• How do you make the most of attending virtual conferences?
• 3 high-impact marketing strategies you’re probably overlooking
• There’s still time to book next week’s online Academic Marketing Workshop
• On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook
• Tip of the week: Beware of seeing what you expect (first rule of proofreading)

How do you make the most of attending virtual conferences?

2020 has been the year the virtual conference came of age, of necessity. And now, although we’d all rather be meeting face to face it seems likely that many events will choose to remain virtual. After all, they’re much less draining on resources when you remove the need to travel, stay in overpriced hotels, and breathe stale conference air while your to do list builds up back in the office.

The Scholarly Kitchen have just published Making the Most out of Virtual Events by Colleen Scollans. It includes plenty of really useful tips and is equally relevant whether you’re booking booth space as an exhibitor, relying on conferences to network and source new authors, or organising and promoting events yourself.

This is definitely one of the topics you can expect to be discussed on next week’s Academic Marketing Workshop too!

Read Making the Most out of Virtual Events on The Scholarly Kitchen

Read more about our Academic Marketing Workshop

 

3 high-impact marketing strategies you’re probably overlooking

The stock image illustrating this article on the Hubspot website does it no favours, but don’t let that put you off – the content is excellent, and the strategies in question are mostly inexpensive even for publishers.

Here’s a blatant spoiler, just so you know it’s worth clicking through to read what they have to say:

1. Account-based marketing, lead generation from LinkedIn (which could be from other social media platforms) followed by tips for a nurturing strategy.
2. The sheer potential of the right partnerships. This has always made sense in publishing where resources are tight, but there are some good tips and advice here to get you thinking.
3. Customer evangelism. A fantastic endorsement from a happy customer has always been, and will always be, one of the most powerful bits of content we’ll ever have.

Read 3 High Impact Marketing Strategies on the Hubspot website

Our Impressive Marketing Plans on a Small Budget workshop features these and other tactics. We plan to adapt this course to run online in 2 x 3hour sessions in the spring. Drop me an email to register interest, or watch this space.

 

There’s still time to book next week’s online Academic Marketing Workshop

We currently still have places on next week’s course, which takes place on Zoom in 2 x 3hour sessions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon (BST, London time). eBulletin subscribers can book at £300 rather than at the regular price of £350. We’re limiting the course to 12 places to give participants plenty of opportunities to discuss and ask questions.

The course begins with an overview of the higher education landscape, and moves on to best practice with plenty of examples. Laura Ingle from Emerald Group Publishing will be sharing some of their current and recent strategies, and both of us will be assessing the impact of Covid-19 on universities and on publishers marketing to them.

Details of the online course content and agenda are on our website (downloadable factsheet, bottom right). You can book online too using the standard booking form. We need to update this but it’s still perfectly serviceable – just choose ‘other’ price at the top. And of course, you’re welcome to drop me an email for any further information or just to check latest availability. rachel@marketability.info

Read more about our Academic Marketing Workshop

 

On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

• The world’s weirdest books in the Madman’s Library. Entertaining and uplifting, just what we need.
• Read something that hit the spot in this eBulletin? Click through and add a comment on Facebook
• Watch the Wall for postings of new jobs, or feel free to add to them.

Visit The Marketability Grapevine

 

Tip of the week: Beware of seeing what you expect (first rule of proofreading)

The human brain is very skilled at seeing what it expects to, which has resulted in some embarrassing and expensive errors over the years. I still remember the example of an annual (printed) directory which went to print each summer. The date was part of the title, and it’s easy to miss that it’s not been updated when you’re living in the year in question. That was a very expensive correction to the entire print run.

Here are two examples where the consequences were simply amusing, both heard recently.

1. The woman who realised she had a wasp on her car dashboard as she was driving to the supermarket, unable to stop to remove it. Once safely in the carpark she looked at it for the first time, and saw it was in fact a piece of fluff.
2. The man who spotted a kingfisher perched on a branch above a river and stood watching it, attracting other walkers to follow suit. Eventually he realised he was looking at a crisp packet (cheese and onion of course, since you ask).