How Open Road Uses Agile Marketing to Power Growth

Not long after the company launched, Friedman declared in a New York Times profile that "electronic is going to be the center of universe." And for quite some time, that seemed to be the case. "When Jane founded the company, we had hockey stick-style growth for two years," says Mary McAveney, Open Road's senior vice president of marketing. But that story, as anyone involved with digital publishing is now sorely aware, has begun to stall. According to the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies, ebook sales for trade publishers fell 11.3% from 2014 to 2015. Instead of rolling over and playing dead, however, Open Road took a two-pronged approach to what many in the industry are referring to as "digital fatigue": an impressive level of product diversification, and a data-led approach to marketing and promotions known as "agile marketing."