Ad Sales Blog

See my Folio show digital magazine presentation on demand

You can see my Folio Conference presentation featuring preliminary research from the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Project.

It takes a little work but it is free: first go to this link and egister: http://www.folioshow.com/virtual/registration.

 Next, continue with free registration. It will tell you thanks for registering. Close the window and you should get an e-mail in your inbox.

2. Open the e-mail. Make sure you are able to view pictures in your -email viewer. If you use Outlook and it blocks graphics, right click on any graphic and click “download pictures”

3. You will see a large red button that says “Enter.” You will need to disable pop-ups and click the button.

4. Now log in using the user name and password from your registration.

5. As you enter the screen click on “Theater” then  scroll ALL the way down on the left until you see a yellow button that says “Click Here to View On Demand Presentations.” 

6. After you get to the theater screen, scroll right to the “Spotlight Symposium on Digital Magazines” section. Then click on “The Opportunity for Cost Reduction and Revenue Growth” and to view the presentation.

It's a little work to get there. I hope it's worth it.

 

Oct 27th: The day publishers learn to sell ads in digital magazines

After months of research, I will be sharing initial findings from the study I have been managing, The Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Project. On October 27th I will present at two venues. First, a live address in New York at the DPAC4 conference along with crusty publishing legend Bob Sacks who will be keeping me on my toes. Click on the banner and go the DPAC4 site for details:    

Here is my session description:

2:15pm: Can Digital Magazines Become a Widely Accepted Advertising Platform? Josh Gordon thinks so. As director of the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Project he has interviewed the pioneering publishers now successfully selling advertising into “interactive magazines” which, unlike digital replicas of print publications, are designed to be digital from the start. Gordon will share the two success principles interactive magazine publishers must embrace, and present preliminary findings from the first ever study focusing on just interactive magazine readers. If you work in marketing, this presentation will state the case for advertising in interactive magazines, if you are a magazine publisher you may see the future of your business. Speakers: Josh Gordon, Director, The Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Project & Bob Sacks, Publisher, Precision Media Group.

Later that same day... If you are not in NY or cannot swing the DPAC admission(about $600) you can register for a FREE webcast as part of the Annual Folio Show Digital Magazine Symposium. For the first time ever the annual Folio conference is virtual. Admission for the entire program is free if you register. Click here to register.

My session will be part of the digital magazine track: 3:00-3:45 p.m. SESSION A: THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR COST REDUCTION AND REVENUE GROWTH

I hope you can join me for one of these sessions!

PS: On November 3rd I will again be talking about the next generation of digital magazines on a webinar entitled , "Digital Magazines - Strategies for Today & Tomorrow" run by BtoB and BtoB's Media Business magazines. Needless to say, I'll be in charge of the "tomorrow" part. Show time is at 2 PM EST. I'll be presenting along with Brigitte Johnson, Executive Editor, Tree Farmer Magazine.

Register for free

PPS: I'd like to thank the sponsors of the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Project, my friends at Zinio and Nxtbook Media.   

Digital magazines...the cavalry is coming

One of my favorite film scenes is from the final Lord of the Rings movie when a valiant cavalry chargeturns the tide of battle. As you know I am leading a project to help “designed for digital” magazines become an accepted ad supported medium. It’s a tough fight but I just learned that the cavalry is coming.

Today on a webcast co-hosted by Jim Taylor of the Harrison Group and Jeanniey Mullen from Zinio, Taylor shared data anticipating the adoption of digital readers. When digital readers become widely used, digital magazines will become widely read. Four years ago thre were 100,000 readers in use, today 5 million. Taylor predicts: by 2011, 9 million, by 2020 60 million. For all my friends fighting to sell ads in “designed for digital" magazines, take heart, the cavalry is coming…

Media buyers push back on magazine digital replica circulation

MEDIAWEEK reported yesterday  that the recent growth of digital magazine replicas used to extend print magazine circulation is giving fits to many media buyers. 

The growth has sharply increased, according to the article, "In the first half of 2007, 56 consumer titles reported fewer than 500,000 paid digital subscriptions to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. By the end of last year, that number had just about doubled with 110 titles reporting paid digital subs of nearly 1 million, as publishers expanded their appeal to tech-savvy readers."

But some buyers aren't buying

"Scott Daly, executive vp, executive media director, Dentsu America, said he sees “absolutely no value whatsoever” to digital editions and that if he were negotiating with a magazine that sells digital subs as part of its circ, “we would probably discount it, because a digital version of a magazine is not the reason we’d go into a magazine.”

