Milana – The Diary of an Estonian Model
- Golden Hammer 2010 diplom
Project overview
Milana – The Diary of an Estonian Model is the first book in Estonia to be marketed almost exclusively through social media.
It is also Estonia’s first iPhone e-book!
Milana’s book has, through social media marketing, tripled its first-month sales goals and remains at the top of bookstore sales charts.
The smart social media campaign made the hottest bestseller from an unknown author - and that practically for zero-budget!
View project video
Web site: milanaraamat.ee
Project values:
- Books had not previously received much Internet-based social media marketing in Estonia, so the choice of this channel represented an excellent opportunity to stand out. It was also the ideal way of reaching the target group of the book.
- An important step in the marketing of the book was the creation of the e-book version and the launch event and additional media accompanying it. The first book marketed through e-marketing in Estonia is also Estonia’s first e-book on iPhone!
- Taking into account the target group and the minimal budget, we structured the entire campaign around social media, using as many leading opportunities and free or almost free resources and channels as possible.
- We make extensive use of Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, YouTube, popular fashion blogs and more.
- The author did not wish to reveal his/her identity. This created a legend of a successful but unknown Estonian model and lent both viral and gossip marketing a sense of mystery.
- Opinion of one reviewer: “The book is not weighty enough in what it says or how it says it to make it worth analysing – but the mystery surrounding the whole thing deserves to win the Marketing Trick of the Year award.”
Goals set by the client
- To get the target group – women in the 14–30 age bracket who tend to read online media – to buy the book
- Campaign sales targets: Christmas sales in December 2009 of 500 copies
(context: sales of 300–400 new, full-priced books are considered to be successful Christmas sales) - Total sales in 1st year: 3000 copies
(context: sales of 700–1000 books are considered to be successful annual sales) - Launch the campaign with the smallest possible budget
- Stand out from the other books that are released in time for Christmas
Results
Campaign launch date: 23 November 2009
Achievements through social media alone:
| Unique visitors per day | 1000 |
| Views of game clips | 7400 (every question = 1 clip) |
| Facebook fans | 828 |
Client’s assessment
Milana
I would never have thought that something I’d written, as a completely unknown author, however well I’d written it, would do as well as the likes of Ruitlane, Kivirähk and Õnnepalu in terms of sales figures. Even 9 weeks since the book’s release it’s still at number 4 in the Rahva Raamat fiction chart! Of course, a lot of the book’s sales success is down to the agency. How else would it have made it to the top of the sales charts in the first few weeks of December, without any articles having appeared in the papers? Not to mention the fact that the book is selling many times more than the average print run for Estonia, as I found out recently from the Eesti Päevaleht publishers when I got the January sales figures.
The book sold so well in its first week of release that it went straight to the top of the Rahva Raamat chart (along with Tõnu Õnnepalu and Andrus Kivirähk’s books). The book is still up there in the bookstore charts – for example, as of 14 January it was number 2 in the Estonian fiction chart behind Tõnu Õnnepalu (Rahva Raamat chart).
In December 2009 the book sold three times as many copies as was originally (and ambitiously) planned, selling 1500 copies. This result was almost entirely achieved through social media channels, since no advertisements were published prior to the book being released.