Constant Contact success story · Independent bookstore

How a century-old poetry bookstore grew its email list 31% with Constant Contact events and email.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
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The Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square was losing about $50,000 a year when its current manager arrived in 2018. Weekly readings, run and promoted through Constant Contact, brought the crowds back. In 2025 its list grew 31% and its emails averaged a 55% open rate.

Business: Grolier Poetry Book Shop
Market: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Goal: Fill weekly events and grow a loyal list

Narrow bookshop aisle between tall wooden shelves packed with books

The results.

Constant Contact compares the 55% average open rate with a 36% industry average.

+31%email list growth in 2025
55%average open rate
71%welcome email open rate
30%of new contacts come from events

List growth is for the 2025 calendar year; open rates are the shop’s averages at the time of the story. Figures as reported in the story; Constant Contact does not publish how they were measured.

The challenge.

The Grolier, in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, is the oldest continuously operated bookstore in the United States that sells poetry and only poetry. When its manager started in 2018, events and stock had both run down, and the shop was losing about $50,000 a year.

The plan was to bring back weekly readings and restock the shelves. That raised a practical problem: how do you announce a new event every week, and give people an easy way to sign up whether they come in person or watch online? Contacting customers had been manual, close to copying and pasting addresses from a spreadsheet.

Run the eventWeekly hybrid readings with in-person and online sign-up.
Capture the guestEvery registration becomes a new contact.
Welcome themAn automatic welcome email goes out straight away.
Invite them backThe weekly email announces the next readings.

What they did.

Event registration · Weekly newsletter · Welcome email · Online merchandise and donations

Events run from the same platform: Readings are set up with Constant Contact event management, which handles in-person and online sign-ups, and the shop also uses Constant Contact to sell merchandise and take donations.
A weekly email worth opening: Every week subscribers get the new readings, curated book lists and merchandise news, built from ready-made templates so the brand looks consistent.
An automatic welcome: New subscribers get a welcome email straight away through automation, and it is the shop’s best-read message.
Reports that plan the calendar: Open, click and sign-up reports show which events drew the most interest, and that shapes the roadmap of future readings.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Events feed the list: Every registration adds a contact. Almost a third of new subscribers now arrive through an event, so each reading grows the audience for the next one.
A real reason to open: A weekly email that announces something happening this week earns attention that a generic newsletter does not.
First impressions count: A welcome email sent the moment someone joins reaches them at peak interest, which is why it outperforms everything else.
Simple enough to keep doing: A manager who calls himself a book person, not a technology person, can run the whole program every week, and consistency is what built the results.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our Constant Contact email marketing.

Turn events into list growth: Registration pages, reminders and follow-ups set up so every attendee becomes a subscriber, with consent recorded properly.
Build the weekly rhythm: A simple, branded template and a content plan, so a busy owner can send in minutes, or we send it for you.
Write the welcome series: A welcome email, then two or three short follow-ups that tell your story and invite people to the next event.
Promote the big nights: Local Facebook and Instagram ads for the events that matter most, sending new people to the registration page.