Revitalizing a Brand Identity for a Entertainment Gift Book Publisher

While working as an independent marketing consultant I was able to obtain a contract with an entertainment gift book publishing company to help them revitalize their brand image. The company which was started in 1999 had established a reputation for producing beautiful entertaining gift books for adults and children on a diverse group of subjects. The company has several competitors that offer a very similar product line. The companies’ sales for its first 7 years in business were steadily growing, but have started to slide over the last year; and the companies sales representatives were having a harder time distributing their books.

I met with the companies sales and marketing personnel to get a complete picture of their marketing and sales concerns. After doing a complete analysis of their company I conducted research on the industries past and current market to get an idea of where the future market was heading. I had the companies’ sales representatives gather information from potential clients to get a picture of what their perception of how they viewed the company and its products. From the information that I obtained from these sources I was able to recommend 4 changes that needed to be made.

1. The company needed to create a much wider range for their entertainment gift books. I was able to determine this from the response that the sales representatives had received when selling the companies books. The vast majority of the buyers wanted a larger selection and also wanted to see entertainment gift book series on a wide variety of subjects as well.

2. The company had lost some of their key art directors and book illustrators and the quality of their illustrations had slightly declined (which in the entertainment gift book business can create a huge difference in the quality of the books).

3. The company needed to produce better buying options and incentives to book buyers. So I created promotional packages that would give book buyers discount options on purchases made online, through the company store, stationary shops, garden stores, ice cream stores, and various gift shops.

4. The company was losing time and money and their effectiveness because of a disorganized marketing system. So I created a new marketing management system that would allow the company to complete these tasks at about 90% of the cost of their previous marketing plan, and at about 75% of the time of the previous plan.

These changes and new additions to their marketing plan created a 30% increase in sales in a 90 day period, as well as revitalizing the companies brand image of creating a high quality of diverse illustrated gift books for both adults and children.

William F Dupree was the owner of IMPS (Interactive Marketing & Promotional Solutions Inc.) a sole proprietorship marketing firm located in New York City that specialized in developing interactive marketing, promotional and branding strategies for primarily publishing and publishing related businesses. Prior to founding IMPS in 2005 Mr. Dupree was a senior marketing manager at EDL Business Development Group for seven years. Before joining EDL he worked for Diamond Marketing Group where he developing sales strategies, branding, product planning, event planning, and created interactive marketing strategies for an assortment of businesses. William Dupree can be contacted at http://www.linkedin.com/in/wlliamdupree