Case studies / How Researchers Changed the World

Telling the human stories behind impactful research

Publishers Taylor & Francis approached Monchu creative agency (where I was working as Marketing Lead) to deliver a digital marketing campaign with the aim of raising the profile of the researchers published in their academic journals, to raise brand awareness and drive an increase in research submissions by early career researchers with powerful ideas.

We developed a three-stage content marketing funnel focused on highlighting the most impactful pieces of academic research in Taylor & Francis’ world-renowned journals:

  1. Podcast
  2. 12 week learning programmes
  3. Bootcamp events

The podcast

The first stage of the funnel was a top of funnel podcast aimed at a generalist audience, titled: How Researchers Changed the World.

We produced 12 episodes, interviewing one researcher each episode to tell the story behind their research, and highlight its impact in the real world.

The focus was on topical research from climate change solutions to AI to art therapy and more – which meant combing through hundreds of papers to find the researchers with the most compelling stories to tell.

As marketing lead, my role in the podcast included:

  • Writing interview questions for the podcast and scripting the voiceover which ran alongside the interview – which meant gaining a deep understanding of each piece of research chosen
  • Coordinating with a podcast production company to deliver each episode on time, as well as with our in-house team to produce a video version for YouTube
  • Craft messaging for the overall podcast and each individual episode
  • Brief our graphic designers on promotional assets for the overall podcast and for each individual episode, to promote the episodes through Taylor and Francis’ marketing channels, including social media and email newsletters
  • Writing press releases for the overall podcast and for each individual episode, and collaborating closely with the PR team at Taylor and Francis to get placements
  • Researching paid ad placements to promote the podcast in other podcasts with a similar audience, as well as in digital publications.

The podcast gained 15,000 listens in the few months of our running the campaign.

The 12 week learning programmes

Each episode of the podcast had a mid-roll and post-roll advert slot, which we used to advertise two 12 week learning programmes, aimed at a much more specific audience of researchers themselves – who listened to the podcast to hear inspirational stories of other researchers.

The learning programmes gave researchers a step-by-step process on how to get their research published and how to maximise the impact of that research – with one version specific to early career researchers, and one for established researchers.

They were gated content, delivered by email (one lesson per week) and requiring researchers to sign up for access, meaning that Taylor & Francis were able to develop a list of researchers with high potential to be published in their journals.

As marketing lead, I worked with the Taylor and Francis team to plan the programmes, and then developed the content myself – 24 lessons in the form of 24 PDFs and 24 emails, in total.

The bootcamps

Researchers who successfully completed a 12 week learning programme were invited to a Taylor and Francis hosted bootcamp for researchers.

This was a final opportunity for researchers to workshop their research alongside contacts from the publishers in person – getting them ready to submit their research, and therefore completing the funnel.

“The CEO of Informa [T&F’s parent company] has highlighted How Researchers Changed the World internally as a highly innovative campaign!”

Marketing Director at Taylor & Francis