When I started my first job as an editor for an independent publishing house, marketing was the last thing on my mind.
Like every other literature-obsessed English grad that wants to break into publishing, I loved books exclusively. What I thought of as marketing – the grinding mechanics of promotion and publicity – seemed far removed from the thrill of discovering new talent lurking in a slush pile of manuscripts, working with a community of writers and telling stories. Marketing was something other people did, a side-effect of creating a book.
A few weeks and a lot of paper cuts later, my MD handed me a big project. After 4 years in business, the company were looking to expand. Trade publishing had taken some major knocks and indie publishing as a whole was feeling a negative ripple effect from TV book clubs and fiercely expensive competition for shelf-space. This called for some inventive measures and my company had made a nifty move by acquiring the UK rights to a catalogue of educational resource materials from New Zealand.
NZ is way ahead of the UK in pioneering creative teaching methods and some of the books, especially the Thinking Skills range, were pretty amazing*. The only problem was our absolute lack of experience in the education market. That, and the fact that not one teacher in all the 22,000 British primary schools had ever heard of Curriculum Concepts UK. It was my job to change this. ‘Marketing’ soon became a part of my job title, but I maintained my fastidious stance and didn’t consider myself as a marketer.
I started out by finding ways to tell our story, in the hope that like-minded people got to hear about our resources. Spreading the vision behind our books to passionate educators who shared a desire to inspire their pupils with new ways of learning
I set-up a free membership community that I nicknamed ‘The Thinking Team’ (after one of our bestselling books), where we gave away useful lesson plans and encouraged teachers to join a forum to discuss ways they were able to test ideas from our books in the classroom. More than 80 schools signed up in just under a month. Most were already working towards ‘thinking school’ status and had been busy searching for tools to help with their goal of gaining accreditation. Our books seemed to create a connection between teachers and a small publisher that was amazing to see.
Around the same time, I took part in the very first UK Schools Marketing Workshop, run by Rachel Maund and Rebecca Jones at Marketability (if you’re new to publishing, you should check out their courses right now). For the first time, I heard people describe the kinds of things I was trying to do as marketing.
Suddenly, there I was. A marketer.
And it made me think. Really think, about what it means to be a marketer.
Recognising this, and being able to step outside those narrow definitions of what marketing is and what it can achieve, has changed the way I define my career, my ambitions and myself.
What does marketing mean to you? What could educators and non-profits accomplish by exploring new marketing concepts? This blog is a space dedicated to testing, sharing and learning from these ideas. Welcome to The Thinking Marketer – I hope you’ll be inspired to come along for the ride.
* We confirmed this by using a well established marketing research technique i.e. I asked my mum – a veteran of primary school teaching after 31 years at the chalkface …