Robin Steinberg, senior vp, director of print investment and activation, MediaVest, said while digital editions hold potential for marketers, more needs to be known about the difference in engagement and take-action levels between readers of print and digital editions. “To serve these copies as part of the rate base without understanding the difference is questionable,”  said Steinberg."

Until we measure the kind of reader experience digital magazines deliver, these problems will persist.

Read the whole article on MEDIAWEEK

Read about the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement Study

Managing the interactive shift...from SNAP

"Managing the interactive shift" was the extremely engaged presentation I co-presented at the SNAP conference last week along with Glenn Cook, American School Board Journal’s editor-in-chief and publishing director. The session was Glenn's idea. I showed up with my typical "too many" slide PowerPoint, but following Glenn's advice I put them aside, and together we talked through a wide variety of issues to an audience that could not seem to stop asking questions. It was a great session! The official conference report showed just how diverse the dialog was.   

Folio reported on the "spirited debate" I had with my co-presenter over the issue of paid content. Glenn was for it. With my current Folio article, "Four Ways to Avoid Paid Content Suicide" fresh in mind, I advised against. Instead, suggesting an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" alternative; encouraging publishers to become content aggregators themselves, and go on to win the "search" wars for profit.  

I was most heartened when well known industry pundit and blogger Rex Hammock Tweeted from the audience, "Josh Gordon talking about digital magazines in the most coherent, logical and convincing way I've heard."

With all the challenges I faced working on the Digital Magazine Ad Engagement project it was nice to hear. 

Why not an audit for digital only magazines in the US?

 My post on how the Europeans already have an audit for digital only magazines created a lot of interest. In the US, ad sales for digital only magazines have been slow. But in Europe, having the credibility of an independently verified circulation helps a lot. 

As follow up, I am posting a few of those audits. Again, the core metric on these audits for digital only magazines is issues delivered and opened.  

In writing my original post, my conversations with the North American ABC people were extremely amicable. They said, repeatedly, that if US publishers requested an identical, or similar, audit they would be very happy to assist.

If there is a publisher who wants to lead the charge, here is what you will need:

Link to the ABCe website 

Download Monkey Magazine ABCe

Download IMotor Magazine ABCe

Download IGIZMO Magazine ABCe

My last post on audits for digital only magazines

Go get 'em!

If a digital magazine is not opened in a forest does anyone read it?

A digital magazine story now traveling the Web is on a subject some publishers dread and media buyers have suspicion; digital magazine open rates. Napier News asked a number of European digital magazines what their open rates were. The admittedly informal query yielded the following:

Four titles had open rates of 11-12%
One title had an open rate of 16%
One title had an open rate of 19%

A media buyer hearing these numbers might conclude that digital editions are useless for advertising.

But there's a huge difference between digital magazines created as replicas of print magazines for the convenience of readers to archive and search their print publications, versus "designed for digital" publications created to fight for audiences in competitive online environments.

"Design for digital" publications have much higher open rates, so much so, that many are making their case with advertisers without discussing open rates.    

In Europe, the recent ABCe audit for digital only publications makes its core metric copies delivered and opened. By design, this audit does not mention how many copies/invites are originally sent out to achieve this. In other words, if an ABCe audit for digital only magazines confirms a 100,000 monthly circulation, this indicates 100,000 copies sent and opened by readers that month. Oddly, this audit will not share how many copies/invites were originally sent out to achieve that 100,000 number.  

If advertisers are not told how many issues are originally sent out they cannot calculate an open rate. I think this is terrific, because it shifts the question most asked on a sales call from, "What is your open rate?" to "What can we achieve for this advertiser with these delivered and opened copies of this digital magazine?"

I have not heard of an audit for digital only magazines in North America that verify open rates. Please post a reply if you know of one.

If none exist, I would encourage North American publishers to press their audit organizations to create an appropriate audit for digital only editions.

Read the whole Napier News article on digital magazine open rates

Visit the ABCe website

Should you publish a digital circulation hybrid?

Yesterday, the weekly print publication PRWeek announced it will shift its distribution from a weekly print publication to a hybrid model that includes a monthly print edition and a weekly digital edition. Does this print-digital model make sense?

Last week publishers considering the "cold turkey" transition from all print distribution to all digital got a chill of their own from Seattle. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a local newspaper, shifted from all print to all digital and watched their website traffic plummet by 23%.

Loyal magazine readers are creature of habit.  They tend to like things the way they are, which is why they are subscribers to one magazine and not another. I have researched several spectacular magazine redesigns that clearly took their publications to another level, only to hear back from the "loyal readers" that the redesign "looks different, and will take a while to get used to."

