Breaking Dawn

Last night was the release of Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book from Stephenie Meyer in the Twilight series. I have to admit that I have read all three books although the last book I had to choke down. I realize that I am a thirty something male which isn't exactly the target market for these books. I blame my wife for reading these.

While watching the news last night, one of the stories was of course on the midnight release of Breaking Dawn and showing thousands of people at the Barnes and Noble store waiting to be able to purchase this book.

What caught my attention was the captive audience Barnes & Noble had and they were not taking advantage of this rare opportunity. Although some additional sales will come from customers looking around the store for this four plus hour time frame, so much more could have been done.

For example, why not co-market this release with a radio station or similar company where you could be selling food, giving away prizes, and drawing even more traffic to your store. You could look at various bundling and ways to sell related Stephenie Meyer merchandise with this new book. Perhaps, you even allow customers to buy two books and get the third book half off.

Overall, it isn't that often that most of us have a captive audience and missing an opportunity like this is really a waste.