Half Price Books is the largest family-owned new and used bookstore chain in the country, with more than 110 retail locations in 16 states. In February 2013, the retailer launched their Booklover's Weekend campaign to drive customers in store and build their community of devoted readers.

Engaging customers over the channels they use most, the bookstore offered Facebook fans and email subscribers an in-store coupon for use over the Valentine's Day weekend. The in-store engagement campaign resulted in nearly 36,000 new email subscribers in one month and drove 14,000 in-store email coupon transactions on Valentine's Day weekend, up 52.6% from the previous years' Booklover's campaign.

HPB leverages the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud for email and social marketing, as well as A/B testing and measurement tools, which were particularly strategic to the 2013 campaign.

The book store was able to gain valuable insights into their shoppers through A/B testing offers and discounts during the campaign. HPB found that customers overwhelmingly prefer a percentage off discount over a specific dollar amount coupon by nearly six to one.

HPB used insights from the 2013 campaign to optimize the 2014 campaign, which just took place two weeks ago. Email coupon transactions went up almost 135% over 2013 because HPB went with the percentage off discount exclusively, based on learnings from the 2013 campaign.

HPB extends its social media presence by enabling email subscribers to share messages on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. The bookstore monitors social sharing to create authentic experiences by answering questions and providing relevant content.

"We are passionate about inspiring the next generation of readers and in order to engage our hyper-connected shoppers, we must reach them on the digital channels they use most," said Kathy Doyle Thomas, executive vice president and chief strategy officer of Half Price Books. "With ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, we can effectively engage our customers across email, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to build meaningful relationships and create authentic experiences, all while promoting literacy."

We are excited for the Forrester Groundswell Awards, and have nominated HPB for their 2013 "Booklover's Weekend" campaign.