The latest Media Pioneer has integrated web, print, digital magazine, online communities and e-learning for a global niche scientific community. Peter Houston explained how they serve an audience of 140,000 chromatographers with their digital magazine The Column, online community Chrommunity and new e-learning service Chromacademy.
Advanstar have published peer-reviewed journal LC-GC in the chromatography sector for 25 years. Five years ago they started to experiment with a digital magazine which quickly attracted the attention of advertisers. The digital magazine – The Column - now reaches 140,000 chromatographers worldwide.
Peter Houston has been experimenting with the format of The Column. Pages are designed as spreads, text is easily legible and there are links back to the main website. Recently he changed the frequency from monthly to fortnightly, and spread the original 40pp of feature content across the two fortnightly editions, plus the latest news. Interestingly, this doubled the reading time of each edition, so readers spent in total four times as long with the edition per month. Advertisers like the new format, and use the magazine for lead generation. The sales team sell packages across the website, email newsletters and digital magazine. Advertisers can opt for regional versions of the magazine, but most are keen to reach a global market.
Chromacademy is a paid-for service in a joint venture with Crawford Scientific, an e-learning training company. Subscribers pay $300pa for access to an e-learning archive, including 3000 modules with online assessments. So far there are 3000 subscribers, with some large organisations buying up to 200 licences for their staff.
Chrommunity is a free community launched in August 2009 on Ning to provide a forum for chromatographers to share ideas. It now has over 2000 members, from 88 countries; asking questions, making connections and contributing blogs; some of which are subsequently published in the magazine.
What is clever is that the community help create the content for the digital magazine, and the magazine drives people to the e-learning business. It also proves that less is more in digital magazines and design counts even in scientific and technical markets.
The Media Pioneer Awards were established by the organisers of the Specialist Media Show to celebrate innovative and entrepreneurial activity from specialist media across print, digital and events. Winners will be announced at the Specialist Media Show on 25 May 2011.
If you’d like to nominate your specialist media business for an award, please contact carolyn@thespecialistmediashow.com. No entry fees or complex forms to complete, just the admiration of your peers!
