A Brilliant Way to Talk to Customers

Towne Book Center & Café [1] in Collegeville, Pennsylvania,features ABA’s Bookseller DIY [2] marketing materials throughout the store in signs and displays that remind people to “Eat Sleep Read” and “Shop Local.” Marketing Director Kit Little has worked with Red Bubble [3] to turn the DIY’s templates into an array of “brilliant” marketing materials.

The signs — “Snack Nap Read,” tie-dyed “Peace Love Books,” “Love Your Local,” and more —  “serve as incredibly helpful tools in that they not only inform the customers, they open a dialogue which allows us to reinforce the incredible significance of supporting our local economy,” said Little.

Towne Book Center ordered the large posters from Red Bubble [3], which offers high-quality vinyl signs in various sizes. “The signs are brilliant — literally,” explained Little. “The colors are bright and suffer the onslaught of full sun every day.  My favorite is the tie-dye sign, and it has endured an entire year of full sun without fading.” After placing an initial order via the DIY Resources page [3], Little said the best way to communicate with Red Bubble is via e-mail [4].

Towne Book Center provides customers with bookmarks from DIY templates that were printed at a local, indie shop. “I am thrilled with the addition of the ‘What You Just Did’ templates, and we are placing those around the store even now,” Little said.

In addition, the store features the Indie Next List and Bestseller fliers as centerpieces for displays.

Creating the posters, as well as Indie Next List displays and bookmarks, was simple, said Little. “It is very easy to use the DIY pages for IndieBound templates and products [5].”

For booksellers who are not up on Photoshop or other graphic design software, the DIY tutorials [5]explain how to add the store logo or create other custom designs, using GIMP [6], the free, open-source graphic design program, which has sophisticated features and tools.Booksellers with questions about customizing the DIY’s designs can also contact ABA Marketing Manager Greg Galloway [7].