As I was writing this today, I was emailing with an editor who was looking for some stats about marketing budgets to help bolster his request for a larger budget for his publication’s marketing. He had succeeded in increasing subscriptions in the past through marketing campaigns, but most of the increase was lost at renewal time. I imagine with those kinds of ephemeral results, asking for more money needs to be supported by data to stand a chance.

Also today, I was reading about a new initiative. A web-based collective of creative minds who work to solve one great problem a year — this year’s issue is about the education system. They used the term ‘right brains’ and their url is super clever: rightbrainsare.us.

The latest big release with the words ‘right brains’ that I recall is Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future. And I discovered that he is quoted on the web site. Although this ‘movement’ may indeed deliver good ideas that achieve results (and I hope it does), I can’t help but ponder… is this all a marketing promo for the book?

Whether it is or not, let’s consider that it is.

Now that is a BIG IDEA: a ‘Big Idea’ for marketing a book is to ignite a movement? Wow.

What is the big idea to solve your publication’s marketing challenge? What is your challenge anyway? You have to start by correctly identifying the problem. Start on the right premise so that your trajectory is not compromised.

So, back to the editor I was emailing. He knows his stuff and has an established record of success in increasing subscriptions, and he is looking to do it again. But the results are not sustained. So, is the best solution to get more money to get more new readers, aka member/subscribers?

What is his real issue? I would say it is not getting more readers, it is keeping readers.

So, if the big idea for marketing a book is to ignite a movement, what is the big idea for keeping readers? I have some ideas about that, but keep in mind that the big idea is unique to each challenge, what worked for some other publication won’t necessarily work for yours. And remember, big ideas come from looking beyond the assumptions to truly get at the core problem. And this is why Buyer Persona Research is so valuable.

Have you developed some big ideas?