• How do your customers feel right now? Here’s how
• When an academic is asked to describe their research in layman’s terms
• What changes have you seen to email response rates in 2020?
• On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook
• Tip of the week: Don’t compete with yourself

How do your customers feel right now? Here’s how

If your customers are either teachers or academics, I’d definitely recommend reading one or both of these two recent unconnected articles. A teacher and a lecturer talk about how they feel working through the pandemic. Most of us are in the lucky position of being able to work from home; these two groups are not. They make sobering reading, but if we regard these groups as our ‘target audiences’ I think we owe it to them to read their stories to help tune in to their perspectives.

Marketing to our customers in 2020 requires empathy, and that can be tricky to judge. But we need to do what we can because getting it wrong may result in our customers breaking their ties with us.

Read ‘I’m angry, I’m frightened’ article in the TES

Read ‘The fear now gripping universities’ in The Guardian

From Copywriting, to Academic Marketing, to Schools Marketing, to Email Marketing ... we have courses designed to help you make good judgements. Courses are being adapted to run online, and all are available to run ‘in-company’ tailored to your needs. Read more.

When an academic is asked to describe their research in layman’s terms

If those two articles have depressed your mood, here’s something to bring it right back up again.

Einstein famously said ‘if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough’. But those of us who work with specialist authors know that some seem incapable of summarising their work in plain terms. And some can’t see the value anyway, because they have no conception of the gatekeepers (sales reps, booksellers, librarians) that lie between them and their readers.

Thanks to Charlie Rapple and to The Scholarly Kitchen for sharing this marvellous comedy sketch.

Our Academic Marketing Workshop has been adapted to run online in 2 x 3hour sessions, and will run next in the spring (date TBC). Drop me an email to register interest, or watch this space.

What changes have you seen to email response rates in 2020?

Whilst there has been some really useful guidance on how to market during a pandemic, it’ll be a few months yet before any benchmarking reports showing wider trends for 2020 are published. Which has left us all making the best judgements we can, and wondering if any changes to our response rates are significant.

This short Profusion and Pure360 blog post dates from the summer, making it the most recent I’ve found so far. It includes interesting observations and stats, and reason for optimism too.

Our Email Marketing Workshop will be adapted to run in 2 x3hour sessions in the first quarter of 2021. Why not email me to register your interest? Available in-company at a date to suit you, too.

On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

• Does fiction still need speech marks? If you have a view you’ll enjoy this article on the Penguin website.
• Read something that hit the spot in this eBulletin? Click through and like the item or add a comment on Facebook
• Watch the wall for postings of new jobs, or feel free to add to them.

Catch up on The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

Tip of the week: Don’t compete with yourself

One of the first rules of marketing is to differentiate yourself from your competitors. But do you remember to apply that rule to titles within your own catalogue? If you have two (or more) related titles and the copy makes them sound similar then you have a problem.

It may be time for some editing ...

This (and how to do it) is always covered on our Copywriting Workshops.