Increasingly the success of specialist publications will depend greatly on the willingness and ability of the author or editors to participate in the marketing of it. Anything they can provide in terms of influential contacts for testimonials, mailing lists for DRM use, free/low cost access to exhibits at meetings and conferences, or—increasingly important—things they are willing to do online, on their own websites or within their social and professional networking activities, will help with sales.

The publishing professionals at MPHC have considerable expertise in working closely with authors and editors in the run up to publication and beyond, leveraging their positions and reputations in their professional communities to maximize sales.

We define the ‘trade’ for STM publications as being the third party resellers such as wholesalers, distributors, library aggregators, and bookstores—bricks and mortar and online.

MPHC covers this sector for clients by setting up and carrying out the kinds of core trade marketing communications activities that we have honed to a level of effectiveness that even the largest of STM publishers often fail to match. Our activities include bibliographic data provision and updating for key customers, mailings—by both electronic and regular means—of publication programs, newsletters, bulletins, trade sales update packs, reps kits, and so on, together with in person sales calls on wholesalers and other key trade customers, and attending and presenting at their sales conferences and vendor fairs when invited.

Finely focused direct response marketing continues to be a vital part of the marketing mix for specialist publishers, even as more and more customers choose to order from their usual online supplier in response to receiving the marketing communication, because the need to inform potential buyers about the existence and selling points of new publications—print and digital—continues to exist, in order to drive demand.

MPHC handles a large number of DRM campaigns—email, print, and hybrid print/online—on behalf of its clients every year, from soup to nuts: concept, copywriting, design, mailing list research and acquisition, fulfillment.

Occasionally there are opportunities for cooperative DRM using materials originated, produced and mailed by MPHC on behalf of a number of publisher clients who have new or key back list titles in the same subject, sharing the costs appropriately between them.

The promotion of textbooks to potential adopters, while often utilizing standard direct marketing methods, requires a particular focus and additional stages of follow up. MPHC is well-versed in academic marketing, and can manage all aspects of planning, implementation, and follow up, as required by its clients.

Beyond utilizing direct mailing (both digital and print) to professors, and using examination and desk copy programs, MPHC can also organize academic calling as a method of closing new adoptions when judged to be economically viable.

MPHC organizes exposure for its client publishers at a great number of conferences every year. In some cases the arrangements are for a booth in the exhibit hall, with full service provided from planning through booking and ordering services to manning the booth itself. In other cases they are more modest arrangements, working through third-party book exhibit companies or independent commission sales representatives, or in cooperation with other publishers.

In an age when the typical scholarly, scientific, technical, medical or professional publisher has fewer and fewer customers, with sales migrating from direct channels and multiple resellers to a small number of giant e-tailers and e-aggregators, there can be a widening gulf between the publisher and the communities that are home to both the authors and the purchasers of its publications. Not being close to its customers can be a considerable disadvantage to a publisher, not for marketing and sales but also for editorial.

MPHC specializes in working with publishers to devise ways of staying close to their content providers and buyers, to be part of the communities they rely upon rather than distant observers. Ranging from identifying opportunities for and building strategic alliances with societies and associations, through devising and running mini websites and associated email marketing activities designed to build customer loyalty and retention, to launching full-blown professional networking websites, we find solutions to this subtle but significant problem.