Case Study
McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill Education (MHE) is one of the world’s largest educational publishers. It operates in 28 countries with over 5,000 employees, offering educational products and services to over 135 countries in 60+ languages.
If you attended University, anywhere in the world, it’s likely you will have studied using a McGraw Hill textbook. It doesn’t stop in further education – if you are in certified practices such as medicine or engineering, you will keep your knowledge current with McGraw Hill’s content.
Velo has supported the global MHE team across several brand awareness, creative, demand generation and customer marketing activities since 2017.
Velo consistently delivers compelling, innovative, and cutting-edge campaigns.
AP, Executive Director of Marketing at McGraw-Hill Professional
Challenges
Print sales within the publishing industry are in decline. Many teaching staff and students now opt for digital versions or no longer feel the need for book publications as their only point of reference.
Education is also undergoing major changes, especially in Higher Education. As students are required to fund their own degrees, higher expectations and pressures are on Universities to increase teaching standards, drive better results, and improve post-grad student employability.
For MHE, remaining current in this new world of education, adopting new digital technologies to share content, while ensuring minimal cannibalisation of its own print business, is a constant, daily challenge.
Throw in the transformational impact of AI, and this relationship thrives on close collaboration at all levels of the organisation.
They work as an extension of our team, bringing to the table a wealth of ideas to add value to our campaigns.
AP, Executive Director of Marketing at McGraw-Hill Professional
The relationship in numbers
0+
countries in 60+ languages reached by our campaigns
$0m
Global Professional businesses’ annual revenue
0+
marketers supported by our teams across the world
>0
joint programs of activity every year
Consultancy and AI transformation program
Velo’s Consultancy team are partnering with McGraw Hill to navigate the biggest shift in marketing practice in a decade, bringing together CMOs and training 50 marketers on AI strategy, tools and use.
The work includes reshaping in-house and agency execution to make McGraw Hill more agile, creative and strategic – with every hour saved reinvested in revenue-driving activity, not more admin.
Insight & marketing planning
Since 2017, our team has worked with the highest levels of McGraw Education. Originally commissioned to establish a planning methodology that uncovered internal and external insight and identified the messaging that resonates with audiences our work is still used when planning all campaign activity. Alongside this, our team is relied on to plan the most important new product launch including award nominated Harrisons, Principles of Modern Medicine 20th edition and Perry’s Chemical Engineer’s Handbook as well as lead generation activity for McGraw Hill’s digital learning product, Access, ALEKs and Connect, using an approach combining global campaigns yet delivered locally.
Campaigns & Activation
Our activities use always on awareness activities layered over by demand generation campaign bursts to stimulate a flow of quality leads, which are then “nurtured” to sale by specific “relationship building” activities. Highlights include award nominated Harrisons, Principles of Medicine 20th edition and Perrys as well as lead generation activity for McGraw Hill’s digital learning products using an approach combining global campaigns yet delivered locally
Creative & Copy
Working respectfully within McGraw Hill’s brand guidelines, our team have produced a suite of print, digital and video collateral to influence and engage at every stage of the decision-making cycle. Items include: Brochures, Microsites, Overview videos, Email journeys, Promotional Items, Exhibition stands, Sales presentations, Digital Advertising, Social content
Video & Photography
Woking with a global audience, video repeatedly proves itself to be a powerful medium to engage with these audiences. Teaser, demonstrators and campaign content have all used video, particularly with motion graphics to tell complicated stories in many different languages.
Full Stack Development
Working with Marketo particularly, our team build email programs and personalised landing page experiences to nurture and qualify leads in specific online user journeys
Highlights so far
- Established a pioneering always-on approach to lead generation backed by intelligent nurturing messaging localised for individual global markets. Used for all MHE’s major digital products, these efforts have delivered pipeline lifts and individual deals that show significant ROI. Our strategy has seen the sales team overachieve their lead generation targets by 228%. MHE attributed our campaigns as the primary driver.
- Established new planning methodologies for marketers in key markets. This spans value proposition development, messaging matrices, communications planning and measurement frameworks. These are now embedded in the organisation and have seen the Velo team working on the ground on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Led business-critical new title campaigns for MHE’s two flagship titles; Perrys, and Harrisons. The Landmark 20th Edition of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine campaign sold 82,000 Unit Sales in the first six months alone, making it the largest selling title for their Professional Group. The campaign was shortlisted for Campaign Of The Year Award in the PPA Awards.
Driving commercial impact
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Harrisons Flag Ship title
82,000 unit sales in the first six months
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Boards & Beyond
Close to 200 new subscriptions in Black Friday campaign in 4 days
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First Aid Forward
Student awareness increased to 80%
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Access Platform
Over-achieved leads targets with ABM campaigns
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Award-Winning Work
PPA Awards Campaign of the Year finalist
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Marketing Influenced Revenue
Rising every year
Campaign of the Year – PPA Awards
Reimagining marketing in an AI-driven future
When AP, McGraw Hill’s Global Professional CMO commissioned Project Meridian, the ambition was clear: build a future model for marketing fit for an AI-driven world. She came to Velo’s Consultancy team to bring an external viewpoint and to accelerate progress. The team, led by Lottie O’Donoghue, was brought in to help navigate what may be the largest shift in marketing practice in a decade, as AI reshapes how buyers discover and engage with content.
The goal was to plot a new model aligned to how McGraw Hill’s audiences now discover, evaluate and buy, addressing audience prioritisation, effectiveness, operating model design and AI adoption along the way.
The team reviewed brand tracking, marketing plans and transformation programmes, and conducted 19 stakeholder interviews across marketing, sales, customer success, product and regional teams, supplemented by external market analysis, social listening and audience intelligence.
The work went further than a single division, setting the agenda for the wider business and bringing together CMOs from across all of McGraw Hill around a shared view of the future.
It also included delivering training at a global marketing conference, bringing together 50 marketers from across the organisation, where we led sessions on AI strategy, tools and practical use, building capability and confidence alongside the strategic recommendations.
The programme culminated in a sequenced global marketing transformation roadmap covering audience, content, AI readiness and operating model change.
The work is far from finished. Velo continues to shape the execution engine within McGraw Hill’s in-house teams and agency partnerships, making the function more agile, creative and strategic to drive greater impact. The guiding north star: any time saved through AI and new ways of working is reinvested in activity that moves the revenue number, not absorbed into more admin.
What brilliant work Lottie. Impressive how you’ve pulled this together on the short timescales, well done!
Eleanor Pike, Senior Marketing Director, B2B, McGraw Hill Professional
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