Consumer magazines spent most of the past two decades managing decline. The more confident publishers have stopped doing that. Newsstand sales and print advertising are still shrinking, but well-made titles with loyal readers are raising cover prices and growing.
Scale matters less than it did. Bauer has made Grazia a more premium product and charged more for it, while independents such as Anthem have put print back at the centre of the business and grown their export sales. Stylist has changed format several times without losing its readers. Others have gone the other way, and Gay Times dropped print entirely to build a global audience online.
For most consumer publishers, print is our USP. It’s the anchor that makes advertisers trust us and the very thing that readers want from us.
Jon Bickley Our print strategy: Anthem
Behind the confidence sits some hard arithmetic. Newstrade is now a small share of revenue and events and ecommerce are growing from a low base. Trust has become a selling point as AI fills the web with content of uncertain origin, but the paid-for consumer model that works at scale is still being worked out.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on consumer magazines, from premium print and cover pricing to brand extensions, membership and the future of specialist titles, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
For a while now, magazine publishers have been on the defensive, unsure about the viability of their traditional business model in a fast-changing world. Katie Vanneck-Smith wants to change all that.
We asked Tamar Riley, portfolio managing director at Immediate, what does best practice publishing look like in consumer media? This is what she said…
For premium titles like Grazia, Mojo and Empire, growth is increasingly coming not from extending reach but from deepening engagement with existing passionate audiences, as Lauren Holleyoake tells Ciar Byrne.
The printed magazine will be a cherished part of people’s lives for years to come, says Jon Bickley, co-founder and CEO. That is why it’s the key component in Anthem’s publishing strategy.
With the arrival of AI and the widespread availability of unattributable content, specialist publishers need to ensure that their titles are the trusted go-to brands in their sectors, Our Media’s Andy Marshall tells Ciar Byrne.
Stylist’s mission has been clear from day one: to engage with its female audience in an intelligent, positive and non-exploitative way. 16 years on, and current PPA Media Brand of the Year, they are staying true to those values, says Lisa Smosarski.
Gay Times was stuck in a rut, tied to its traditional publishing model and reaching only a small part of the LGBTQ+ community. Under the editorship of Lewis Corner, that began to change, as he explains to Ciar Byrne.
Whatever the rest of 2024 holds, two things are certain. Firstly, the bumpy economic ride will continue. Secondly, the need for media companies to have a broad base of revenue streams has never been more important or more challenging to achieve.
How do you create a specialist consumer media business that is fit for the future? What steps do you need to take to be resilient and flexible as audiences and technology evolve? Carolyn Morgan researched 20 innovators from across Europe to find out.
For many publishers, circulation is all about chasing volume, but they would be much better off chasing profitability, says Natalie Smith, client relationship manager at Warners.
As publishers move into other media, to whom will they entrust their marketing? To their magazine marketers or to new dedicated digital teams? Karlene Lukovitz says that consumer marketers must fight their corner or risk being sidelined.
Take all the challenges of domestic dm and multiply them by the number of overseas markets you wish to serve and what do you get? A headache? Sara Howers takes us through just some of the many things you need to consider for your international title.
How goes the US publishing industry in 2006? A big part of the answer lies in realising that referring to the ‘publishing’ industry has begun to have a rather anachronistic ring. The more pertinent query, says Karlene Lukovitz, would go something lik
Inserts can be a cost effective way of generating subscription orders. Yet, says Jenny Moseley, marketers could achieve far better results from their insert campaigns if they were more adventurous – both in their creative execution and in the selecti
Renewal rates are an obsession for most publishers, but great care should be taken over their calculation and interpretation. Misreading the analysis can lead to incorrect conclusions, and harmful action plans drawn up for non-existent problems. Greg
It always pays to get the maths right, especially when setting your annual subs promotion budget. A proper analysis of the key indicators will help you avoid making costly and far reaching mistakes. Laurie Wedd talks us through the logic.
For the many publishers that entrust the management of their subscriber and controlled lists to bureaux, the bureau represents the front line in their marketing efforts and the public face of their title. A productive, mutually beneficial relationshi
Few copywriters study enough. And many who commission copy study even less. So the partially-sighted serve the blind. No wonder, says Drayton Bird, most subscription copy isn’t very good.
The big brands of the magazine world all have one thing in common. They are all underpinned by a coherent set of values, articulated, nurtured and adhered to by the whole publishing team. Brand building, says Peter Genower, is a collective responsibi
A chance conversation in the office led Peter Johns to do some thinking about the longevity of magazine titles, and the results are this light-hearted look at magazine launch history. Peter doesn't claim that the analysis is rigorous but it reveals s
Customer insight is considered a prerequisite in most sales environments. The more you know about your customers, the easier it is to sell to them. It kind of makes sense. Yet many UK publishers have not invested the necessary time and resource to ge
Ask any publisher what they associate with Holland, and a vibrant magazine market may not end up high on the list. Tulips definitely, windmills possibly, the Red Light District - obviously, but magazines ... well possibly not. But, as COMAG’s Paride
Major US fulfilment houses have been busily enhancing their service offering. The question, says Karlene Lukovitz, is whether hard nosed publishers will be prepared to pay for them.
One of the highlights of the 2005 PPA Subscriptions Conference was the keynote speech by Peter Phippen, in which he outlined how he saw the relationship between publisher and reader evolving in the years ahead, and the central role that subscription
What does a subscriptions copywriter actually write about? The answer is almost anything apart from your publication. Peter Hobday explains why copywriters and food critics have much in common, and presents a twelve-part list to distinguish good copy
