Ad Sales Blog

Custom publishing digital magazines?

I will be hosting a FREE webinar sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau on October 19 at 5 PM EST.

This webinar is not for publishers but for website managers who are considering launching a digital magazine. As a publisher I would see this as a custom publishing opportunity. I hope you can join us.

Webianr topic:

Should my website publish a digital magazine or digital magazine app?

 

Up until recently digital magazines were mostly used by print publishers looking to extend their content onto the web. But the release of the iPad changed that. Magazine style content delivered either as a digital magazine or though a magazine style app can be used to engage your website users differently and extend the reach and value of your content. During this session we will explore the reasons why this kind of engagement is different and why a growing number of website publishers are creating digital magazine content for their readers.

• How interactive digital magazine content can complement website content
• Examples of web publishers who are publishing digital magazine formats
• How this approach can appeal to advertisers

Speaker:Josh Gordon, President, Smarter Media Sales

October 19th

Click HERE to register.

The IAB and its partners produce educational webinars aimed specifically at the needs of small, growing publishers. These webinars are produced from input received by the Long Tail Alliance  are part of IAB's ongoing efforts to support the long tail community.

Are digital magazines the ultimate custom publishing opportunity?

A very cool white paper from Proximity WORLDWIDE lays out the case for iPad style digital publications. Proximity presents itself as the most awarded, digital agency network in the world. With more than 2,000 employees in 59 countries, they carry some weight.

Their white paper makes the case that there is a coming renaissance of brand generated content that will be distributed on iPad like devices. Publishers take notice, this could be a terrific new service you offer your advertisers...or something they do on their own, without you. Your choice.

Here is the white paper’s summary:

“Traditional media has historically been a gatekeeper between brands and their consumers. But thanks largely to the internet and ever-evolving digital technologies, such as the iPad, the wall supporting the gate has eroded, leaving it dangling on one hinge, wide open.  Marketers who seize the moment and think and act like media companies, will stand to gain both market share and profit. It’s time to storm the gate. And we’re happy to help you.”

Here is how the paper supports this proposition: 

“The consumer love affair with magazines (more than 12 billion are printed every year in the U.S. alone) means brands should rejoice at the industry’s iPad-inspired resurrection and re-invention. At the very least, this development opens up new and interesting ways to advertise to consumers. But there’s so much more to iPad-delivered magazine-like experiences to set marketers hearts to racing and minds to concepting."

Concepting? Great word! Now for some perspective: 

When it comes to the promise of digital magazines, what holds true for the editorial content holds true for the advertising content: It can take a giant step forward. (Remember a few decades back, when pop-up ads in the middle of print magazines were considered breakthrough? We have come a long, long way indeed.) More robust advertising means more compelling and engaging advertising—and there’s data to support that claim as it relates specifically to digital magazines.

I love it, they now quote our survey! 

For instance, consider a study conducted by Smarter Media Sales of more than 5,000 people already engaging with digital magazines. Called “The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines,” this piece of research revealed that 70% percent of the respondents were more likely to ignore web-based ads than those in digital magazines. And 82% said they found digital magazine content more engaging than the same content found on websites. (Recall the difference between “leaning in” and “leaning back.”)

I recommend you download the whole white paper and read it before your advertisers do.

Download the proximity white paper for FREE

 

PS: I'm be running a free webinar on the topic of marketers (not publishers) starting digital magazines for the IAB coming in up on October 19. Info and registration HERE   

How to Create a Cost-Effective iPad-Ready Digimag: 5 Tips to Get You Started

In this post guest blogger, Thea Selby, Principal, Next Steps Marketing and Publisher of greenlight-digital.com, gives us the step by step:

“Reject the use of digital replicas of print publications.” Peter Meirs, director of alternative media, Time Inc.

 Q: What does the iPad mean to people interesting in publishing digitally? Are you going to be able to create the amazing look of Wired or Sports Illustrated for the iPad?

Link to Sports Illustrated iPad demo

Link to Wired iPad demo

A: The truth is, in some ways, those two big publishers have put stars in our eyes. Let’s start with the bad news. The bad news is these folks are spending potloads of money to create visually stunning digital media, money most of us do not have.  The good news:  You, too,  can create an engaging mobile digimag as we call digital magazines, both cost-effectively and to great affect for your audience.

What do you need to create an iPad-ready cost-effective digimag? Here are 5 tips for the small to medium sized publisher ready to take advantage of the next stage of publishing.

