Let me be the first to wish you a Happy Free Comic Book Day!
Don’t get alarmed. This is one of the fun, low-pressure holidays, like Arbor Day or Festivus. No trees to decorate, no vegetables to carve, no relatives to avoid. The name pretty much says it all: show up at a comic book store and get a free comic, just for being you. How’s that for unconditional love?
The first Free Comic Book Day (FCBD, as we’ll call it) was held last year the day after “Spider-Man” hit theaters, as a grassroots effort to draw potential readers into comic book stores. This Saturday, hot on the heels of the release of “X2: X-Men United,” about 2,200 stores worldwide will distribute 2.5 million free comics, said Barry Lyga, a spokesperson for Diamond Comics, the country’s largest comic book distributor and one of the sponsors of FCBD.
The event serves as a nice little CRM perk for regular customers, giving them something as a thank you for their continued patronage, and as a lead generation tool, drawing in potential new readers.
Brent Frankenhoff, managing editor of Comics Buyers Guide, estimated that the current comic book readership is between one and 1.5 million. Sounds like a lot of folks, but those numbers pale compared to the all-time high of about 50 million back in the 1940s, the “golden age” of comics.
Because there is no such thing as a “Comic Book Ad Council,” no one company could take the financial hit of sponsoring such an event, said Lyga. Publishers such as DC (the home of Batman) and Marvel (X-Men) print the comics and sell them at a nominal cost to retailers, who have access to promotional tools like comic book bags sponsored by the Sci Fi Channel, ad slicks and press releases to contact local media.
The FCBD Web site (www.freecomicbookday.com) features a comic book store locator to help interested customers find a local shop, and allows users to register to receive e-mail updates about the event. Over 30,000 e-mail addresses have been collected, said Lyga; however, since they opted-in only for FCBD info, they haven’t been marketed to for other purposes. (Diamond may offer the option of opting in for other newsletters at some point.)
The event is also being promoted via a link to the FCBD site on eBay, and ad swaps were arranged with magazines like Starlog and Heavy Metal.
But the success of the event really falls into the hands of the retailers, says Lyga. Frankenhoff agreed that the stores that had the best luck with FCBD were the ones that did additional promotion and made a real event out of it, reaching out to welcome people and figure out what sorts of comics might interest them.
“The immediate feedback was ‘when are you going to do this again?’ said Lyga, noting that Diamond heard anecdotal evidence people were coming in and doing more than just picking up their free comic and leaving. Organizers plan to do more tracking of FCBD’s lasting impact on retailers in the future, he said.
My comics monger, Steve of Outer Limits in Waltham, MA, said that while most of the traffic he saw on the last FCBD was regular customers there to get their freebie, a few new customers — girls, no less — did set foot in his shop for the first time and became regulars.
Of course, getting the message to the right people is key. No one will go into a shop for a free comic unless they’re inclined to read a comic in the first place, notes Steve. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to a bookstore giving out free cookbooks, because I don’t read cookbooks,” he said.
Part of the reason such an event works is that comic book readers are often enthusiastic about the genre, and want to share the joy, said Lyga. The hope is that many will go to see “X2” tomorrow with friends and then convince them to stop by a comic book shop to take a look.
“People who weren’t quite so passionate about their hobby probably wouldn’t do that,” he said.
That’s the kind of customer support marketers dream about. So go and visit a comic book shop on Saturday. Tell them Beth from Direct sent you. Of course, they’ll probably just look at you blankly and think you’re weird, but go ahead anyway. It’s fun to try new things.
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