2025 Your Brand/Your Story: Advanced Display & Marketing
Online
Event Details
Welcome to Your Brand/Your Story: Advanced Display and Marketing!
Learn to tell the story of your store with instructors Lisa Uhrik and Steve Wax, specialists in branding, marketing, and understanding that bookstores are providing experiences, not only selling products.
Live Classes are on Wednesdays @ 12:30 pm ET / 11:30 am CT / 9:30 am PT on June 4, June 18, July 2, July 9 and July 16. Each class is 90 minutes. Assigned readings and tasks are intended to be completed before the live classes, which will be discussions and analysis.
Registration opens Monday, May 5th @ 1 pm ET / 12 pm CT / 10 am PT
Information about the course is on our website: please review this before you register.
How the Course Works
The Advanced Display & Marketing Course explores the intersection of storytelling, display, and marketing to create an unforgettable bookstore experience. It is intended only for stores that are already operational.
The course is a read/practice/reflect learning model. It contains 5 workshops, each with a chapter to be read and field work assignments to complete in your store before coming to a live class to discuss, share, and learn together. Your experimentation and measurement is key. Show and tell: what did you do and what did you see when you tried it?
Live classes meet via Zoom. The course uses Discord as our platform for information, chat, and homework. Discord is free to join, and an invitation will be emailed to students after registrations. Students also receive a weekly newsletters with information about the classes.
Each class explores a different way of understanding your store:
- Crafting Experiences & Setting the Scene
- Marketing & Display as Emotional Curiosity
- Connections of Shared Experience, Strength, Hope
- Aligning Marketing, Display, Events & Curation
- Storytelling in Display at Macro & Micro Levels
Course Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Design a book haven space that connects with customers through storytelling
- Move from transactional book-selling in favor of engagement through experience
- Articulate a clear market position and story
- Align store layout, displays, and media with a compelling Big Idea
- Apply persona-driven strategies to marketing, curation, and customer engagement
- Integrate store atmosphere, sensory elements, and display techniques to drive browsing and purchasing.
- Develop a holistic approach where marketing, events, displays, and book curation work in alignment
- Experiment with radical, out-of-the-box marketing strategies that strengthen engagement and community connections.
Registration opens Monday, May 5th @ 1 pm ET / 12 pm CT / 10 am PT
Registration Costs
Registration is $425 with discounts available for members of NAIBA, SIBA, GLIBA, MPIBA, PNBA, and CALIBA. Find out what support your Regional Trade Association offers on our website.
Registration is limited to 30 students, and to stores that are already open and no more than one employee from each store. 24 seats are open for first come/first registered, while 6 seats are reserved for students who fall under our Diversity/Equity/Inclusion policy. There are required questions about diversity status when you register.
This is not a Certification course.
PLEASE NOTE: Before you register you must join PBS as a member. Membership is free, and joining ensures you receive our newsletter with important updates and deadlines about the school and our courses. Your record after you join is called your "Member Compass" and you can visit and revise information there at any time. Students must be owners or employees of stores that are members in good standing of the ABA and/or their Regional Trade Association.
Schedule
Live Classes are on Wednesdays @ 12:30 pm ET / 11:30 am CT / 9:30 am PT on June 4, June 18, July 2, July 9 and July 16. Each class is 90 minutes. Assigned readings and tasks are intended to be completed before the live classes, which will be discussions and analysis.