Launch Pad: Crashing a Marketing Campaign

Chamblee adds that 12 staffers helped crash the book’s campaign.

First Things First: Sell, Sell, Sell
The first thing NGB did, says Chamblee, was to create sell sheets to be circulated by the publisher’s sales force. “We did what’s called an e-sell sheet that gave some selling points about the book [and] details on our preliminary marketing campaign … and [our salespeople] got that out immediately to their retail accounts.”

Chamblee says the sales force then put a “special push” on selling to religious bookstores, especially in light of the pope’s pending U.S. tour. They placed particular emphasis on the cities the pope was scheduled to visit.

Next Up: The Publicity Push
The campaign aimed to reach consumers with its message in three primary ways: through the media, through the library and academic markets, and direct-to-consumer.

Chamblee believes the media-outreach portion of the book’s campaign was among its most successful components. The public-relations team conducted a “massive print review mailing,” sending copies to book reviewers at the country’s top daily newspapers, popular general-interest magazines and targeted religious publications.

NGB earned some useful media hits, highlighted by a feature in the March issue of Vanity Fair and a number of favorable write-ups in spirituality magazines.

A 20-city radio tour paid off as well, with “In God’s Name” garnering a number of appearances featuring the Naudets not only on Christian and religious radio stations, but also a number of general-interest stations. “Radio tours … have now sort of replaced the traditional author tour in a lot of cases, because it’s the most efficient way to hit a broad swath of the country,” Chamblee says.

At the same time, NGB partnered with an advertising agency on a promotional radio campaign in which the agency approached popular stations in top markets, offering the stations free copies of the book to give away to listeners in exchange for an on-air mention.