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Old 12-04-2019, 01:28 PM   #5
BandB
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City: Fort Lauderdale. Florida, USA
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Publishers of newspapers and magazines continue to face the challenge and full time writers continue to lose jobs to part time bloggers. Before owning any magazines, I looked at it simplistically. Move more to the internet, seems simple.

However, the challenge is monetizing the internet content. Print content depended in varying degrees on advertising and subscriptions. Web content does the same. However, print advertisers paid far more per edition. A newpaper or magazine kept adding ad content to the point they were often 40% ads or more. They charged dearly for those ads, pointing out what a bargain they were compared to television or even radio and how much more effective. Web ads don't pay the same, and shouldn't as they don't carry the same value. You don't carry them with you, you view and leave and often barely view. So a full newspaper or magazine on the web generates far less ad revenue than the same in print.

Then subscriptions. The internet is free in the minds of most. Initially, people didn't charge for content. Wall Street Journal did. ESPN insider did. Slowly New York Times did and now most newspapers do but less than they did in print. The best sports information is now The Athletic and they charge but so very little compared to what they would for a print version. Still they've done enough to pull some of the best writers.

Today, for a print magazine to succeed it must be a "coffee table magazine", one you want to reference repeatedly. For instance, every city has a major magazine that is filled with a lot of "best of". There are also family and children's regular publications where you want to go back and reread. Many are timeless. Still sales are going to be far less than they once might have been. Sports Illustrated has done it with their swimsuit edition. Newspapers do it with their Sunday and Wednesday ads.

So, how do you make the transition? You go online knowing revenues will be far less. If you're online only, you save on the cost of printing. If you continue with a print version, you save some but you still have all the set up costs and print run costs. The only other place is you cut back on writers and reporters and "journalists", the true professionals. That lowers content value and further erodes things.

It's a very tough change and many have failed to successfully handle it. There is ton's of free content available online. It's not professionally written and it's often not accurate or informative but it's free. As a publisher, you must provide something that people are willing to pay for. That means exceptional and informative content. To advertisers, you can't just sell page views and even click throughs. You must be able to show advertisers that people come to them after seeing the ads.

Thinking has had to change and the publishing industry was slow to recognize that. Unfortunately, that means a tremendous loss. Hopefully a new generation will find new ways of revitalizing "publishing" both in print and online. There are some definite advantages. Timeliness is number one as the turnaround is so much quicker. Adding discussion and comments sections is another as you engage the reader.

To Boating magazines in particular, first as to advertising. Once builders and dealers were a huge source but they all now have their own web sites and won't pay what they did. Even if you have articles the reader wants to keep, the ads become stale so the fact the reader looks back carries less value. Ads need to be destination types, come to this place because it's great regardless of when you're reading this. The spring sale no longer carries as much value but we carry ads for marinas and yards that talk about their excellence and service and are timeless, brand building ads. Best of this nature ever was probably Coca-Cola's "I'd like to teach the World to Sing." Then sometimes it's just really good ad salespersons trying new things. But then some had cut back on salespeople too, sort of silly when you need more. We did a crazy experiment before Thanksgiving. We publish one of those upscale, everything advertised high priced, high society, snobby, local magazines. The type showing multi million dollar homes. Advertisers who do $100k landscaping or outdoor kitchen jobs. We had acquired some Ace Hardware stores and said "What the Heck, Let's try a pre-Thanksgiving ad." Now we had fliers sent out and much national and regional advertising but put an ad on grills in. Not $100k kitchens, but $399-1499 Kamado Joe, Weber, and Traeger. Result was people coming into a hardware store who never have been to one saying "I didn't know you sold grills here." These are the same people who made Costco the #1 Kamado Joe seller with their events around the country.

How does that apply to boating publications? Well, boaters are people too. Maybe you have some ads not simply about boating but other types of businesses trying to appeal to them. You know all the ad words and google ads used so widely where ads keep popping up of things you've previously looked at, maybe if you've got something special you show a viewer something they've never looked at before. Maybe he's been to all the boating sites but might benefit from the latest trends in treating knees without doing replacements or the same with backs. And in online publishing, don't strictly use the crutch of google and others, but get out and sell some of your own ads and build your own group of regular advertisers as that's another thing found that in publishing the true benefit of ads isn't one time but repeated ads.

Now, as to selling content, I don't see that as an answer for these type publications. If you don't update daily, I see it as low potential unless you're a true must have content provider. You have to bring value to your advertisers and bring in readers with your content but you can't charge readers to view.

I hate seeing magazines like those mentioned fold. I hate it every day I see news reporters fired in reductions. Unfortunately, too many have been too slow to react to the new publishing world and the economics it presents. They lost and we all lost too.
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