Marketing Collateral
American Psychological Association:
A New Portfolio, A Shift in Focus, An Increase in Sales
Background
The American Psychological Association (APA) has been the leader in primary and secondary publishing in psychology for more than a century. They have also advanced research in behavioral and social sciences by applying electronic publishing technology and expertise in information science for decades. The APA provides various databases to librarians and institutions all over the world. These databases provide users with content across many disciplines.
APA needed a marketing system highlighting all its databases that would be both comprehensive and informational. The piece needed to be eyecatching, while still being representative of the fact that APA Databases are multidisciplinary. The challenge was to develop marketing collateral that encompassed the wide variety of disciplines covered while appealing to the different audiences.
The target audience was those who request database products: librarians, administrators and academic faculty at institutions of higher education. The end goal was to increase sales of APA database products.
JDG's Solution
Our solution was to develop a visually appealing pocket portfolio that APA could hand out at trade shows, vendor meetings, and sales presentations. This collateral could serve as a stand-alone piece that exhibits the features and benefits of all the database products. We proposed a system that was both comprehensive and flexible. To accomplish this, we proposed tabbed inserts to make the content easily accessible.
The resulting portfolio represents the many disciplines that the APA databases cover. JDG used images from law and medicine to business and education. The images and messaging convey the content's relevance to more than just psychologists with professional practices. By segmenting the content on separate insert pages, the readers can focus on their area of expertise and interest.
APA was enthusiastic about JDG's solution because it was a major departure from previous materials, which used technology graphics to represent the online delivery system rather than placing the emphasis on the social sciences of the databases' content areas. This represented an important shift in focus from the delivery system to the content delivered. The most critical measure of the project's success was the 14 percent increase in sales over the previous year's campaign. Because database product sales are a major source of revenue for this non-profit organization, the increase in sales was significant to their financial success.
