By Erin L. Cox | @erinlcox

Leverages Extensive Direct-to-Consumer Network To Provide Full-Service Marketing and Distinct Audience Outreach

Open Road Integrated Media (OR/M) has taken their success connecting with readers to the next level by offering publishing partners a full-service marketing program called “Open Road Ignition.” Through this program, OR/M will market backlist titles on behalf of other publishers across all sales channels.

An early adopter of the program, Ellen Archer, President of Trade Publishing at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said, “We’re aware of the success Open Road has had marketing its own list. As another publisher with a robust list of iconic backlist titles, we are interested to see how the focus and sophistication they bring to backlist marketing will benefit our list. We’re always looking to find more ways to reach as many readers as
possible, and we’re excited to work together with Open Road on this initiative.”

Earlier this year, OR/M announced that its newsletter business is up to more than 1 million subscribers. The popular newsletters have a very engaged following with a 28-percent conversion to sale. These newsletters include Early Bird Books for fans of discounted ebooks; The Lineup for fans of true-crime and horror; and The Portalist for fans of science fiction and fantasy. In addition, three new newsletters launched this year: A Love So True for romance fans; Murder & Mayhem, for mystery and thriller fans; and The Archive, for history and non-fiction fans.

In 2017, the newsletters have delivered a 253-percent increase in ebook revenue over the same period in 2016.

“The key to the whole engine is our increasing sophistication around audience development and engagement,” said Paul Slavin, CEO. “The response to our newsletters has been extraordinary, and our ability to give our consumers the books and products they love has driven significant sales increases for us. Based on that success our network of external partners is growing, which allows us to provide our readers with an even broader selection of bestselling books.”

OR/M’s success with newsletters has sparked interest and attracted partners from across the industry, such as Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who feature their ebooks in the OR/M newsletters.

The full-service program that Open Road Ignition delivers goes beyond newsletter placement to drive sales in a holistic way, including pricing optimization, metadata excellence, rich descriptive copy, and highly targeted advertising and marketing outreach.

While this represents a new stage in OR/M’s growth, it is very much in keeping with the mission of the company. When OR/M launched in Frankfurt in 2009, The New York Times reported that the company was going to “push a torrent of online marketing on new readers in the hopes of reigniting the backlists of well-known authors in the digital world.”

Eight years later, OR/M has not only done exactly what it set out to do with growing backlist ebook sales, delivering a 40-percent annual revenue growth on its catalog since the end of 2015, but OR/M has significantly grown its direct-to-consumer relationships through a series of successful newsletters and content sites.

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For more information about OR/M’s marketing services and offerings, visit:  www.openroadintegratedmedia.com/promotions

A version of this sponsored story ran at the Frankfurt Book Fair in our Publishing Perspectives Show Daily magazines.

You can download this issue and other Frankfurt Show Daily editions here.