Barnes
& Noble operates a large online bookstore in conjunction with 1350 brick
& mortar bookstores, with roughly 10 million customers, selling 300 million
books per year (Bruley, 2013). It’s been proven imperative that Barnes &
Noble use web analytics in order to gather valuable information in order to
continue to gain market share against competitors, especially to dominate the highly
competitive eBook market.
Approach,
Tools and Techniques
Barnes
& Noble aims to thoroughly analyze and control it’s activities in order to
develop a personalized approach to customers through more sophisticated
segmentation, tailored marketing programs and better coordination of customer experiences
(Bruley, 2013).
Barnes
& Noble uses third party service providers, such as IBM Coremetrics and
Google Analytics, to help the company better understand visitor traffic and
customers, especially when determining how customers use their Nook (“Privacy
Policy,” 2015). Third party service providers place cookies on customer’s
computers to collect information such as how they were referred to the Barnes
& Noble website, how they navigate the site and what is purchased and what traffic
is driven by various marketing methods (“Privacy Policy,” 2015). This
information helps the company better serve the customer, especially by
providing them with more personalized information and product offerings.
By
collecting IP addresses, browser types, operating systems, referring pages and other
similar types of information through the use of cookies, web server logs and
pixel tags, Barnes & Noble provides users with advertisements that are
customized to particular preferences (“Privacy Policy,” 2015). Data is also
collected through applications or devices including information regarding
reading, viewing and activity behavior. Activity behavior may include which
books or videos were opened, date and time of use, time elapsed, page turns,
bookmarks, annotations and customer reviews (“Privacy Policy,” 2015). While in
the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a
reader sits down with an eBook. Now, retailers are beginning to sift through
the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books including
how far readers are getting in eBooks, how long they spend reading them and
what search terms they use to find those books.
In
addition, when a customer signs into a Barnes & Noble website or
application using a social network account, such as Facebook, Twitter or Google
account, the social networking site may provide Barnes & Noble with
information about the user including contacts and other “likes” (“Privacy
Policy,” 2015).
If
the customer is a student and rents or purchases an e-textbook or textbook from
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, the company may also collect
information from the college or university such as mailing and email addresses
and class registration information (“Privacy Policy,” 2015).
Data Usage
According
to Barnes & Noble’s privacy policy the company uses personal information in
order to provide a “superior customer experience and, as necessary, to
administer” its business (“Privacy Policy,” 2015). This includes providing product
and subject recommendations, measuring and maintaining products and services,
administering sweepstakes and promotions, communicating with customers about
special offers, events or new products, in addition to customizing and
enhancing the website and various advertising initiatives (“Privacy Policy,”
2015).
Jim
Hilt, Barnes & Noble’s vice president of e-books, says the company is
starting to share insights with publishers to help them create books that
better hold people’s attention (Alter, 2012). These insights are invaluable
considering the company seeks to gain a greater share of the eBook market. For
example, Nook users who buy the first book in a popular series like
“Divergent,” tend to tear through all the books in the series, almost as if
they were reading a single novel (Alter, 2012).
Barnes
& Noble has determined, through analyzing Nook data, that nonfiction books
tend to be read in fits and starts while novels are generally straight through,
and that nonfiction books, particularly long ones, tend to get dropped earlier
(Alter, 2012). When data showed that Nook readers routinely quit long works of
nonfiction, the company began looking for ways to engage readers in nonfiction
and long form journalism, therefore, launching “Nook Snaps,” short works on
topics ranging from weight loss and religion to the Occupy Wall Street movement
(Alter, 2012). Pinpointing when readers get bored has also helped publishers create
better digital editions by strategically adding video or other multimedia
features.
While
many have been frustrated with the industry’s failure to examine its customer
base, web analytics provide the potential to not only the determine the exact
demographics of specific genres and books, but also analyze the customer’s
behavior while searching for the book in addition to while reading it.
Perspective
While
it seems that Barnes & Noble has set a solid foundation to gain insight on
its visitor traffic and customer base through web analytics, there are several
recommendations to improve its overall web analytic efforts.
Considering
the store offers thousands of products, it’s vital that the website populates
genres that the web visitor is immediately attracted to. With an easily
accessible search bar, a visually attractive slider and an effective content on
the homepage, Barnes & Noble currently offers an engaging customer
experience.
While
the website provides ample information to help the consumer make a purchasing
decision, including video on the website would allow the company to gain
further insight into its customers. Videos might include introductions from
specific featured authors or a Barnes & Noble spokesperson promoting the
month’s top picks in a specific genre category. By gathering data from these
viewers, Barnes & Nobles could gain insight into who the customer is and if
video might be an attractive addition to an eBook for a specific genre. For instance, the company could us Vzaar in
order to host the videos on the website and then group the videos by genre.
Therefore, if a person visited the nonfiction section of the site, he or she
could easily view other videos from the authors of a variety of nonfiction
books.
By
strategically placing social sharing links closer to the book covers on product
pages, Barnes & Noble will be able to analyze who is sharing the
information and what might make them share it. Currently, the social sharing
buttons are slightly hard to find and may appear out of the viewing window. For
instance, readers of a specific genre might be more likely to socially share
about a book. After determining that genre, Barnes & Noble could then host
a social media sweepstakes targeted toward that segmented group of readers.
Having
an author guest blogger series might also drive traffic to the site, therefore,
providing an opportunity to gain additional web analytics. For instance, if
Danielle Steel wanted to promote a newly released book, she would be asked to
guest blog on the site. The brand would work with Danielle Steel to promote the
blog through her network, most likely driving the author’s loyal fans to the
Barnes & Noble site to read the blog. Barnes & Nobles would then be
able to analyze that specific data in order to, not only gather contact
information of those fans, but also find who those fans specifically are and
what might make them turn into Barnes & Noble customers.
References
Alter, A. (2012, July 19). Your E-Book Is Reading You. Retrieved
March 2, 2015, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304
Bruley, M. (2013, September 9). Some insights on the Big Data
Barnes & Noble experience. Retrieved March 2, 2015, from http://www.analyticbridge.com/profiles/blogs/some-insights-on-the-big-data-barnes-noble-experience
Privacy Policy. (2015, January). Retrieved March 2, 2015, from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/help/cds2.asp?pid=25560
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