My first role at IRA was as the marketing manager for their professional development books and other publications. Because of my passion for this product line, I continued to personally do the creative for this product area, even after I was promoted to oversee the marketing division. Below are some examples of print campaigns and advertising I did for IRA’s professional development books. For all of these campaigns, I develop the campaign concept, wrote all copy, collaborated with the designer on design, selected and/or bought direct mail lists, and supervised the production manager who managed the mailing process.
To view a PDF of any of these print pieces, click on the title link or the image below it.
Direct Mail Mini-Catalogs
Each quarter and for special promotions, I would do “mini-catalogs” of books that either were grouped by topic or seasonally.
This mini-catalog addressed IRA’s commitment to providing accessible, affordable professional development resources during the financially challenging budget cuts of the Recession. The campaign also included email and landing page components.
This mini-catalog promoted the revised versions of a series of popular books focused on educating preschoolers. The campaign also included email, landing page, and digital advertising components.
This mini-catalog promoted books focused on supporting struggling readers, a key instructional issue for teachers. The campaign also included email, landing page, and digital advertising components.
Literacy coaching was a new, formalized role in schools at the time this mini-catalog was done. We wanted to fill the void for professional development for these new coaches, so we created professional development books that would assist them in their practice.
IRA Books Catalogs
I also did biannual books catalogs for the books program. These comprehensive catalogs included all new books published in either the Fall/Winter or Spring/Summer editions and also popular books from previous years. Below is a sample of one of the catalogs I did. For these, I determined which books would be included, wrote all the copy, determined page layouts, collaborated with the designer on design, and supervised production and mailing.
When promoting a group of books, I usually did a mini-catalog or full catalog direct mail promotion along with digital ads. We generally did those seasonally. For books that were expected to be bestsellers and/or were second editions of bestsellers, I did special single book promotions in a variety of formats.
This was the brochure for the second edition of one of IRA’s most popular books. It was part of a combined direct mail and digital promotional campaign that also included email, landing page, and digital ads.
Two to three times a year we did direct mail card stack promotions for our books. Recipients received a package of postage-paid order cards for the books we were promoting to offer easy ordering.
Reading Today Advertising Inserts
I did a full direct mail catalog twice a year for IRA books. In between, I did pull-out insert advertisements in our monthly (tabloid-size) newspaper Reading Today. Below is an example of one of those inserts.
I did three to six book ads to be published in each of our professional journals either monthly or quarterly depending on the journal’s schedules. Book ads were targeted to the appropriate age/teaching discipline each journal addressed. I also created ads for our monthly Reading Today tabloid newspaper. Below are some examples of ads I wrote and produced for journals and Reading Today.
Back of the postcard
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