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 our 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 month, we are sharing insights into some of the behind-the-scenes marketing work our regional teams do to support publishers and drive engagement with libraries and researchers around the world.

Analysing the Data

One of the most time-intensive, and least visible, parts of our work is data analysis. Our team routinely takes deep dives into holdings data to help publishers and their sales representatives have more meaningful conversations with individual institutions. For many of our clients, that means analysing what specific libraries hold and identifying gaps, so that when our sales rep reaches out to an institution, the conversation is supported by real intelligence.

Alongside this, our regional teams also conduct ongoing social listening – tracking publisher channels, customer posts, and competitor activity to keep our sales teams up to date. In Latin America, for example, Marketing Manager Léia Leal monitors the social channels and newsletters of publishers we represent, looking for content that resonates locally and can be repurposed for regional audiences. She also follows the feeds of current customers and prospects to identify specific needs and topics that the sales team can address directly, intelligence that would otherwise take months to gather through formal outreach.

Local Marketing: It’s Not Just About Translation

One of the most consistent themes across our regional teams is that effective marketing in any market is never just about translating content, it’s about genuine localisation.

In Latin America, Léia puts it well: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” That means reshaping global publisher messages into focused campaigns that speak directly to regional realities.

Rather than running product-specific campaigns, Léia’s team has moved to a thematic, vertical approach, bringing multiple publishers together under shared narratives that have local relevance. The first campaign of 2026 frames content from several publishers around the role of humanities and social sciences in addressing today’s global challenges, with a deliberate focus on Latin America’s own complex social and political landscape. Rather than asking librarians to evaluate individual products, the campaign invites them into a bigger conversation about the tools their institutions need to foster critical thinking.

A second campaign focuses on Health Sciences, bringing together multidisciplinary publishers that support medical education and life sciences, which allows the team to promote 15 publishers within a single, cohesive narrative. A third campaign will connect publishers in mathematics, physics, water, engineering, and chemistry to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, framing their content as research infrastructure for the challenges that matter most right now.

In China, our team similarly adapts global content to fit the channels and communication habits of Chinese librarians and researchers. That means tailoring messages for WeChat and ensuring that content speaks to the very practical concerns of Chinese institutions: acquisition budgets, content relevance, and the quality of ongoing service and support.

Channels Publishers Should Know About

Different regions require very different approaches to reach the right audiences, and our teams are deeply embedded in the channels that matter most locally.

In China, WeChat is essential. It’s the fastest route to engagement, and our team has seen significant results from posts that spotlight local authors or connect publishers’ content to research happening at Chinese universities. A recent post featured Chinese authors from Southern University of Science and Technology, which sparked direct outreach to the university’s library and opened conversations about co-hosting lectures and faculty events. Publishers who can help us by sharing posts or providing author lists dramatically amplify the reach and impact of these campaigns.

In Latin America, events and community networks remain powerful channels. At last year’s SNBU (National Seminar on University Libraries) in Brazil, the team found creative ways to work within tight budget constraints. Distributing materials for a US Society publisher at four open science roundtable sessions reached an engaged, relevant audience in an informal but highly effective way. The conference booth itself was used strategically: the back wall display highlighted publishers subscribed by CAPES, which signalled to librarians evaluating publishers that KGL Accucoms represents trusted, widely-adopted content. Sometimes the most meaningful moments are the simplest ones, and knowing exactly where and how to create them is the product of years of relationship-building in a market.

Understanding What Librarians Really Need

Across all our markets, our teams are in regular contact with librarians and that proximity gives us insights that publishers can genuinely use.

Budget pressure is a near-universal concern. Librarians in North America, Latin America, and beyond are focused on renewing existing subscriptions rather than acquiring new content, and some have had to pause conversations about transformative agreements simply because they don’t have the bandwidth to see complex negotiations through. When a licence discussion becomes too burdensome, librarians tell us directly, and that’s crucial feedback publishers need to hear.

In China, our teams identify a recurring set of priorities: librarians want cost-effective resource selection matched to their specific reader needs, practical support with digital literacy and using the resources, and long-term service engagement – it goes way beyond a product sale. High-quality content alone does not automatically generate demand. Ongoing service, usage reports, and regular training are part of what makes a publisher relationship sustainable.

In Latin America, there is a clear and persistent need for better communication around Subscribe to Open (S2O) and similar open access models. Survey data from last year confirmed what the team already knew: many institutions are still at the very beginning of understanding these initiatives. For Léia’s team, education and explanation are an ongoing part of the work. “We need to start from zero, as many times as necessary,” she says, “until the concept is truly understood.”

The Relationship Element

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of our marketing work is relationship maintenance – the informal, ongoing connection with librarians, agents, and institutional contacts that doesn’t show up in a campaign report.

In Latin America, the team hosted a proprietary webinar on transformative agreements management. It was not a sales event, but a genuine knowledge-sharing session featuring two customers. A representative from UNAM, the largest university in Mexico, shared how they had developed their own internal management system. A delegate from a leading Chilean university described their experience using Chronoshub, a product KGL Accucoms represents. The session reinforced KGL Accucoms’ standing as a trusted partner, demonstrated real institutional commitment among our publisher network, and put a product in the spotlight without ever making it the pitch.

This is the work that doesn’t always make it onto a summary slide or into a quarterly review. But it connects everything we do and turns a marketing function into a genuine competitive advantage for the publishers we represent.

Interested in learning more about how KGL Accucoms supports publishers across global markets? Get in touch with our team.