiobooks suitable for vacation travel, with a sign reading "Are We There Yet? Long car or plane trip? Five straight days of rain at a vacation cabin? Here's the solution to 'Are we there yet?' and 'He started it!' "
"It did get a lot of attention," audio buyer Jude Sales told PW. "We sold a lot of audios from that."
Merritt Bookstores, with stores in Melbrook, N.Y., and Red Hook, N.Y., also used a travel theme in its display. "We got out an atlas and figured out how many hours it would take to drive to various destinations from Melbrook or Red Hook, then picked audios that were the right length for those trips," explained Molly Olson, director of customer care. "So the display had a map with different destinations, and a pile of travel games, and audiobooks with signs saying things like 'Listen to this while driving to Washington, D.C.' It was really cute, and some customers actually said, 'Oh, six hours, that's how long we're driving!' and bought some of them."
Some stores simply made use of the APA-provided Audiobook Month poster and sampler cassettes, and found that these materials had a big impact. "We used the posters and samplers, and it made a nice window display that helped to focus attention on audio, which normally is overlooked in our store," said Lisa Eitner, head buyer for the trade book department at Mt. Oread Bookshop at the University of Kansas. "People often don't even know we carry audiobooks, so this was a great way to highlight them."
At Dragon Wings, a children's bookstore in Wisconsin, customers were thrilled with the adult selections on the audio sampler. "We had a weeklong celebration for our sixth anniversary, and one thing we did was give the free audio sampler to everyone who came in," said owner Ellen Davis.
"They were so pleased about it, you should have seen the smiles! We've had giveaways before, but always for kids—we'd never had anything for the parents. They were all very interested in the selections, saying 'Oh, the new Barbara Kingsolver!' A lot of people who came through were summer visitors, and they put the tapes right in their cars when they left. I can't imagine that people didn't go out and buy at least one of the audiobooks [on the sampler] after that."'
Other stores handsold favorite audio titles, posted lists of "Our Favorite Audiobooks," created audiobook endcaps, chose an audiobook as the monthly "Buyers Choice," created banners, played the sampler in the store and put Audiobook Month on event calendars.
Bookstores contacted by PW unanimously expressed excitement toward the promotional material supplied by the APA and noted that because of the jump in sales, this would not be just a one-month promotion.
