Publishing Manager

Job Title: Publishing Manager for Content Engagement, Nature Masterclasses

Location: London, Hybrid

Full time, Permanent   

About Springer Nature Group

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 175 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

About Nature Masterclasses

Nature Masterclasses is a portfolio of professional development training via online courses and in-person workshops, drawing on the expertise of Nature Portfolio journal editors, dedicated Expert Trainers and world-class renowned international Academic Experts. Our e-learning portfolio includes over 160 hours of online courses and webinar recordings to support researchers at every stage of their career from the design of their research to its funding, execution, analysis, publication and dissemination. We sell licenses to labs, departments and research institutions to offer full access for their researchers and we also have some free-to-access content on our platform. Our platform is used by early career researchers all around the globe, including in China.

About the Role

The Publishing Manager for Content Engagement will be responsible for adapting and creating content (videos, blog posts, etc.) to engage busy researchers with our training offering, driving them to our platform, and encouraging them to use it and come back. They will focus on promoting traffic to our online training and will contribute to our integration with other parts of the wider business (e.g. Nature Careers), as required. They will support the Head of Publishing to achieve ambitious growth targets. 

The key function of the role is to plan and execute on a strategy for content engagement by drawing insights from our platform analytics and conducting market research. The Publishing Manager for Content Engagement will work closely with the Publishing and Learning Design teams, Product, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Engagement in this highly collaborative role. They will also have the responsibility of line managing the new “Associate Publishing Manager for Content Engagement” role.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about building brand awareness and helping researchers find the ideal training in our portfolio at their point of need, in order to advance their research and their career. They will have experience in content marketing, scientific communications, scientific journalism, or social media content creation.    

Role Responsibilities:

Product Strategy and Management 

• Support the Head of Publishing to develop business strategy, defining and preparing a roadmap for the development of our training services and new engagement content  

• Conduct market intelligence research to understand researcher training needs and behaviour, client needs and identify the best channels to efficiently engage researchers

• In collaboration with the rest of the Publishing team, the Learning Design team, and Marketing, create a content engagement strategy (social media plan, campaigns, blog posts series, collateral materials, live events with experts tec.) to increase registration on our platform, enrolment in our courses and repeat usage

• Working with the wider team, establish a strategy to identify synergies and integrate Nature Masterclasses with other sister brands such as Nature Careers

• Monitor competitors to gain an understanding of the competitive landscape and make recommendations to the Head of Publishing on user engagement accordingly

Content Development 

• Conduct market intelligence research to identify the best way to engage researchers (topics, formats etc.)

• In collaboration with the Learning Design team, create a content plan with a backlog of content pieces (blog posts such as expert interviews, day in a life etc., social media content, teaser videos, flyers, webinars with experts, etc.) and a publication schedule to attract researchers to our platform

• Leverage existing experts and commission new ones to develop and review engagement content

• In collaboration with the rest of the Publishing team, write and edit engaging content (by leveraging existing training content creating new materials) to increase course and platform usage

• Work closely with the Learning Design team to ensure content standards, accessibility and quality

• In collaboration with the Product team, leverage the platform’s capabilities and use communication skills to increase usage and engagement

• Support the Head of Publishing in creating course engagement budgets; ensure that planned projects are delivered within these budgets 

Sales & Marketing 

• Build close relationships and communication channels with key colleagues in sales, product, customer engagement, and editorial teams to raise awareness of our brand, and support client communications and engagement activities

• Build relationships with key colleagues in marketing and create a content pipeline to support their promotional activities

• Act as point of first reference for all engagement-related enquiries, including contact with clients as and when required 

Quality & Customer Satisfaction  

• Support the Head of Publishing in setting, identifying, monitoring and reporting on key performance indicators 

• Analyse and report on course and platform usage and adapt the strategy accordingly

People 

• Line-manage the Associate Publishing Manager for Content Engagement role and support their professional development  

• Where required, support the Head of Publishing with training new staff to the necessary standards 

• Support the development and implementation of diversity, equity, inclusion & accessibility measures  

Experience, Skills & Qualifications:

Experience 

Essential 

• Degree in the sciences or equivalent experience in academic or educational publishing  

• Experience in content engagement activities, in particular content creation. This could be marketing, social media content creation, science communication or journalistic experience

• Experience commissioning subject matter experts 

• Strong project management experience: running projects, controlling costs and hitting deadlines   

Desirable 

• Experience working within higher education, scientific research, scientific or educational/academic publishing, science communication and/or educational/training product development   

• Experience in video creation and basic video editing

• Some experience of line management  

• Writing experience 

• Experience in, or demonstrable understanding of, education and training techniques, the online learning landscape and instructional design for e-learning

• Thorough understanding of the scientific process and the scientific research experience  

Skills 

Essential 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills  

• Excellent copyediting skills

• Strong project management skills 

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills  

• Strong stake-holder management skills

• Sound commercial instincts 

• A passion for excellence in scientific research  

• A passion for editorial excellence and good attention to detail  

• Ability to work to tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment  

• The confidence and ability to lead projects and influence stakeholders  

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