Hoynes Takes a Look Back & Makes a Request for the Future

Michael Hoynes, ABA's marketing officer, who helped the association build Book Sense into a vibrant national marketing program with over 1,200 participating booksellers, will be leaving ABA at the year's end. "I thought it was probably a three-year assignment, but it just ended up being five," Hoynes told BTW at ABA's Tarrytown, New York headquarters.

Prior to ABA, Hoynes was vice president of marketing for the American National Standards Institute, and he spent 16 years as executive vice president and world wide management director at Foote Cone & Belding, one of the world’s largest marketing communication companies. In 1998, he joined ABA when the association sought to launch a national marketing campaign. Hoynes told BTW that the "primary reason I'm interested in helping independent businesses is that my father was an independent grocer. It was a great challenge and opportunity to give something back."

In 1998, Hoynes began working closely with ABA's senior staff to develop the basic principles for a nationwide branding program and to research marketplace issues relevant to independent bookstores. At that time, the forecast was for nine months to a year to create a viable plan. However, when ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz returned from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) Fall Trade Show, he expressed the belief that NCIBA was well on its way to creating a marketing umbrella for booksellers in its region and thought it was something that Hoynes should investigate.

"They were fortunate enough to get a very professional, nationally recognized branding company [The Addison Group] to work pro bono," said Hoynes, who went to California to meet with Hut Landon, NCIBA's executive director, who was working with area booksellers and the Addison Group to develop the marketing plan. Hoynes was impressed with the program developed by Addison, which revolved around the name and logo of Book Sense. He returned to Tarrytown and told Domnitz that the association could spend a year's time and "a half million to a million dollars, and we wouldn't find anything better."

Hoynes did, however, see one weakness in NCIBA's plan. Although there was plenty of bookseller input, there was none from consumers. Hoynes went to work setting up focus groups and gleaning information on consumers' book-buying trends. He talked about how Book Sense needed to be "an integrated marketing program where the prime focus would be the consumer. All the research clearly showed the consumer was making all the decisions about book purchasing: what, when, where, and at what price, so it was important that Book Sense recognize the consumer demands, even for book purchasing. This led to the decisions to create a national gift certificate, an independent bookstore bestseller list, and a viable e-commerce service."

With the endorsement of the ABA Board of Directors, the Book Sense national marketing program was officially launched in 1999 at BookExpo America (BEA) in Los Angeles.

"When we began to discuss plans with publishers," said Hoynes, "one told me that we'd be lucky to get 500 independent booksellers to do anything together." So 500 became the goal number of bookstores to recruit into the Book Sense program.

"When we announced Book Sense at BEA, we had 800 bookstores sign up from all 50 states. Originally we had 49 -- we were short North Dakota. But I called a bookstore in North Dakota from BEA and told them, 'We've got 49 states so far. We need you…. I knew we were charting new territory.

"Five years later, consensus within the trade would say, there's no doubt that Book Sense made a difference."

Hoynes stressed that he was far from alone in propelling and directing the growth of Book Sense. "Overall, the most important thing about Book Sense is it's a team effort. You don't go anywhere without a full team." Hoynes mentioned that all ABA staff members contributed greatly to the evolution of Book Sense and BookSense.com. Among many others, Hoynes mentioned Carl Lennertz, who was brought in to help sell the Book Sense concept to publishers and build credibility with them. "Book Sense 76 grew into a powerful marketing tool and full credit goes to Carl's team for making that happen," said Hoynes.

As for life post-ABA, Hoynes is planning to spend a lot more time in Florida, where he'll also do some consulting work. He told BTW, "I will be working with SCORE [Service Corps of Retired Executives, a nonprofit association for small businesses nationwide] on several consulting projects for a variety of small businesses as part of my goal to 'give-back' something that assists independent businesses."

Hoynes also mentioned that he'll remain an advocate for the independent bookseller: "If the opportunity developed to assist independent booksellers enhance their marketing skills, I would welcome the chance to take the insights learned during the past five years about the book industry … and translate those insights into effective marketing strategies at … the local level."

Looking back on his five years at ABA, Hoynes said, "Having come with the only goal of launching a national branding program, to see how far it has come is very gratifying. To become a unifying force for the vast majority of independent booksellers and to see that Book Sense is very viable, I feel really good about what we've accomplished."

Hoynes also added something of a parting request to booksellers: "We all have to feel good about what has been accomplished over the past five years. Book Sense has become a good trade-marketing program, but the challenge ahead is building more awareness and interest with consumers. Book Sense was designed to be implemented at the local level, so to become a truly effective marketing program at the consumer level, Book Sense needs more active support from participating bookstores. Book Sense needs more reporters to the bestseller lists and more booksellers nominating titles for the '76 lists.

"It also needs total participation in the national electronic gift card program so that more consumers understand their needs for gift cards can be met at independent bookstores, and it is not necessary to run off to a chain to meet that need. And, now that we all realize consumers will sometime use the Internet to purchase books, it is logical more bookstores would seize the opportunity to offer an excellent e-commerce service to their customer via BookSense.com. The latest research indicates that the traditional customer of independent bookstores purchases at least two books a year over the Internet. BookSense.com is another way to maintain the Internet sale in the independent bookstore. From the start, Book Sense has had only one objective: to help booksellers sell more books and be more profitable." --Karen Schechner