How to publish in a top marketing journal

Abstract

Drawing on our first year as coeditors of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, we identify what distinguishes accepted papers across marketing’s major subfields. We organize our insights using the marketing mix framework: Product (interesting research), Price (clear writing that reduces reader effort), Place (deep contextual immersion), and Promotion (spurring future research). Across quantitative marketing, inductive scholarship, consumer behavior, and marketing strategy, successful papers share five qualities: they tackle intellectually intriguing problems relevant to stakeholders, chose appropriate methods and execute them well, provide actionable insights for specific audiences, open pathways for future investigation, and communicate findings with precision. We illustrate these principles through exemplary recent publications, ranging from brand consumption dynamics to modern slavery mobilization. Each paper balances novelty with rigor, context with generalizability, and theoretical contribution with practical relevance. This editorial provides concrete guidance for authors navigating the publication process in any top marketing journal, while reinforcing IJRM’s commitment to research that is interesting, not wrong and “novel, visionary or pathbreaking”.