Etextbooks Marketing Plan for E-Textbooks

eTextbooks

Marketing Plan for E-Textbooks

The intent of this section of the marketing plan is to define which type of software will be used, the marketing strategy, sales tactics, advertising and promotions and incentives that will be relied on in launching the new venture.

E-Textbook Software and Platform

It is recommended that the proposed venture participate in the Digital Text Platform (DTP) from Amazon.com, which has online tools available for the creation of e-textbooks from HTML in real-time. Once created the e-textbooks can be uploaded into the Kindle Store and resold there in addition to being resold on individual publisher's sites. This alleviates the need of staying up-to-date with each version of Adobe Acrobat or comparable digital content application. In 2009 Amazon.com launched the Kindle DX which has a 9.7" display, global wireless for downloading of most e-textbooks in less than a minute, and orientation support to match how the reader has the Kindle positioned. The greatest benefit however of going with the Amazon DTP Program is the tight integration of the Kindle DX platform to the e-textbook format produced as part of their online publishing process. All of these factors support the decision to partner with Amazon.com and join their DTP program, publishing through their online production tools.

Marketing Strategy

Approximately 60% of all e-textbook publishers have partners with Amazon.com to have their texts produced for the Kindle DX Platform. As a result Amazon is promoting its site as the premier source of e-textbooks worldwide which is generating traffic to the site from college and university course planners, professors and students. By aligning with the industry leading platform the proposed venture gets a higher level of credibility than if the decision was made to produced PDFs and put them on a website for downloading for example. The Kindle DX platform, with its wide screen, ability to search entire books for key phrases and concepts, and compatibility to the DTP Program standard also ensures a consistent user experience for every customer of the new venture as well. The marketing strategy needs to be then based on attaining credibility as an e-textbook provider rapidly based on an alliance with Amazon and their DTP Program. Second, ensuring a consistent user experience is critically important and that can be attained using the Amazon Kindle DX and Amazon e-textbook program. Third, the e-textbooks need to be authored by experts in their fields so that the quality of the content stands on its own and is considered world-class. Fourth, customer service needs to be designed for real-time response and be automated on the proposed venture's website as a student may need a book immediately if their Kindle DX is lost, stolen or malfunctions. All of these attributes taken together will give the proposed vendor a high-end, high quality position in the market and will also ensure a consistently excellent user experience, which is critical to customers purchasing additional e-textbooks in the future. Focusing on the highest quality content in a state-of-the-art platform will also make the selling process much more efficient as the proposed venture will be all the more trusted for taking these steps prior to launching the business.

Sales Tactics