The hybrid approach can reduce the “shock of the new” and help readers “get used to it.”

 

Digital Magazines that generate ad revenue

  I’m involved with a project to help build the case for advertising in digital magazines. As part of the proposal process I created a list of digital magazines that are optimized for digital delivery that support advertising sales. It’s quite an amazing list!

If you are trying to sell advertising into a digital edition and getting resistance, show them this PDF. It contains the best list of high profile ad supported digital magazines I could find. Download Digital Magazine Examples 

Also, I’d also appreciate if you know of any other ad supported digital magazines not included here. Please post them.

Here is the list so far: 

US Newsweekly: the digital reincarnation of US News and World Report

MINE: a “made to order” magazine from Time Inc publishing. 84.5% digital and the rest print

Sporting News Today: daily sports news 

SportsArizona: local sports news from Arizona

PC Magazine: now digital only

PopSci Genius from the publisher of Popular Science 

eWeek: has a print version but the digital version is optimized

ZooZoom: digital only fashion form New York

Winding Road: pioneering digital only car magazine

PowerBlock: for car enthusiasts:

Mustang Life: for mustang enthusiasts

Red Wire: music enthusiast digital only

Coachella: music enthusiast digital only

Premier Guitar: a digital replica with enhancements

Viv: very high end women's service magazine

Double Dutch: for teen age girls

Zakar: for Black Women

Hilary: claiming to be North America's First and Most Popular Online Women's Magazine, est. 1995:

Double X: launching in the Spring from Slate.com 

URBiz: for urban business professionals 

Organic Style: green lifestyle magazine

Organic Lifestyle: green lifestyle magazine

 Maria Claire: digital preview edition: 

Reader’s Digest: digital preview edition 

American Girl: digital preview edition 

UK
Avantoure: www.avantoure.com
Computer Weekly: http://cde.cerosmedia.com/1Q49ba8b28a103f012.cde
Cosmetic Surgery Answers: http://www.cosmeticsurgeryanswers.co.uk/magazines/CSA_cosmeticsurgeryanswers.pdf
Drivers Republic (UK): http://magazines.drivers-republic.com/driversrepublic/thetruth030/?fm=2
Eco For You: http://www.ecoyoumagazine.co.uk/
Graduate Prospects: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/p!eLaXi
iMotor (Dennis): http://issue.imotormag.co.uk/car-reviews-car-news-car-videos/1H49996f97e7d29012.cde
iGizmo (Dennis): http://issue.igizmo.co.uk/1U49a41cfa81515012.cde
Monkey (Dennis): http://issue.monkeymag.co.uk/1F49ba50751bd7a012.cde
Nature Methods http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v6/n3/index.html#iniss
Sisters magazine (Muslim women):  http://www.sisters-magazine.com/
The Week (Dennis): http://www.theweek.com/home/toc
Tennis Head: http://cde.cerosmedia.com/tennishead-ezine/1J499185eee9e7b012.cde

US News and World Report goes ASDM

To launch a successful Ad Supported Digital Magazine (ASDM) you need to deploy a design or content strategy to overcome the two physical digital magazine annoyance factors; having to zoom in and out to read pages, and pages that don't always turn when you want them to. 

One content strategy is to tighten editorial focus to appeal to a smaller, possibly under served, but more motivated group of readers. With a more motivated audience these annoyances become minor and the dramatically lower costs of digital delivery make the business model work even with a smaller circulation.  

That seems to be part of the strategy behind "US Newsweekly" which soft launched back in January as the digital only reincarnation of the former weekly news magazine "US News and World Report."   

According to a post on Jeff Bercovici's Portfolio blog based on an interview with Kelly:

"Whereas the parent title has gravitated toward advertiser-friendly topics like health and education, the digital weekly will be "very Washington-centric, "says Kelly, with a tighter focus on politics and policy. Since there's less ad support for that type of content, U.S. News Weekly will be a premium product: A one-year subscription will cost $19.95. "This is what every editor's trying to figure out right now -- how can I pay my reporters to do reporting?" says Kelly. "You've got to figure out a way where, on some level, the consumer is going to pay for some type of content."

We wish Brian Kelly and his pioneering group good luck. If successful, this launch could lead to greater acceptance of digital magazines created to attract their own audience, not just digital replicas of print magazines.   

Read more on the launch

Video: see editor Brian Kelly explain his new digital magazine 

Read the whole Kelly interview on Portfolio