A Case in Point: LitLovers.com
Creating a Community of Lovers

The Opportunity
After retiring from teaching, Molly Lundquist wanted to find a medium that would leverage her passion for books to make literature more accessible and enjoyable to people. Droz helped realize her dream with LitLovers.com.

Refining the Vision
Building on Lundquist's enthusiasm and vision, Droz developed a marketing plan that provided focus by defining:

• A Target Audience, the millions of people, principally women, who belonged to book clubs. These were communities across the country who congregated on a regular basis to read and talk about books and clearly wanted interaction with each other.
• A Strategy, to create a 'community of communities,' that provided an inviting environment where book clubs could share information about books and other topics of interest, and feel connected to the universe of book lovers. Further, by creating a sense of community, the potential for viral marketing and interaction among book club participants is high.
• A Brand, "LitLovers.com," to represent the core attribute of the community: Love of Literature.

Realizing the Vision
To reach this audience, Droz developed a Web site (litlovers.com) that incorporated a variety of features including:

• Aggregated Content, that brought reviews and analysis of hundreds of books to one easily accessed and navigated area on the site. Classics to Bodice Rippers. They're all there.
• Advice on how to form, manage, and sustain book clubs.
• Blog, to provide ongoing tips, viewpoints, and insight to literature by Lundquist and guest bloggers.
• Discussion Guides, that helped readers get more out of their literature for the participants of book clubs and their families.
• Kids Section, where the love of literature could be developed.
• User Contributed Content, where individuals could add their own content and feel connected to the universe of LitLovers.

Building on Success
LitLovers.com now has more than a half a million visitors a year and growing. Daily visits are exceeding 2,000, and weekly hits are marching past 10,000. Lundquist, with the help of Droz, was able to integrate her passion for reading, writing, and teaching, and help reach her audience to read and more meaningfully interact. LitLovers is currently moving toward monetizing their community through advertising, product sales, and subscription services.

"I really wanted to create a community of book lovers, and I feel that is what we did," says Lundquist. "And now that I'm here, it's just as satisfying as I had always hoped it would be!" Sometimes you can make a living doing what you love, and that is a very happy ending.

For more information on how to aggregate and engage your audiences, contact Droz at 412.338.1818, or ddroz@droz.com.