Marketing Meetup Recap: Edelweiss360

On February 4, the American Booksellers Association hosted a Marketing Meetup dedicated to Edelweiss360. The session included a live demonstration from Shaina Mahler and Justin Gold of Above the Treeline, as well as tips from a panel of booksellers.

Panelists included: Jenny Cohen of Waucoma Bookstore in Hood River, Oregon; Jamie Rogers Southern of Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Tom Batterson of New Story Community Books in Marshall, Michigan; and Lauren Messamore of Watermark Books & Café in Wichita, Kansas.

Booksellers can view a recording of the session, which includes a live demonstration of Edelweiss360, here.

Here are some of the key points from the session:

Waucoma Bookstore

• Cohen said that her store was looking for a way to simplify the newsletter-making process. She switched from Mailchimp to Edelweiss360, and since has grown the store’s customer email program from 800 to 2,400 customers.
• In April 2020, Edelweiss360 became a great way to let customers shop her store online. She made collections for customers to browse. She also does this when customers email asking for recommendations; Edelweiss360 allows you to make dedicated collections that can be sent to certain customers.
• Cohen also uses the program to send weekly emails dedicated to new releases, promoting pre-order campaigns, and highlighting select titles.
• Since Waucoma uses a lot of co-op, Edelweiss360 makes the process easier.

Bookmarks

• Southern said Edelweiss360 is really user friendly. She mostly uses it for targeted email campaigns and has seen a lot of success. From mid-March 2020 to now, her store has seen an increase of over 1,000 converted customers as well as 1,100 “halos,” which are additional orders placed while a customer is making a convert purchase.
• She sees the most success when sending targeted emails to a select group of people; for example, in October her store did a special mailing for Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, which was sent to everyone who purchased Michelle Obama’s Becoming. It brought in a lot of pre-orders for the book. 
• Southern still uses Mailchimp as well to send a weekly newsletter.
• Her store tries not to email the same group of customers too often; this has helped reduce the unsubscribe rate.
• Choosing which email address to send from really impacts the open and click-through rates for targeted emails. For event invitations, Southern might have them come from her own email instead of the generic store email, which adds a personal touch. 
• Targeted campaigns also can help stores get rid of inventory they can’t move off the shelves.

New Story Community Books

• Batterson said that he integrates Edelweiss360 with his frontline ordering process, which lets him create easy bi-monthly campaigns to send to customers.
• His newsletters include new titles, blurbs, and event information. His store doesn’t target emails to specific customers, but once an email is sent, online orders start rolling in.

Watermark Books & Café 

• Messamore’s store mostly uses Edelweiss360 for pre-order campaigns and event promotion. She targets customers as much as possible. One of her favorite parts of the service is its ability to tag certain customers, which easily alerts them about upcoming events.
• She uses the service to send event reminders to customers who have purchased from that specific author in the past, or who have purchased comparable titles.
• She also uses collections to make simple gift guides for customers, which are easy to download to track sales.