The Prescription for a Healthy Marketing Campaign

Noreen Henson’s career path took a stop at Demos Medical Publishing three years ago after stints in television ad sales and with a few ad agencies. Demos has an extensive and successful line of references in neurology and rehabilitation medicine and is now expanding into the spine medicine and oncology professional markets. Its sales, Henson says, continue to increase steadily, and the New York City-based company—now in its 20th year—is finding new and improved channels to market its products. Henson, Demos’ marketing manager, talked with Book Business about the challenges and changes she has endured during her time in medical publishing, as well as the emerging force in marketing that is the Internet.

What interests you most about your job from day to day?
Henson: I love that the work I do challenges me, and that it is multifaceted and varied. I have been given a very unique opportunity at Demos in that we publish books for both physicians and other health care professionals as well as for people with disabilities and their families. We have two distinct product lines—a trade line and a professional line—that, while complementary, have very different marketing needs ….

We are established as a major publisher of high-quality references in neurology and rehabilitation medicine, and we are now expanding the professional list into spine medicine and oncology. This list depends heavily on more traditional marketing channels such as direct mail and exhibits.

Our line of patient-education trade titles, primarily dealing with neurologic diseases and disorders, as well as more general titles of interest to individuals with a wide range of disabilities, depends more on garnering reviews and press coverage in various media outlets, and our distributors getting the books onto bookstore shelves.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing marketing executives in today’s world of publishing and particularly medical publishing?
Henson: … The main challenge is publishing information more quickly to make sure it is current and relevant, especially in this fast-moving technological world of medical advances. And keeping up with electronic initiatives.