Connect With Your Customers Through Video: A Q&A with Suzie Sisoler, HarperCollins’ director of online consumer marketing.
July 2008 By Peter Beisser
HarperCollins Publishers’ new in-house broadcast studio—developed and built in the company’s Manhattan offices earlier this year—regularly produces promotional videos featuring its authors. The objective: To create video content to help generate excitement for hundreds of new HarperCollins book titles each year. Thanks to positive consumer response to the videos, the publishing house has an ongoing appetite for producing this type of content—one that it is quickly feeding.
Last month, Book Business Extra spoke with Marisa Benedetto, executive producer of the broadcast studio, and Ana Maria Allessi, vice president and publisher of HarperMedia, about how the videos are created (http://www.BookBusinessMag.com/story/story.bsp?sid=108713&var=story). In this edition, Suzie Sisoler, director of online consumer marketing at HarperCollins, discusses how her team uses this new marketing content. By partnering with social-networking sites, teaming up with bloggers and providing content to niche fan sites, Sisoler says video simply connects with consumers.
Book Business Extra: On what type of Web sites and blogs have the videos been most effective?
Suzie Sisoler: It really depends on the book and the audience we’re trying to reach. Consumers can find these videos in a number of ways. We always have [the videos] on our site. You’ll see a video for a particular title on [that title’s] page of our site …. We host the videos on YouTube and other video sites, too. …It helps us for consumers to find [a video] and for the consumer to go on and forward it to friends. There are also niche sites we work with. It really just depends on the audience. We want to get as many eyeballs on it as possible. We’ve also found ways for publicity opportunities. We’ll offer it to retailers and to the media. The nice thing about videos is that they’re available when the consumer wants to watch it. It may be a month or two down the line, but it keeps the property out there.
Extra: Why do video now?
Sisoler: I think video, in general across the Web, has grown as many more people have gotten broadband Internet. Now, consumers expect to have some kind of visual along with the text. It’s added content, so it’s a benefit for these other sties and for our own site to host these videos. People like to watch TV. [The author videos are] another means of reaching out to them. But it’s all about increased broadband penetration across the board.
Last month, Book Business Extra spoke with Marisa Benedetto, executive producer of the broadcast studio, and Ana Maria Allessi, vice president and publisher of HarperMedia, about how the videos are created (http://www.BookBusinessMag.com/story/story.bsp?sid=108713&var=story). In this edition, Suzie Sisoler, director of online consumer marketing at HarperCollins, discusses how her team uses this new marketing content. By partnering with social-networking sites, teaming up with bloggers and providing content to niche fan sites, Sisoler says video simply connects with consumers.
Book Business Extra: On what type of Web sites and blogs have the videos been most effective?
Suzie Sisoler: It really depends on the book and the audience we’re trying to reach. Consumers can find these videos in a number of ways. We always have [the videos] on our site. You’ll see a video for a particular title on [that title’s] page of our site …. We host the videos on YouTube and other video sites, too. …It helps us for consumers to find [a video] and for the consumer to go on and forward it to friends. There are also niche sites we work with. It really just depends on the audience. We want to get as many eyeballs on it as possible. We’ve also found ways for publicity opportunities. We’ll offer it to retailers and to the media. The nice thing about videos is that they’re available when the consumer wants to watch it. It may be a month or two down the line, but it keeps the property out there.
Extra: Why do video now?
Sisoler: I think video, in general across the Web, has grown as many more people have gotten broadband Internet. Now, consumers expect to have some kind of visual along with the text. It’s added content, so it’s a benefit for these other sties and for our own site to host these videos. People like to watch TV. [The author videos are] another means of reaching out to them. But it’s all about increased broadband penetration across the board.
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