1. Think hybrid: you’re working on a smallish screen, slightly bigger than the Kindle. You’re creating a hybrid product that looks like a magazine (gorgeous, hi-res and eminently user friendly) but acts like a computer/iPad. Type needs to be bigger, but don’t lose the white space we all love so much.
2. Think “a picture is worth a thousand words.” For the first time ever, portability is in the picture for digital magazines. Fill the space of the iPad with low-cost visuals. Examples of low-cost visuals: slideshows made from photos you have accrued over the years. In some ways, Apple has done us a favor by feuding with Adobe. You won’t have to hire a Flash designer to create visuals for you, as Flash is not supported by Apple.  Adobe has come up with a workaround, however.
3. You don’t have to learn how to program for the iPad; leave that to your registered certified Apple developer. Your job is to communicate content in an extraordinary, visual and engaging way. Your  certified Apple developer will get it to talk to the iPad through X language. Not your problem. Phew. You can create your digimag using the same software your fantastic designers have embraced, InDesign and Quark.
4. A corollary to 3: find a company that is a registered app provider. Most companies that specialize in digital magazines (Texterity, Zinio, to mention 2 large ones) have jumped to become Certified Apple Developers. In fact, Zinio’s app for reading magazines hit the #1 spot for most used
5. Don’t forget your advertiser. Your advertiser can benefit from the same low-tech highly effective tools you’re going to be using to communicate with your and their customer. Want to ask a question? Do a micro poll! Want to link to a demo? Go ahead. Want to ask them to give you an email address so they can contact you with more information? Easy enough.
6. EXTRA TIP: And really don’t forget your reader. The theory, which has been proven by us all as we blithely download music from iTunes and have our credit cards dinged, is that readers for the first time ever in the history of digital media, will be willing to pay consistently for digital content. This is such a step back in the right direction, that we must embrace it, love it, master the medium, and for goodness sake, market it.

Interactivity is the Core Reason Marketers Advertise in iPad style Interactive Digital Magazines

A new survey on digital magazine advertising success stories reveals why some win advertisers where many fail.

Engaging readers in interactive experiences, not just click-throughs, is the main reason marketers advertise in interactive digital magazines, according to the findings of a new survey conducted by publishing industry consultant Josh Gordon.

The study, "The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines, " is the first to survey only the readers of interactive digital magazines, and not include digital replicas of print magazines, which are the majority of digital magazines today.

According to Gordon, "The publishers of the interactive digital magazines we studied have retooled the magazine format and magazine advertising into a form perfect for the iPad and other e-reading devices." When the ads in these interactive digital magazines were compared to ads in other media, they showed much higher levels of interactivity because they combine three characteristics: the active reading of a magazine-style experience, much larger ad sizes, and an interactive digital environment. Says Gary Strauss, publisher of the interactive digital magazine, Sporting News Today, "Your ad is seen as a full page digital ad facing a full page of digital editorial. It lays out like a print magazine, but with all of the advantages of digital. When full page edit faces a full page advertisement, the ad is going to be seen."

The result is an environment where advertisers can present ads with a much higher level of interactivity compared with other online advertising media.

The survey found:

•When interactive digital magazine readers were asked to compare their reading experience with "websites of similar content," 83% picked interactive magazines as being "more engaging," compared with 17% who picked websites.

•When asked which media they were more likely to ignore ads on, 30% picked the ads in interactive digital magazines, while 70% picked the ads in "websites of similar content."

•Even though the ads in interactive digital magazines are much larger, they are better received by media users. When asked which electronic media had ads that were "helpful or interesting," the top score went to interactive digital magazines at 63.2%. After that came television at 53.8%, radio at 34.8%, e-mail advertising at 22.4%, ads on e-mail newsletters at 20.6%, website banner ads at 16.4%, and website pop-up ads at 2.4%.

One reason the ads are so well received is that advertisers who use them to greatest advantage are creating interactive ads that combine video, Flash animation, opt-ins for more content, contests, special offers, and links to e-commerce landing pages. A recent ad for a new motion picture in the digital interactive magazine VIVmag had a click-to-play video from the movie, a link to buy a theater ticket, and an offer to join a club for future ticket sales.

The study also found that highly interactive editorial leads readers to interact with a publication's advertising. As they become accustomed to clicking to view editorial videos or extra content, readers will also click to view an advertiser's video or content. The publications in this study included articles offering multiple interactive opportunities. For example, a recent issue of Grand magazine featured an article on a country singer that contained a performance video, social media sharing tools, and links to a schedule of the artist's concert tours.

The study, which pooled the circulations of eight different interactive digital magazines, is based on 5,612 completed questionnaires. The publications included: PopSci Genius Guide, VIVmag, Premier Guitar, Winding Road, Grand, HipCompass Escapes, HorseLink, and Outside's Go! The study was sponsored by Nxtbook Media, a digital magazine service company, and VIVmag, the first all digital women's lifestyle magazine.

