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“I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.”
- Janet Flanner |
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Corporate-Run and Written Magazines Build Brand, Bypass The Media |
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| September 1, 1997 |
In communications, there is no easier way of sidestepping media gatekeepers than carrying your corporate image and brand directly to your customers with a corporate-controlled magazine.
But for companies traveling down that route, there are several rules of thumb: make sure that your content reflects fresh company services and products and accept that the publication may be just a communications vehicle to spur sales rather than a profit center.
"What you ultimately strive for is breaking even," says Leslie Steere, editor of Oracle Magazine, a four-color, glossy decade-old magazine that's evolving as a $4.95 marketing/PR tool (with more than 90 pages per issue) in the database management systems market. "It's just recently started paying for itself" because it's beginning to bring in more ads.
Steere, who is a journalist, wouldn't reveal the company's overhead or profits for the bimonthly magazine, but says it's become "the most cost-effective marketing tool Oracle has." The magazine is mailed to more than 91,000 customers - a group that has become avid readers of the magazine, published out of the company's Redwood Shores, Calif., headquarters.
Loyal Readers, Loyal Consumers
According to a subscriber-research project conducted (via phone interviews and online queries) for Oracle by Griggs-Anderson Research, readers of corporate-based magazines are a loyal lot. Oracle discovered that 60 percent of its readers spend nearly an hour on each issue and keep its magazines for more than a year. Surveying your readers is a must when it comes to putting out these kinds of magazines.
In this article, PR NEWS explores what's unique about corporate-controlled magazines, a PR tool that's very different from the other publications - newsletters, brochures or annual reports your company may produce.
Doling out Dollars
Deciding to launch a company publication, when you factor in salaries, overhead and freelance fees, is an investment that can cost companies several hundred thousand dollars each year, according to sources.
John Masterton, an editor with PR NEWS' sister publication media industry newsletter (min), said that putting out a custom publication is, indeed, an expensive proposition but it's also a growing, $1 billion-plus industry.
Corporation-managed publications can provide you with a way to offer your vendors lower ad rates while also permitting you to craft content your target demographic wants.
Most of your readers are likely to be current customers. Because of that, a magazine can also provide you with a way of beefing up your company's image.
That's exactly why you should help direct the process. If your company decides to publish a magazine, you'll be entrusted by senior-level execs to make sure that the editorial content strikes a common chord with corporate information and news.
What has made Oracle magazine a success is that its Editor in Chief Julie B. Gibbs and Steere cement its content for readers by guaranteeing that Oracle's "key products are tied to key people with key points," says Steere. That's a goal that's achieved by making sure its 20-some freelance writers are working on assignments months in advance.
Show Your Personality: Other Cases For Corporate Magazines
For Sunnyvale, Calif-based, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., its quarterly publication Advances (which has garnered several International Association of Business Communicators awards) reaches as many as 75,000 potential and current customers. The four-color magazine is positioned as a marcom extension, according to Editor Michael Slack. (AMD is a global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and network computer communications markets.)
The magazine doesn't take ads and is designed to be used by AMD's product line sales force as a tangible PR and business-bargaining tool. Nine execs from AMD (eight are from the corporate communications division) are involved in overseeing magazine strategy and/or reviewing content.
The nature of corporate-driven publications is that you must give your customer constituency behind-the-scenes details that profile your company image or help unveil a different side of your company.
Case in point: BMW, the German car manufacturer that publishes a magazine for customers who have bought a BMW in the past four years (it also sells the four-color glossy for $16 a year) deviated, in a recent issue, from its standard we-love-BMWs slant to show how the corporation's North American operation is helping the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation raise $1 million for breast cancer research.
Budgeting Wisely
While the Magazine Publishers Association doesn't track custom-published titles, the general statistics prove you'll be facing some tough competition: the MPA reports that there were 10,625 U.S. periodicals during 1996 (the most recent figures available).
So if you're certain that your company wants to go this route, you should take bids from design and print houses to find out how much it's going to cost (even if you have a small in-house editorial team) in the production phase and you should rely on informal queries (encouraging e-mail and accepting readers' calls) and yearly or biyearly reader surveys.
Jill Howry, principal at Howry Design Associates, the San Francisco design house that helped AMD with its magazine revamp, says that a corporation could spend between $25,000 and $50,000 per issue on design and production costs alone.
And depending on how many copies you're printing, a company could spend between $25,000 and $80,000 on printing costs.
AD RATES AT A GLANCE:
One of the pluses of corporate magazines is that ads aren't nearly as expensive as they are in more high-profile publications:
BMW Magazine
Circulation (worldwide): 1,002,500
Price For a One-Time, Four-Color One Page Ad: $8,500
Cigar Aficionado
Circulation: 372,169
Price For a One-Time, Four-Color One-Page Ad: $22,950;
Oracle Magazine
Circulation: 91,595
Price For a One-Time, Four-Color One-Page Ad: $9,755
Town & Country
Circulation: 448,714
Price For a One- Time, Four-Color One-Page Ad: $43,805
Source: SRDS Consumer Magazine Advertising Source, August 1997
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