Many editors have asked us recently why they don’t see their journal displayed at many conference exhibitions anymore, and whether there ways in which they could help to promote their journal to their peers. This piece addresses these marketing communication queries.

At Elsevier, we are committed to offering the widest possible dissemination of published research, particularly by making journal content accessible electronically via   ScienceDirect,   Scopus,   Scirus and the   Health Sciences Periodical Platform. Our marketing communications approach complements this strategy, aiming to increase the visibility, accessibility, readership and quality of our journals.

Editors’ Update spoke to Inez van Korlaar and Paul Taylor about the changes in Elsevier’s strategy, and what they mean for editors.

How does Elsevier determine its Marketing Strategy?
We constantly review the approaches that are most effective in meeting the objectives for our journals through our campaign measurement, through ongoing feedback programs for authors, editors and reviewers, and our personal interactions with them, and we revise the marketing approach as the needs of our end-users develop.

What has Elsevier learned about effective conference presence?
Over the years, we have found that a display of journals at a conference booth does not result in more traffic to journal home pages, more subscriptions, more downloads on ScienceDirect or more high quality submissions. Also, perhaps because readership is changing to searching for particular topics online rather than browsing full journal issues, we have observed that conference participants are less inclined to take away journal sample copies from exhibition booths.

What is the result of this discovery?
We have developed our presence at conferences in line with this trend and will attend conferences with an exhibition booth much less frequently than used to be the case. Instead, we will emphasize electronic access more and more in our conference-related activities.

What is Elsevier doing instead?
We carry out other, much more focused activities during scientific meetings, including sponsorships of the meeting, inserts of promotional material in delegate bags, displaying flyers on the chairs of a relevant session, slideshows presented before a relevant session starts, poster campaigns throughout a venue, advertisements in program books, etc. At many conferences, one of the activities mentioned above will create a greater and more focused and well-defined visibility for our journal(s) than a booth would do.

What about the big meetings?
Of course, major scientific meetings are still attended with a substantial presence, including a stand for selling books, distributing information or promotional materials about our journal publishing program, disseminating information on our society publishing partners and demonstrating our online products and services.

Does this mean there is no journal representation at meetings anymore?
At the meetings where we still have a booth at the exhibition, for environmental reasons we are now beginning to move slowly to electronic sample copies only, ensuring that we inform delegates by other means that a free sample copy (the first issue of each year) of each journal is downloadable online. One of the possibilities to do this would be to have a computer available at all of our exhibit booths, which delegates can use to browse the sample copies of all journals they are interested in. At other meetings, journal representation can take numerous forms, as described above.

Are there any journal-based promotional activities?
Apart from the journal presence at conferences as described earlier, a definite trend in marketing communications is that online marketing, e.g. journal homepages, subject homepages, search tools, alerts, e-mail communications and social media, is becoming increasingly important. Online marketing offers faster response times, improved customer interaction, clearly measurable results, greater flexibility and is generally more cost-effective. For instance, we routinely carry out several e-mail campaigns on a yearly basis to our various communities, e.g. promoting the new Impact Factors in a particular subject area just after the release by Thomson Reuters, or promoting fast publication times of individual journals.

In 2009 we also rolled out   CiteAlert, a service which brings each journal to the attention of hundreds of authors each year by authors being notified automatically by email when their work is referenced by a newly published article. CiteAlert is a completely new and unique service from Elsevier.

Apart from the online marketing tools described above, we frequently carry out campaigns to thank the best authors or reviewers of our journals, by sending them certificates and/or by expressing our gratitude to them in e-mail campaigns, on dedicated websites or by special events at conferences.

How are you making journal content more accessible?
Search engines such as Google and MSN play an important role in increasing the discoverability of content on our platforms, e.g.   ScienceDirect. Elsevier works with these search engines on several levels. We optimize our website content to improve their position in the major search engine rankings. This serves to increase both the visibility of our sites and the individual journal brands. The appearance of links to Elsevier websites in the top 10 results on the main search engines doubled within the first six months of this initiative. We are also investigating the use of sponsored linking to display key titles when relevant searches are made. What can editors do to help? Last, but not least, some more information about what you could do. Editors know their journal like no other, and are therefore instrumental in promoting their journal to their peers. Here are some ways you can help to promote your journal:

1. Add a hyperlink in your email signature to encourage colleagues, students and associates to access your journal on   ScienceDirect.
2. Encourage people to sign up for   ScienceDirect Volume / Issue Alerts or Top 25 Hottest article alerts for your journal.
3. Send your publishing contact your newsworthy articles for inclusion in our RSS & Twitter feeds, consideration in Elsevier’s FLASH news alerting service or for press releases.
4. Provide us with news about interesting field developments and bring our attention to new ‘hot topics’ for use in Elsevier’s electronic promotions.
5. If you come across a society / research website that doesn’t list your journal let us know and we will research reciprocal link possibilities.
6. Display a poster of your journal (available at request from your publishing or marketing contact) in your office or institute.
7. Display or distribute journal flyers (again, available on request from your publishing or marketing contact) at the conferences/meetings you attend.
8. Pass on ‘market intelligence’ – what are your colleagues saying about our publications, our perceived strengths and weaknesses. We can use this knowledge to better target our campaigns.
9. Ask your publishing or marketing contact for business cards containing the journal cover and URL.
   

Who do I contact if I have questions or ideas?
We are always open to suggestions, and are happy to answer your questions about Elsevier’s journal marketing activities. Please contact your publishing contact directly.

To cite this article, please use: Inez van Korlaar & Paul Taylor, “Journal Marketing Today: Elsevier and editors working together”, Elsevier Editors’ Update, Issue 29, March 2010.