PCG+

Publishers Communication Group

The PCG+ blog

PCG on Flickr

More Photos

Our Recent Posts

• Usage Statistics – Not just for Libraries!
• Consortia Sales Models for Small Publishers
• Usage statistics for wiser business decisions
• Who are you and why are you visiting my site?
• Talk and Trivia at SSP 2011 (booths 30 and 31)

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Janet Fisher in the Publishing Technology Blog

Publishers always depend on data: may it be the number of copies purchased by a bookstore or wholesellers for book publishers, or the profile of their subscribers to a particular title or collection for journal publishers. But today, we have to know more. In the world of electronic publishing we have to know how much usage our products are getting and how they are being used. This issue was examined in a valuable session at the June 2011 meeting of the Society of Scholarly Publishing (www.sspnet.org).

Library customers have for years now stressed the importance of receiving COUNTER-compliant usage statistics for the electronic materials to which they subscribe. But publishers today must also mine the information they can collect from their electronic platforms in order to market their products most effectively to new potential customers and to retain their current subscribers.

In our renewal campaigns, Publishers Communication Group (PCG) finds that one of the major reasons for cancelling a subscription is lack of usage (www.pcgplus.com/pdfs/trends_05_10.pdf). To proactively avoid these situations, publishers can now examine their usage reports to gain a better understanding of some of the questions below. For example:

• What is the average cost per download for different pricing tiers?
• If an institution has registered for an online trial, is it being used?
• What is the average usage of Doctoral-granting institutions versus Masters-granting institutions and Baccalaureate-granting institutions?
• What is the usage of backfile content as compared to frontfiles? Can this be used to promote archive purchases to the institution?

Google Analytics can also be employed to add further context to standard usage information. The day is coming when the standard renewal notice will include not just price and type of subscription, but information harvested from a variety of data gathering tools about how valuable the content has proven to be at the institution.

In addition to being a valuable tool for renewals, usage statistics can help publishers to identify strong prospects for new subscriptions. Monitoring turnaways and where they are coming from should lead publishers to institutions that are likely to have a high interest in their content.

Publishing Technology’s marketing division Publishers Communication Group helps publishers sort through all this data to develop plans for leveraging the tools at their disposals. As a result, well-designed campaigns can help boost usage where it is too low and find valuable new prospects. Contact us at inquire@pcgplus.com for more information.

Leave a Comment

SSP Concurrent Session 3A

Small publishers do not have the internal resources that large ones do to sell their content to consortia around the globe. In the last several years, some publishers have created types of “selling consortia” in order to accomplish what larger publishers have been able to do. In addition, a number of sales organizations have been created to help publishers sell their content in specific territories or even globally in some cases. This session will look at three case studies: 1. Project Muse, 2. ALPSP and 3. Independent Scholarly Publishers Group.

Moderator:
Emilie Delquie, Publishers Communication Group

Date: 6/2/2011

Time: 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Leave a Comment

SSP Concurrent Session 5B

Usage statistics provide us with a wonderful tool: libraries can use them to determine which resources to maintain or to cancel, publishers can use them to determine where they need to focus their training or marketing effort, and societies can use them to determine whether their users are making the best of the resources available to them. In the end, everyone has the same goal: making educated, wiser and more efficient business decisions. In this session, we will hear concrete examples of how each group is leveraging the usage statistics available to them in their strategic decisions and offer suggestions on how to put mechanisms in place to collect useful pieces of data.

Moderator:
Mark Johnson, HighWire Press

Date: 6/3/2011

Time: 10:45 AM to 12:15 PM

Leave a Comment

SSP Concurrent Session 3B

…Or; deploying web analytics for fortune and glory (well, maybe). Companies like Amazon use web analytics in concert with such things as A/B testing to constantly understand who is using their site, how and why. They action that data in order to increase their profits, but also to optimize the usage of their website, as well as the value of their marketing initiatives. In this session, we will hear from marketing professionals in publishing and other industries who are experimenting with different techniques. The panelists will provide concrete examples of successful tests and will share tips on how to make the best of the tools available to us.

Shepherds:
Emilie Delquie, Publishers Communication Group
David Smith, CABI Publishing

Speakers:
Melissa Blaney, American Chemical Society
Mike Sweet, Credo Reference

Date: 6/2/2011

Time: 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Leave a Comment

Come visit us (PCG and Publishing Technology) at Booths 30 and 31 at next week’s SSP Conference in Boston.

