Mastering digital: a toolkit for marketing books in Aotearoa is underway

The first two sessions of the digital marketing training for the sector opened in November. Twenty participants, marketing professionals from a wide variety of book sector organisations met in person for the first training on 16 November at The National Library.

Presented by The Classroom’s Seth Zorn with an opening address from Dawson Marama-Feagai, Chief Executive of Toi Hourua, the first session was a scene setting day with focus on the current book market, book keywords and search data, digital marketing landscape, social media content and strategy and influencers. It was fantastic to be able to bring together such a wide array of book marketing professionals representing publishers, festivals, bookshops and book sector organisations to discuss the challenges and opportunities they are currently experiencing marketing books.

The second session, held online on 28 November focussed on technical aspects of social media advertising. Further sessions will be held in February, April and June and one-on-one sessions with Seth Zorn and Dawson Marama-Feagai are also part of the programme for participants.

A survey has been sent to participants for their feedback on these first two sessions. This feedback will be built into the sessions next year to ensure the course meets the sector’s needs.

To ensure this programme is able to extend further than this initial 20 person cohort, in June a suite of online training materials will be made available to Coalition members.