Pandemic has shifted consumer behaviour and trade 'must experiment' to keep up

Digital consumer behaviour has “leapfrogged 10 years” during the pandemic and the trade need to carry on with its pandemic-imposed experimentation to keep up, The Bookseller's Marketing & Publicity Conference has heard.

In a wide-ranging debate on 17th June about decision-making in the year ahead, chaired by Orion communications director Maura Wilding, panelists weighed up the future of hybrid events, publicity strategies and making publishing more diverse.

Lee Dibble, marketing and communities director at Pan Macmillan, said research showed “digital purchase behaviour has leapfrogged 10 years in the past year”, particularly with older demographics who tend to make up a significant proportion of the UK's heavy readers.

She said: “You've got a much larger slice of the heavy book-buying demographics that are buying online more than ever. But with this group you have to contend with more anxiety. The 65-plus group had the highest levels of anxiety last year. I read that 19 million adults are reporting high anxiety. So that has a huge impact on purchase behaviour. So they're less likely to try new things, brands become even more important, nostalgia becomes a safety blanket. Knowing this kind of information about the way people feel and the way that people behave might encourage you as a marketer to seek different marketing partnerships, shift the angle of your content marketing, change the tone in your email or social communications.”

Dibble stressed the power of data and algorithms to deal with this challenge, with publishers examining their mix of channels, experimenting creatively, focusing on actionable metrics and always coming back again to consumer behaviour through online tools.

Asked what she wanted to take forward from the pandemic, she highlighted “more experimenting” as key, saying: “One thing that you might do in a pandemic is have a kind of retreat, say 'it's all new I just want to concentrate on the things that are really important and not look up'. Actually experimenting moves things things forward. You can't grow unless you're experimenting at the same time.”

She alluded to the period when Amazon removed the buy buttons from its site early in the pandemic as it dealt with supply issues. Dibble said: “It forced a different consumer behaviour overnight. It forced us to work in a very different way internally. So we were looking at different data sets we weren't looking at before. It forced us to work more closely with sales colleagues in a slightly different way and it meant we worked differently externally as well and that delivered great results and we've kept building on it.

“That was a kind of forced experiment but it led to great creativity within it. Actually it made me think we have to keep doing this, we have to keep testing and pushing different things because actually the opportunities are massive, particularly when consumer behaviour is shifting so dynamically. If you don't do it you're going to miss out.”

A flexible approach is also being adopted by Waterstones when it comes to future hybrid events and marketing, with feedback from consumers about things like digital fatigue key, head of communications Sandra Taylor said. She explained: “Our online programme has enabled us to broaden engagement in books. Customer feedback has squarely told us that, for many, online allows more inclusive and accessible event. No geographical, no childcare, no mobility restrictions apply. We can pair authors with different time zones, we can get creative with different partnerships. There's huge scope to continue this into the autumn but ultimately we're going to keep listening to our customers.”

Mari Yamazaki, marketing and publicity director, at Bloomsbury said it was important those planning events had back-up options in case the pandemic spikes again. She said: “What we do in our day to day is think about what the impact is on our authors and what they might be expected to do. And I have seen, obviously not in Waterstones case but in some cases, there's been a real rush back to just doing physical events and I've been quite surprised at that and surprised there's been maybe a lack of a plan B. What are the plans to revert to digital if cases surge or more lockdowns happen?”

Yamazaki also pointed out the change to flexible working over the past year was something many colleagues wanted to embrace going forward, and it could also help with publishing's diversity problem – something that is “long overdue”. She said: “There's still a lot of work to be done on this and I think it's incredibly important that change is adopted and led from a senior executive level.”

At the same time, people working lower down the corporate structure can still affect change, she said. At a publicist level, that could mean making sure you're sending books to potential reviewers outside the mainstream papers or making sure author debates are representative, she said.

Anna Chapman, brand strategist at 21st Century Brand, highlighted an Accenture study showing 78% of consumers expect brands to bring about social change. Companies have the power to give a platform to movements like Black Lives Matter that have gained in prominence over the past year. She added: “It's more than just publishing these diverse authors or reaching these new audiences. Brands actually need to really live and breathe this in their culture and younger consumers are demanding that of them.”

Her company is putting together a white paper showing the “business case” for improved diversity. She said: “Inclusivity actually just improves the world for everyone, it drives positive social change, it means we make better decisions if you've got different voices and experiences coming in you have different ideas, and also investing in this workforce creates profits.”