Publishing Technology, a publishing-specific software solutions provider, and Bowker Market Research have released the findings of the first US and UK research into the growth of academic and trade publishing online communities. The number of publisher-owned online communities is set to more than double over the next two years, according to the research.
The study, conducted by Bowker Market Research, a service of ProQuest affiliate Bowker, found that two-thirds of responding publishers currently host reader communities, and that this is set to rise to over 90 percent over the next two years. A quarter expect to have seven or more networks up and running by 2015, with many respondents predicting a huge growth in the number of online communities for their company, from a current average of 2.1, to more than five over the next two years.
The survey, which included UK and US publishers across trade and academic sectors, revealed that trade publishers are currently most engaged in this area with 86 percent of respondents owning an online community in some shape or form.
The study also investigated the rationale and perceived benefits for publishers moving into this arena, revealing that 84 percent of publishers felt their spending on online communities would increase in the next two years with only 14 percent envisaging expenditure remaining stagnant. Sixty-four percent of publishers with online communities were convinced that their investment in this market was already paying off and a further 24 percent believed it would do so in the short term.
Seventy-three percent of all the publishers interviewed felt that online communities helped or would help them to engage better with their audiences. Seventy-two percent of trade publishers said they helped or would help to increase direct relationships with customers and 45 percent claimed they provided or would provide good marketing support to sales channels. Forty percent of academic and professional publishers said that increasing knowledge and understanding of customers was a key benefit, whilst 40 percent felt increasing content usage was a priority.
Although currently only 16 percent of all respondents viewed online communities as viable direct sales channels, the formats that have benefited most from online community activity are e-books for trade publishers (40 percent) and online resources for academic publishers (67 percent).
Trade and academic publishers in the UK and US were invited to contribute to the survey. The full results are available now on publishingtechnology.com/blog. The key findings were made available at the joint Book Marketing Society (BMS)/Publishers Publicity Circle (PPC) London Book Fair panel on THE CAMPAIGN REVOLUTION: Reshaping the way publishers are reaching readers.
