A Bestseller Built on Strategy: Marketing Heartland with The Playbook

Jeremy Ryan
Apr 3
4 min read

Services Provided:

Website Development
The Playbook: Audience and Campaign Strategy
Paid Meta Advertising
TV and Streaming Video Advertising
Live Read Sponsorships

Background and Challenge:

Keith O'Brien, a New York Times bestselling author, was preparing to launch his new book Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird. The book told the extraordinary untold story of basketball legend Larry Bird's journey from nearly quitting the sport to leading Indiana State's miraculous 1978-79 season. The challenge lay in breaking through the crowded sports biography market and amplifying the publisher's efforts. Keith needed a strategic digital presence and paid advertising campaign that would reach basketball fans, Larry Bird enthusiasts, and sports history readers beyond traditional publicity channels, ultimately driving book sales during the critical launch window.

Approach and Solution:

Metamorphosis Agency deployed an integrated approach combining website development, strategic planning through The Playbook, phased Meta advertising, and targeted broadcast media.

We built keithob.com on Wix Studio in December 2025, creating a digital hub that showcased both Heartland and Keith's credentials as a PEN America award-winning journalist. The site launched ahead of the advertising campaign, providing a professional landing page for all promotional efforts.

We developed a comprehensive marketing playbook that informed all downstream tactics: audience targeting, messaging strategy, creative direction, and campaign phasing. The Playbook identified Keith's core audiences (Indiana and Massachusetts basketball fans, sports history readers, Larry Bird enthusiasts) and mapped the customer journey from awareness to purchase.

We then executed a two-phase Meta advertising campaign. Phase 1 (January 1 – February 16, 2026) focused on awareness and reach, investing budget to introduce Keith and Heartland to target audiences. We tested two creative approaches simultaneously: a "Praise Carousel" featuring author blurbs and publication reviews, and a book trailer video. The campaign reached hundreds of thousands at a slightly better-than-industry-average cost per reach. The Praise Carousel emerged as the standout performer, though it was at less than half the industry average for CPM, thanks to the Playbook's strategies and audience targeting.

Phase 2 shifted to traffic and conversions, investing the budget to convert awareness into book sales. We leveraged The Playbook's audience targeting and bidding strategy, retargeting Phase 1 engagers while expanding to fresh audiences. Using the winning Blurb Carousel creative plus optimized variations, we drove traffic directly to purchase pages. This phase generated thousands of link clicks and verified landing page views, well below the industry cost-per-landing-page-view average, achieving Meta's "Above Average" quality ranking.

To amplify reach in Keith's core geographic market, we deployed TV and streaming video ads alongside live-read sponsorships during the Indiana High School Boys' Basketball State Tournament. This strategic placement put Heartland directly in front of passionate Indiana basketball fans during one of the state's most-watched sporting events, with on-air personalities delivering compelling talking points about Larry Bird's untold story. The broadcast integration delivered exceptional results, reaching the exact demographic most likely to connect with the book's narrative.

The combined effect of the campaign represented a true hybrid approach to The Playbook. While Metamorphosis managed the paid advertising and broadcast placements, Keith executed brilliantly on organic social media, creating rich video content that expanded on stories from the book and offered behind-the-scenes glimpses into his research process in French Lick and Terre Haute. This organic-paid synergy demonstrated The Playbook's effectiveness when authors actively participate in content creation alongside agency-managed campaigns.

Results:

The combined marketing efforts led to outstanding campaign performance and book success. With a smart investment in the right tactics, rather than overextending by trying to do everything, the campaign reached hundreds of thousands of people and generated almost a million total impressions. Most importantly, we drove thousands of verified visits to the purchase page during the critical launch window at an exceptionally efficient cost per landing page view.

Heartland became a New York Times Bestseller and reached Number 1 Best Seller in Sports Journalism on Amazon, with strong launch momentum that exceeded publisher expectations.

When a client takes the time to write a personal thank you, it's extra special. Keith's words reflect the trust and partnership that make author marketing so rewarding. These moments mean everything to our team.

Conclusion:

The success of Heartland demonstrates the power of an integrated marketing approach that combines website foundation, strategic planning through The Playbook, phased paid advertising, and targeted broadcast media. Keith's campaign proved how comprehensive audience targeting and bidding strategy translates directly into efficient performance, earning Meta's "Above Average" quality ranking while delivering landing page views at just $0.33 each. The strategic deployment of TV and streaming ads during the Indiana High School Boys Basketball State Tournament, paired with live read sponsorships, put the book directly in front of the state's most passionate basketball fans at exactly the right moment. The two-phase digital approach allowed us to test creative, identify winners, and optimize spend around the book launch when purchase intent was highest. This case study underscores the effectiveness of hybrid execution, where authors who actively create organic content alongside agency-managed paid campaigns and broadcast placements see stronger overall results. With efficient spend across digital and traditional channels, we reached over 316,000 potential readers and drove more than 5,000 verified visits to the purchase page, setting a benchmark for integrated book launch campaigns.