Unblocking the digital magazine renaissance

I’ve heard it all over the industry. As an ad revenue generator digital magazines are a flop. One publisher told me, ‘We tried doing a digital magazine, but couldn’t sell any additional ad space. The click throughs were abysmal and after a few issues we stopped doing it.”

But digital magazines are a distribution success story. B-to-B publishers have deployed digital editions successfully to boost their BPA circulation cheaply and consumer magazines are selling digital edition subscriptions. But these editions typically include only the ads sold into the print issues.

Many media buyers do not understand the value of digital magazines as an advertising medium. I believe this is because the basic research to measure the impact digital magazines have as a unique advertising medium has not been done.  

Every advertising media has a trade advocacy group that does ongoing research to prove it's value. For magazines it’s the Magazine Publishers of America, for cable TV it’s the Cable Advertising Bureau, for billboards it’s the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, for web advertising it’s the Interactive advertising Bureau, etc.

No one advocates for digital magazines in this way, and yet, there are three big questions that need answering:

1. The skip factor
The good news is that digital magazines are very interactive. The bad news is that digital magazines are very interactive. The questions  is, how many readers go to the the table of contents and jump to just the articles they want to read, skipping all the ads in between?

Do some demographic groups skip more? What are the content strategies that editors can use to hold a readers interest though the entire issue? Do digital magazines need to be shorter or more focused than print magazines so readers don’t skip? Until the "skip factor" question is answered, media buyers will stay away.   

2. The formatted text question
What if you took all of the articles in a digital magazine and reformatted them into a typical e-mail newsletter; initially just showing article headlines and the first few sentences to click on and read the whole article? This would be quicker and avoid the wait time while images download. What’s missing? The graphical formatting. In a very basic way, when you sell advertising into a digital edition you are selling the value of graphical and text formatting.

How important it is this to readers? Does it get them more involved in content? Do they read articles, and ads, at a higher level or involvement? If they could get the same content in a quick e-mail newsletter would they prefer it? Again, this kind of understanding needed to help digital magazine publishers design for maximum impact, and for media buyers to understand "whats in it for me."       
 
3. The ad impact factor

How does an ad in a digital magazine actually impact a reader mind vs. a banner ad, a print ad, or a TV ad? There are expectations and a basic understanding of how these other advertising media work. The basic research has been done and the advocacy association for each can tell you how advertising with their media works as a branding tool, a lead generation tool, or a new product introduction tool.   
 
Please, no more surveys documenting the rapid growth of digital magazines and how happy the readers are with them. This measures only the success of digital magazines as a distribution medium. If this is all we get, media buyers will continue to be unimpressed. 

I strongly believe digital magazines have a life as an ad supported medium. I predict that once the basic research is done there will be a flurry of new digital magazines launched, designed as original digital editions.

I believe that once the basic research is done, that ad supported digital magazines will look and feel very different than their print originated counterparts. There will an understanding as to which kind of content will thrive as a digital magazine vs. content better delivered as a simple e-newsletter. There will be a renaissance in editorial content and graphical design development specific for ad supported digital magazines.    

I challenge the digital magazine industry to from an association and do the research. I’d love to help do it.

Comments

[Hermes Birkin Bag]

Wow. This is a wild study. Kind of makes you think twice about click through metrics.

[coach outlet]

Failure doesn't mean you are a failure,
It does mean you haven't succeeded yet.

[Cimarron Buser]

Josh, With respect to the idea of an association, I have thought about this quite a bit. The history of the industry is unfortunately ridden with numerous "events" that are purported to be about the "industry" but are really thinly disguised sales venues. Industry "surveys" are also suspect, but Texterity has gone ahead and done our own (with certification from BPA) and partnered with major research companies. We're not shy about saying that the magazines are our partners, but we (and others who have used this) believe that it is quite valuable data. Finally, with respect to the Gilbane study, I initiated this work by approaching Gilbane and the other providers to participate as a way to have a neutral party aggregate data that was available from each vendor. It's not perfect, but it was a starting point that could ultimately lead to an association of sorts.
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The following research is available:
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(1) Profile of the Digital Magazine Reader. This is the Third Annual research of the digital magazine reader. The 2008 Digital Magazine Reader Survey is the largest body of research available for understanding the profile and the needs of the digital magazine reader. Magazine readers from more than 161 different publications representing 51 publishers participated, with 33,897 recipients completing the survey. Texterity sponsored this research with the results certified by BPA Worldwide. DIRECT URL: http://info.texterity.com/info/reader-research/
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(2) Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions - Growth, Trends, and Best Practices. The study covers the market for digital editions of periodical publications, and features statistics that unify audited data from two sources (BPA and ABC) with data from unaudited publications. The research was conducted by Gilbane Research, with sponsorship from multiple vendors. DIRECT URL: http://info.texterity.com/info/2008GilbaneReport/

[Josh Gordon]

Hey, I agree that digital magazines have are a great success as a distribution and archiving media. But as ad vehicle they are largely a failure. Both of these things can be true at the same time!
But the future concerns me. Right now, digital magazines have a cozy place servicing the print magazine industry. Read the news on the Folio magazine website lately? Print magazines are challenged. Not because printed messages don’t sell. The continued rise in custom publishing and the never ending torrent of printed catalogues arriving in my mail box are testimony to this.
(see my post on this)
http://jgordon5.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/selling-print-i.html

It’s not about the marketing value of printed messages, it’s about the advertising. For a growing number of advertisers there are more compelling ad media that are electronic. Take the ad revenue out of most magazine business models and they fail.
But the dark scenario this heads to can be avoided if we can learn to sell digital magazines as an ad platform. This is totally doable.

[Lawrie Dunn]

Delivering a ROI is the prime consideration for any publisher entering into digital editions. Whether it's a replica of the print version or digital only. Some of the UK's and USA's leading regional press owners are beginning to achieve a ROI not only with new ad sales but subscriptions too. The UK B2B arena are also showing some encouraging growth signs. This isn't about vanity publishing it's about producing an exciting platform that delivers to users and readers a dynamic version of their magazine or newspaper and to marketers another fully measurable way of reaching an audience. In the current climate with publishers looking to 'batten down the hatches'and still communicate effectively, vendors have an opportunity to deliver some cost saving solutions

[Chuck]

I like that you are taking publishers to task for not adequately presenting the case for digital editions. The larger problem, and one you infer, is that neither the publishers of digital editions nor the advertisers have any idea how to make the most of the digital medium. You'd think a publisher would want to do more than just cut and paste their stories from their magazines, and if anything use the tools available online to broaden the story and engage the reader with a richer experience. Likewise an advertiser in a properly presented digital edition could come up with something more engaging and entertaining so that people don't automatically skip them. Maybe it will require a sort of flushing out of people on both sides who can't see beyond print, to be replaced by people who can really communicate in the digital vernacular.
Chuck

[Marcus]

Thanks for making me think, Josh. You've raised some good points. While well-intentioned, I worry that most vendors don't have the quantity and consistency of data to participate in such a group at this state, though it's a great idea. I've gone into detail here: http://nxtbook.com/blog/2008/12/07/does-the-digital-magazine-industry-need-an-association/

M