Digital Library: Offering content to generate institutional sales
As more content is offered online today, how can institutions generate sales and benefit from creating a digital library? 2020 was a year of transition and change. The COVID-19 pandemic also provided a rife social landscape for the circulation of more content and knowledge. In a global pandemic of inequality, individuals finally began calling out problems like racism and anti-blackness and sought to educate and consume content.
The closure of physical bookstores across the world has not stopped the accumulation of knowledge among individuals. As life as we knew it moved to online spaces and our consumption patterns evolved, the digital library began to grow more popular. Readers borrowed eBooks amounting to over $430 million in 2020 alone, a whopping 33 percent increase from 2019.
What next for the digital library?
A digital library refers to an online collection or repository of knowledge and content offered online, incorporating text, images, audio, video, and other forms of visual documents, often varying in size and scope.
The pandemic year has unveiled numerous new opportunities and possibilities for digital libraries as both individuals and institutions grow more invested in their value and potential. While publishers and content creators aim to target diverse audiences, they can also offer their content in bulk and reach institutions from a digital store.
The digital library is an opportunity for institutions?
The sale of digital content and the ease of setting up an online store or virtual library allowed institutions to venture into this new possibility. Every institution can have its own library digital library where they have a credible platform to upload their content and build a brand image and an audience.
Offering institutional sales is a new opportunity to create Business to Business (B2B) sales. It is possible to contact an organization to offer content to everyone who is a part of it and might be interested.
The power of the digital Library: How Publica can help serve institutions
With Publica, organizations are easily able to create a library from a catalog of books and audiobooks. Publica is working with educational institutions, professional associations, governments, companies, and even nonprofits while adapting to different types of business models on the same platform. They can create a full repository of knowledge and information, and other learning resources for their audiences. The online library is tailored to the needs of an organization. Organizations may also choose to customize their digital library to better suit their readers.
As organizations were pushed to making quick decisions to maintain their sales and generate revenue, many embraced the possibilities of offering their content digitally. For example, Argentinian educational platform Santallina Argentina immediately turned to digital books to generate sales. Santillana opened another avenue to further increase sales by giving its readers the option of subscribing to its content.
Having a library has been a great resource for teachers and students as they can access their content in one centralized place rather than logging in and navigating school or university digital spaces. Be it working on an essay or thesis, or doing extra reading and research, students and educators were readily able to view and engage with content.
Santillana Argentina successfully reached its education community by providing online textbooks and other necessary learning materials. Publica was an excellent channel to generate sales and get the public during what would have otherwise been a very trying time for the company.
Reaching different stakeholders through Publica
Companies can create corporate libraries to provide training, support, and other supervision to their employees with different codebooks and work methodologies. They can provide the resources to train their employees in a more asynchronous manner that might save time.
Employees have access to a lot of content and they can continue to study and gain useful knowledge that will help them excel at their work and equip them with the required skill sets and beyond. For instance, engineering teams may be provided with coding publications, and sales and marketing teams may be given publications on management, finance, leadership, and personal development.
Similarly, governments are can create a platform to upload content and reach different communities. They are able to select digital books from a wide range of publishers and content creators through a library license model. All of these resources and materials can be integrated with the company’s website so that they can readily access the digital library with their company account.
Overall, the fast-growing pace and popularity of setting up digital libraries in virtual environments are defining the so-called ‘’new normal’’ for many of us. With the new business avenues brought by institutional sales, publishers are now able to reach larger and more diverse audiences with fewer barriers and inefficiencies.
Would your organization like to set up their own digital library and benefit from this host of new possibilities? Market and sell digital content without intermediaries when you set up an online store with Publica!