Download the study 

BPA Testing New Metrics for Digital-Only Magazine Audit

(As posted on the Audience Development magazine website:)

To promote the medium's value, engagement needs to be proven.

BY JOSH GORDON
05/19/2010 -02:40 PM
For those who read my last post on the Audience Development blog which raised questions about the proposed BPA rules for digital magazines, take heart. What started as a conversation on this blog with BPA Worldwide President & CEO Glenn Hansen continued off-line and has resulted in some extremely productive activities.
  
During our off-line conversation, I shared the core finding from the study, "The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines" documenting that the prime reason marketers advertise in digital magazines is to take advantage of the interactive experience the ads can deliver to readers.

This is no small point. No digital magazine can compete for advertising strictly on a cost basis against the page views or click throughs offered by other online media. Every online media buyer knows they can buy more clicks per dollar by simply buying search, which now accounts for about half of all online ad dollars spent. They also know they can buy far more page views per dollar buying Web banners which they are far more familiar with.
 
But when it comes to delivering an interactive online experience, digital magazines have a big advantage. Why? Here are two reasons from the study:

• Larger ad sizes: A full-page ad in a digital magazine takes up half the screen; a Web site banner ad is typically placed on the periphery of the screen and delivers less impact. Also, a half-screen ad gives an advertiser the ability to deliver a full message instead of just invitation to view one. For example, a Web banner ad could invite a reader to “click to read about our contest.” But a full-page digital magazine ad can have a “click to play” video explaining the contest, photographs of the prizes, contest details, and a click to enter form.

• The active reading style of a magazine experience creates more involvement than the "surfing" or "searching" style of a Web site.
 
If an audit for digital magazines is to be effective in motivating advertisers, it needs to verify aspects of the medium’s interactivity that will help media buyers see value in advertising.

Right now, BPA is gathering usage data to identify and test metrics that could be included. Hansen and his team are definitely on the right track. Pending the test results, these are his thoughts on what should be included:  

• Unique User: An identified and un-duplicated individual user who accesses the paginated content or advertising of an issue.

• User Duration: The average time visitors remained on the issue.

• Page Impressions: Recorded each time an issue’s page is displayed in a platform screen/window.

Publishers who have digital replicas with low open rates may resist this kind of scrutiny. But while it is possible to make some money operating with low open rates, most publishers making significant money in digital magazine advertising have added interactive features to their editions that raise open rates. Honestly, if your open rate is 5 percent, what real value are you delivering to an advertiser? There is potential if you invest in your digital edition. Don’t blame an audit on this.

Finally, I greatly appreciate the support BPA Worldwide has shown to the study. Especially Glenn Hansen’s letter to BPA members encouraging them to read it and featuring the study on the BPA Web site.

 

FREE WEBINAR: how to profit from digital magazines

Raymond Roker is an extremely innovative publisher who has not let the fall of print advertising get in his way running a profitable publishing organization. Roker is one of a growing number of "digital only" magazine publishers who are reinventing the magazine business model. If you are struggling with declining print revenues or challenged to sell ads in your digital editions, you will want to listen to this webinar. Click HERE to register.

Are you in the content delivery business?

  Many print publishing companies are failing  in their transition to digital by giving the wrong answer to the question, "What business are you in?"

  In Theodore Levitt's classic marketing essay, "Marketing Myopia" he describes how the once mighty railroads went bankrupt by failing to understand they were in the transportation business, not the railroad business. Many publishers are making the same mistake, thinking they are in the content delivery business when they are actually now in the customer engagement business.

Like the railroads, many publishers are failing to see how much new technology can transform an industry.

The Internet makes content a commodity. Think that great celebrity interview in your June issue is so unique? Type her name into Goggle followed by the word "interview" and see ten other interviews your readers can instantly access. But your ability to use content to engage and service readers has never been more valuable. The internet may commoditize content, but is also creates a need for knowledgeable guidance though the vast, conflicting, un-moderated content chaos that is the Internet.        

Also, digital media does not just "transmit" content like print media does, digital media transforms it. When content is delivered through digital social media channels the content added by readers can be more important than content generated by editors. How many readers link to an article can have a profound effect on search engines ranking which can make or break the life of a piece of content. Publishers who think their "transition to digital" is about swapping analog transport for digital ignores the importance of interactive reader participation. This came out loud and clear in the recent study, "The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines" as it documented the core reason marketers advertise in digital magazines is to deliver an interactive brand experience to readers. When value comes from interactivity it is not hard to see why straight digital replicas of print magazines have less value to advertisers.

