Spotlight on Marketing: The Work You Don’t See

When publishers partner with KGL Accucoms, they gain a sales and marketing presence across some of the world’s most complex and diverse markets. But much of what the marketing teams do every day happens quietly in the background: digging into data, crafting regionally relevant messages, building relationships, and representing publisher brands at events.

This post pulls back the curtain on that behind-the-scenes work. Regional teams routinely analyse holdings data to help sales representatives have more meaningful conversations with individual institutions — identifying gaps in what specific libraries hold so that every outreach is backed by real intelligence. Social listening adds another layer, tracking customer activity and competitor channels to keep teams informed and responsive.

A consistent theme across all regions is that effective marketing goes well beyond translation. In Latin America, the team has moved to a thematic, vertical approach — bringing multiple publishers together under shared narratives with genuine local relevance, from the role of humanities in addressing global challenges to connecting STEM content to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In China, tailoring messages for WeChat and spotlighting local authors has opened direct conversations with university libraries and created opportunities for faculty engagement.

Across all markets, proximity to librarians yields insights publishers need to hear — from the budget pressures driving a focus on renewals over new acquisitions, to the ongoing need to educate institutions about open access models from the ground up.

Underpinning it all is relationship maintenance — the kind of trust-building that rarely appears in a campaign report but, as this post makes clear, is what turns a marketing function into a genuine competitive advantage.

Read the full article on the KGL ACCUCOMS website →

KGL Accucoms specializes in global sales representation, marketing, telesales, and account management for clients ranging from large publishing houses to specialist society publishers. With a strong presence in key markets, Accucoms connects publishers with libraries and other information users to help expand their reach and impact.