{"id":2374,"date":"2019-10-28T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/?p=2374"},"modified":"2022-02-07T05:57:16","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T05:57:16","slug":"know-your-metadata-and-other-tips-on-modern-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/articles\/2019\/10\/28\/2374\/know-your-metadata-and-other-tips-on-modern-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Know your metadata, and other tips on modern marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

When asked to nominate the biggest challenge facing marketers today, publishing consultant Rachael McDiarmid says her answer often surprises: \u2018My tip for all marketers is to know your metadata\u2014it\u2019s all about bibliographic data, search and discoverability, and ensuring the supply chain has accurate information about your books. Only then can you market successfully.\u2019 Andrea Hanke chats to McDiarmid about her best book marketing tips.<\/em><\/p>\n

Your book\u2019s metadata is the data that describes your book. It includes things like the book\u2019s title and description, ISBN number, author info, price, publication date and format. Ensuring your metadata is accurate and consistent helps readers, booksellers and librarians know they\u2019re making the right choice when they\u2019re considering your book for purchase.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ask any bookseller, library or library supplier what poor (\u201cdirty\u201d) metadata means for them\u2014i.e. incorrect covers, old author bios, wrong book titles, no description\u2014and they will tell you how many times they skip to the next book,\u2019 says McDiarmid. \u2018They don\u2019t want to waste time investigating something you should have provided them with in the first place. If you want people to buy your books, give them as much information as possible to help them with their purchasing decisions.\u2019<\/p>\n

McDiarmid says that even in traditional publishing houses confusion over who is responsible for metadata is one of the biggest problems. \u2018If you talk to marketing they think it\u2019s the publishing team, if you talk to operations they think it\u2019s marketing, if you talk to sales they think it\u2019s IT\u2014just mention ONIX and see where the discussion takes you! Metadata is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation and each person has a core role to play.\u2019<\/p>\n

So how should marketers (and self-published authors) get involved? By checking the metadata that is sent to the book trade, says McDiarmid. \u2018Marketing staff should understand that what goes out in the ONIX and Excel spreadsheets to the book trade is essentially their book catalogue.\u2019 They should ensure the metadata matches their promotional material and pay particular attention to the descriptions and subject classifications, \u2018questioning whether the book is in the right product category and how they could add to the data to make it more meaningful for customers\u2019.<\/p>\n

In general, McDiarmid believes marketers today need to be much more savvy about the supply chain. \u2018Product\/inventory management is key,\u2019 she says. \u2018Managing customer requirements, supply and service expectations impacts the marketing and communications message. There\u2019s no use having the best marketing campaign in the world if you can\u2019t supply the books!\u2019<\/p>\n

McDiarmid says that despite the growth in digital marketing, there are still opportunities across various sales channels, including booksellers, specialist resellers, libraries, library suppliers and the author. However, it\u2019s important to remember that not all books will have a market in bricks-and-mortar shops, as buyers are often focused on seeing the bigger publishers and distributors, and have little space on their shelves for titles from smaller presses.<\/p>\n

Publishers also need to be aware of the changes to their customer base over the years, \u00a0including the closure of many specialist re-sellers and library and educational suppliers, as well as the move to online ordering. According to McDiarmid, \u2018Online booksellers have become key accounts across publishers, which of course circles back to [the importance of] product\/inventory management and metadata workflows.’<\/p>\n

Rachael McDiarmid has worked in the Australian book trade for nearly 30 years, including roles in marketing, sales, senior management and library supply and book distribution. For the past five years she has been providing consulting and outsourcing solutions to large and small publishers through her business RM Marketing Services<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When asked to nominate the biggest challenge facing marketers today, publishing consultant Rachael McDiarmid says her answer often surprises: \u2018My tip for all marketers is to know your metadata\u2014it\u2019s all about bibliographic data, search and discoverability, and ensuring the supply chain has accurate information about your books. Only then can you market successfully.\u2019 Andrea Hanke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newsletter-features"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2825,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions\/2825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}