 It is important to anticipate that digital content will be aggregated, redistributed, rated, commented on, ranked by Goggle, re-purposed, trashed, praised, and ignored as part of the process. All this is very healthily, adds value to the content you create, and is the key to your ability to monetize it. Why? Because it shows that the mere content that you pump out is driving the creation of an online community. If you can show a lot of interactivity between your community members, the value increases. Again, online, most content is a commodity, but when you use it to build a community, you create something of unique value that you can charge for.   

For publishers, the transition from analog to digital can be painful, unfair, and frustrating. At the heart of a successful transition to digital is a reinvention of the business model. Magazine publishers are often initially surprised by  the tiny revenue their digital media generates as they swap $10K print pages for $1K newsletter banners. But those newsletters, operating within a community as data gatherers, can return big profits when leveraged properly. Subscriptions for magazines and newsletters are harder to charge for when they go digital, but free subscriptions operating as content development centers, can be leveraged to create other reader experiences that can be monetized. 

The key to figuring all this out starts with answering the simple question, "What business are you in?" Online, most content is a commodity. If you still think you are in the content business...please, think again.   

 

The future of print magazines: fewer, but just fine.

Print magazines will be around for many years, but they will be lot fewer in number. Why do I say this? Because as part of the study, “The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines,” I measured the percentage of print magazine and website users who were “very actively involved” in their media. When I tabulated this against the age of the respondents, I found that younger respondents were less often heavy print magazine users. I found the opposite for heavy users of websites.

Why measure seriously involved media users? Because most often they determine the future of any media. If the most active users of Facebook started leaving where would Facebook be? Looking more like MySpace.

Print magazines readers skew older. The number of respondents who subscribe to more than

 

six print magazines increases steadily with every 10 years added to a respondent’s age. Almost half (47.6%) of the sample over the age of 70 subscribe to more than six print magazines. But with each 10-year decline in respondent age group, the number of serious magazine readers drops consistently.

For respondents under the age of 20, only about one in five (21.5%) subscribe to more than six print publications. Assuming readers maintain their reading habits as they age, there will be less demand for print magazines in the future.

But print magazines will not disappear. One in five (21.5%) under the age of 20 still subscribe to more than 6 magazines. While that is less than half the number for those over 70 who do so, it is still a very significant base. Print magazines are not dead, nor will they die. The difficult transition we are in now is a question of oversupply, not ineffectiveness. When magazines get though this transition there will be fewer of them but they will be robust once again.   

Information on “The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines” can be found HERE. The chart above combines findings #16 and 17 from the study. The study was sponsored by VIVmag and Nxtbook Media.  

How interactive digital magazines could give "search" a run for the money

Since “search” accounts for about half of every online ad dollar spent, the extent to which interactive magazines affect search is an important consideration for any media buyer. When an interactive magazine enters a market, it eliminates part of the functional need for search by consistently providing its subscribers with current and ongoing content. This is finding #8 from the study "The Case for Advertising in interactive Digital Magazines":

Over one third (34.2%) of interactive digital magazine readers report that they use search less after subscribing to an interactive digital magazine

When readers do not use search, they bypass exposure to both organic and paid search listings, as well as search ads. With over a third of interactive digital magazine readers reporting that they use search less after becoming regular subscribers, there is potential for marketers to miss targeted customers. Further, since subscribers to an interactive digital magazine would likely be among a market’s most engaged customers, the potential for advertisers to miss that market’s best customers by using search alone is very real.

This is why interactive magazine advertising works well as a complement to search. Ads in interactive digital magazines reach subscribers whose informational needs are being satisfied by an ongoing stream of content, and so are searching less often. Tom Winsor, publisher of HorseLink, has some thoughts on why interactive digital magazines can displace the need for search: “When a knowledgeable editor sorts through everything going on in a niche and gives her readers only the most important things, she is acting like a search engine for the reader’s interests.”

The Internet has millions of destinations, and searching for the right content can take time. Eroin McSorley, editor of Monkey magazine, sees his mission as a time-saver: “When you’re surfing the Web, the only time constraints are ones you set for yourself. With Monkey magazine, we take a little chunk of 25 or 30 minutes each week and cover all the aspects of what young men would be looking on the Web for anyway.” When editors of interactive magazines anticipate their readers’ needs and deliver content to them on an ongoing basis, readers have less to search for, thus making search and interactive magazines a complementary media buy

Download "The Case for Advertising in interactive Digital Magazines"

The iPad is not being made for content publishers

Sorry to disappoint content publishers, but the iPad was not developed for you! Douglas MacMillan recently reported in Business Week that the vast majority of software developers working on iPad products were working on video game apps. Mercedes Bunz writes in The Gaurdian that the iPad will be used mostly for web browsing. Before we find out...enjoy this funny video that puts all these speculations into perspective: