Don’t close the chapter on your customers

This week, the Minnesota web newspaper Minnpost wrote an article about how one of the few remaining independent booksellers in the Twin Cities, Magers & Quinn, had laid off their book tour event manager, Unowsky is out at Magers & Quinn, and so are some of the book events.  David is very well-known for the book stores he has owned, including the Hungry Mind, and his impact on the book-reading community in this market.

The store’s owner explained this as a response to poor attendance at some of the bookstore’s author events. “David spent a lot of his time planning and organizing events, and we put a lot of resources into that, and some of those events were well-attended, but many were not. That was disappointing to us and to the writers. Now we’ll do fewer of them.” As a result, he is reorganizing the business to do fewer events.

On the surface, makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?  After all, if the owner was measuring the profitability and traffic for the events, many of them were clearly missing the mark.  Authors were disappointed and Magers & Quinn decided to shift strategy.

But let’s focus our attention at the customer level.   What was the impact of those events on Best Customers?  And on the brand?  And on customer acquisition?

The article clearly highlights the role of the author readings and signing on new customer acquisition.  In addition, while not mentioned, it is not hard to guess that these events also reinforced the brand as a “store for people who are engaged in the book community,” reinforcing the value to Best Customers.  Give up on the events, and you damage the brand and damage your relationship with this unique community, which is a key factor in keeping Magers & Quinn from extinction.

How could the store miss this insight?  While I do not know for sure, here are some learnings that come from this article:

1. Don’t focus solely on macro analysis. Look, I am all in favor of measured marketing.  We need to show the profitability of our actions as Marketers to gain and maintain our credibility in our organizations.  But we need to look at our investments at a customer segment level.  Sometimes a campaign looks like it loses money but actually increases customer value for Best Customers, and could be profitable in the longer run.
2. Measure what matters. If customer acquisition is a critical metric for success, you have to measure it.  The same goes for Best Customer frequency.  For most businesses, these are leading indicators for growth, or the lack thereof.   Business growth and profit are lagging indicators — you only see them after the damage has been done.  You need to focus on what drives growth and relentlessly measure those factors.
3. Don’t ignore the community. One of the few strategies that have kept some independent booksellers in business has been to build a community of very loyal customers who are Advocates for the store and intensely into all facets of books — discussions, readings, signings, etc.  Communities are increasingly important to our brands, as methods of communications and sharing increase on the web (Facebook, interest-specific sites, blogs, etc.).

For booksellers, these strategies are even more essential for business growth.  After all, the book industry is totally dominated by Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.  To adopt a strategy of “focusing on inventory and bookkeeping” is to (1) confuse tactics for strategy, and (2) concede any competitive differentiation at all.  I fear this action to be th death-knell of yet another independent.

Keep to the customer-centric path, even though economic indicators threaten to derail such efforts. Remember you don’t have sales, you have customers.  Those customers can often keep your business going and growing, despite macro trends.

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Tagged as: Barnes & Noble, Best Customer, Bookselling, Customer Centricity, Customer experience, Marketing, Publishing, Retail experience