In addition to discussing our latest projects, publisher signings, and regional initiatives (new office in India!), we will be be handing out our patented PCG Trivia Cards to all those that stop by. Think you have what it takes? Answer all 10 questions correctly and you could win a Nook Color!

Leave a Comment

During the Allen Press Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing Seminar held in Washington, DC last month, PCG’s Emilie Delquié presented an overview of how the Patron Driven Acquisition model is evolving in the library market. After a brief introduction of how PDA works, she examined some of the opportunities and challenges this new business model presents to publishers and librarians alike. Her presentation along with the other interesting talks given that day can be found online at allenpress.com/resources/archive.

Leave a Comment

This month’s ALPSP Seminar “Publishers and Library Consortia: Changing Expectations” explored the shifting sands of consortia-publisher relations, the consortia landscapes in Europe and North America, and what models are on their way in (PDA) and out (Knowledge Exchange-style partnerships). Speakers included Rick Anderson from the University of Utah, Richard Bennett from Springer, and Pierre Carbone from the French Ministry of Education, among others. Some of the highlights, courtesy of ALPSP.org, include:

SURFdiensten and international cooperation: the case of Knowledge Exchange (ppt)
Wilma Mossink, Legal Advisor, SURFfoundation/SURFdiensten, The Netherlands
Nol Verhagen, Licensing Working Group of Knowledge Exchange and advisor to the UKB Consortium of the Netherlands

Overview of the library consortia landscape in Europe (audio)(ppt)
Pierre Carbone, Library Inspector, French Ministry of Education

The consortia landscape in the USA (audio)(ppt)
Rick Anderson, Associate Director for Scholarly Resources & Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

The global economic crisis and its impact on consortia licenses: a financial perspective (audio)(ppt)
Hazel Woodward, Cranfield University Librarian and Director of Cranfield Press

The past, the present and the future: a commercial publisher’s perspective on library consortia (audio)(presentation – link to prezi.com)
Richard Bennett, Vice President – Sales, North, West & Eastern Europe, Springer

The not-for-profit publisher and consortia negotiations (audio)(ppt)
Adam Gardner, Publishing Sales Director, CABI

 Panel discussion: publishing collaborations and innovative licensing models (audio part 1) (audio part 2)
John Parsons, Senior Sales Manager, Europe, BioOne (ppt)
Robert Jacobs, Director of Publisher Relations, Swets (ppt)
Tom Taylor, President, DragonFly (ppt)
Emilie Delquie, Vice-president, Publishers Communication Group (ppt)

Leave a Comment

A note about our new agreement with the Independent Scholarly Publishers Group for European sales.

Leave a Comment

Please read the full Press Release here.

“The Independent Scholarly Publishers Group (ISPG) is delighted to announce that Publishers Communication Group (PCG) will be representing its content in Europe.

The Independent Scholarly Publishers Group is a coalition of seventeen independent publishers of 40 journals and related academic content that promotes, markets to, and negotiates with library consortia, hospitals and other organizations around the globe. The ISPG collection, which includes such significant journals as: Health Affairs, The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings, is hosted on the HighWire platform. With this new agreement, PCG will be providing European market sales expertise for the complete set of ISPG content.

PCG has provided an extensive range of specialized and comprehensive sales and marketing services, customized to meet the needs of scholarly and professional publishers since 1990. Their expert, locally based, international native-speakers staff in Europe will tailor a focused sales and marketing program,representing the ISPG content to key institutions and consortia throughout the region.

“We are very proud of this partnership with such an interesting initiative as the Independent Scholarly Publishers Group in Europe,” said Emilie Delquié, Vice President of PCG. “ This is an exciting opportunity for PCG to be part of making these vital resources widely available to European researchers and to apply our innovative, yet methodical approach to customize a strategic sales plan for ISPG members.”

“We’re very pleased to be working in Europe with such an experienced company as Publishers Communication Group,” added Tom Taylor, Dragonfly Sales and Marketing Consulting President andISPG Facilitator. “PCG’s sales experience and depth of industry knowledge in the European librarya division of Publishing Technology community will help provide European researchers with access to the excellent, peer-reviewed ISPG content.”’

Leave a Comment

Several PCG managers will be in attendance at the ACRL conference this week in Philadelphia, as well as the UKSG Meeting in Harrogate, UK from April 4 to 6.

Please come visit at Booths 205 (ACRL) and 25 (UKSG), and email Vice President Emilie Delquie to set up a meeting (edelquie [at] pcgplus.com).

Leave a Comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

Theme: DePo Square by Derek Powazek.

RSS Feed