Co-written by: Scott Bolgiano and Melissa Miller
There has never been a better time to be in the magazine media business.
Such was the hype at the Swipe 2.0 Conference, “The Magazine Media Playbook for Digital Success” recently presented in New York by MPA, the Association of Magazine Media. But with newsstand sales in decline and the prevailing wisdom holding that the the industry is on life support, is this optimism misguided?
Not at Swipe 2.0, where speaker after speaker sought to demonstrate that, despite a chaotic business environment, in this multi-channel, multi-platform world, there is opportunity everywhere for magazine-branded content.
Here are seven silver linings takeaways from the event:
1. Perception Is Not Reality
“Print alone doesn’t begin to convey our reach,” MPA President Mary Berner said in her opening remarks. “Instead, we need to think about, calculate and interpret the entire business and footprint of magazine media because our readers’ desire for magazine-branded content transcends any one platform.”
Berner emphasized that newsstand sales alone are not a good barometer of the industry’s health—readers are engaging with content where, when and how they choose, on a multitude of devices and screens. In fact, the print and online audience for magazine media is actually up 3% from last year, while paid subscriptions are up 1%. The audience for tablets grew at an annual rate of 47.5%, and magazine apps are by far the highest-grossing apps on the iPad.
In the tsunami of content available to consumers now, magazine brands are not only holding their own, they are growing their audiences.
So there really is no consumer problem, Berner insisted, but simply a perception problem among pundits and advertising communities. She called for industry PR leaders to work together to communicate a more accurate narrative of magazine media across all platforms to the press, investors and partners.
2. Burn The Boats
In a bold new world, be bold.
Don Peschke, president and founder of August Home Publishing, has gone all-in with his new My Home My Style magazine app, committing large resources to a digital-only product and not relying on print as a backstop.
Peschke called his app a “Demizine” (digital edition multimedia interactive magazine) and noted features like a constantly-updating rss feed from the AH web site and a mechanism for allowing users to assemble personalized versions of the content.
Sam Syed, Creative Director at Popular Science, contended that “Technology is interwoven and fluid but our businesses are full of walls that need to be broken down. Rigid definitions of identity are from a former time. When information flows both ways, we can talk to the audience and learn about them and do innovative things like offer advertising as a service, not as something that bothers them.”
Scott Havens, President of The Atlantic, advised publishers to “focus on the future, but believe in the past,” noting that for the last several years The Atlantic has been “running toward innovation” as they’ve repositioned the brand to be an “ideas platform” with a mobile-first digital strategy. “Be confident, make bold moves, take bold risks,” he said.
Dr. James McQuivey, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research affirmed this no-fear approach to disruption. “Publishers can exploit digital platforms to build deeper, more satisfying relationships with readers, or they can stand back and watch as other companies get there first.”
3. Fail Fast, Recover Faster
Jennifer LaRue, VP of Product Development for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, recommended a start-up mentality in this rapidly-evolving landscape: “Be agile in development, experiment constantly, release iteratively.” That’s the only way to focus on and respond to the user mindset, she contended.
Michael Silberman, General Manager for Digital Media at New York magazine, vouched for that approach when he introduced the brand-new New York iPad app. The first version of New York debuted in 2010, but it was a pdf replica with limited functionality and was not a huge hit.
They went back to the drawing board for the new version, which combines daily content via rss from New York’sfive web properties along with the long-form, lean-back journalism that the magazine is famous for.
The results so far have been phenomenal—New York has been a fixture at the top of the iPad Newsstand charts from the moment it was released.
4. Offer Snacks and Meals
It’s essential to understand your audience’s appetite for information and how it varies.
Marisa Gallagher, VP, Design, CNN Digital, noted how CNN breaks its video offerings into four categories: “Live; Gotta Watch; Franchises; and Statements.”
“Gotta Watch” is a video snack, short compelling clips that users can sample and share quickly. “Franchises,” are more involved meals, trusted information from expert sources like Anderson Cooper or Anthony Bourdain. “Statements” are full banquets, long-form videos with a longer shelf life.
“Understand your users’ needs and flow,” she said, and create your content accordingly.
5. Make Friends With John McAfee
When WIRED Magazine sent writer Joshua Davis to interview John McAfee, the antivirus pioneer who was then living a Heart of Darkness lifestyle in the jungles of Belize, they knew an 8,000-word story and a crazy, compelling series of photos would be thrilling. But after the reporting was done, the story suddenly got crazier when McAfee’s neighbor turned up murdered and he went on the run from authorities.
WIRED found itself in the middle of a breaking story for which they had a great piece of writing (now swollen to 15,000 words) and a huge dilemma: how to share the piece with the world when it wasn’t scheduled to be published for weeks? The content was too long for WIRED.com and besides, it couldn’t be easily monetized there.
The editors responded by breaking into an entirely new market: they quickly repurposed the content and created a Kindle Single.
The result, “John McAfee’s Last Stand,” went to the top of the Kindle Singles chart and has so far been downloaded more than 50,000 times. It also generated huge numbers for WIRED’s site, where story updates and other up-to-the-minute info on the case was featured.
“Look beyond your current resources,” said WIRED.com Editor Mark McClusky. “Digital media can generate massive web and social traffic.”
6. All Hail The New King
Content may still wear the crown for most in magazine media—as evidenced by testimony from representatives from The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, Sports Illustrated and many others—but Liz Schimmel, EVP and Chief Digital Officer of Meredith Corporation had a different take on publishing royalty: “Content is Queen, Data is King.”
For Meredith, data analysis yields “focused insights for our mobile shopping experience and mobile wallet. The data we collect leads to insights about ROI, which we can then give back to our advertisers.” Data also informs content decisions, helping Meredith grow its audience by more clearly understanding its needs.
Eric John, VP Digital, Alliance for Audited Media, noted that a magazine brand’s footprint includes not just print, but web, social and more, and all of this data must be measured to get a complete picture of the brand.
“Publications are no longer print-bound, they are multichannel and digital numbers have grown fast—more than 160 million magazine editions have been distributed in past year. Publishers need to get on board with measuring multichannel. Smart media is audited media.”
7. Make Them Pay
Digital magazine media is the “single greatest opportunity to reignite growth” in the industry, said John Loughlin, EVP and General Manager of Hearst Magazines, “but we need to reset the value proposition” by charging a fair price for the products.
Hearst’s annual subscriptions to its digital editions are priced at $19.99, quite a bit higher than much of the industry, but they’ve already signed more than 900,000 subscribers across all titles, with a renewal rate that’s 10-15% higher than print.
“Why the higher pricing for digital users? It’s because they are first to the get the issue, they receive added content, and video and audio and interactivity,” Loughlin noted. All that digital goodness costs money to design, develop and produce, so these products should never be treated as loss leaders.
Digital editions offer “portability, affordability, high fidelity and the ability to surprise and engage,” Loughlin said. “It’s an enormous new market, and it can be a profitable, multi-billion dollar business.”
It’s a market full of silver linings, but only if we get paid.
[Image: romainguy]
