While the profitability of magazines won’t likely return to levels seen before the economic downturn, advertisers need to realize that print magazines will continue to hold important strategic value long after the economy recovers. More importantly, publishers themselves need to start looking inward, to figure out what they can do to improve things.
Here are four aspects of the magazine industry that publishers would do well to re-evaluate:
Single-copy distribution
I had an eye-opening experience about a week ago. On my way to a lengthy subway trip, I decided to stop off and buy a magazine. Specifically, I wanted to pick up a copy of Spin. I stopped in at Shoppers Drug Mart, which didn’t have Spin among its relatively large selection of titles. I went around the block to Great Canadian News, thinking that a store that specializes in magazines would certainly carry one of the most popular music mags. Nope.
This isn’t an isolated case, either. Increasingly over the past year or so, I’ve noticed the conspicuous absence of many popular magazines from racks at leading retail outlets. In an industry with a major identity crisis, where the traditional format is dying a slow death, attempting to cut operating costs by reducing distribution channels seems less a sound business strategy than a way to alienate existing customers.
Rigid single-copy pricing structure
If my favorite book writer were to release a 500-page novel next week at $24.99, chances are I wouldn’t scoff at the price tag. But if the same novelist released a 300-page book later that year, logic would dictate that book should be priced somewhere around $14.99. Book publishers realize this logic, but magazine publishers don’t. There are an awful lot of consumer publishers complaining about their dramatic drops in single-copy sales, while at the same time regularly putting out 150-page issues of a magazine that typically boasts 250 pages of content, and charging the same $5.99 cover price as always.
The average consumer doesn’t understand that a magazine’s issue size is driven by ad sales, which are down dramatically in this economy. And they don’t care, either. By not adjusting a magazine’s cover price – even marginally – to reflect the amount of content in an issue, publishers are just losing once-loyal customers.
The rush to rebrand
When a human being goes through a dramatic change – a break-up, for example, or a job loss – he or she might respond by deciding to alter their look before re-entering the dating world or the job market. It might be time to hit the gym, get a new haircut, and buy some new clothes. Often, the effort will pay off, by helpiing the individual feel better about him or her self, and allowing them to stand out in a sea of singles or job candidates.
But magazines aren’t people. Why, then, do so many publishers seem to think that a sudden dip in readership is reason enough to launch a complete retooling of a mag’s content and/or design? Magazines are like pets; they are things people turn to for comfort and familiarity. Put a jacket on a poodle, and it’s still the same dog; there’s a good chance few will care about the change. But then, you always run the risk that the poodle’s best friends will end up thinking its new jacket looks stupid and won’t want to be seen with the poodle any longer.
The rush to pull the plug
Many of the best magazines appeal to several demographics, because their editors understand how to generate and position content that appeals to those of different age groups and lifestyles. Of the longest-lasting magazines, several have also enjoyed readerships that cross generations. Gourmet was one such example. People who remember their mothers reading Gourmet in the 1950s became loyal readers themselves in the 1970s and 1980s, and their kids became Gourmet readers toward the end of the millennium.
The magazine’s closure last fall followed almost 70 years of publication. And it came at a time when its subscriber base hovered around one million (a figure it had consistently been close to for more than a decade). Where Gourmet had faltered recently was on the newsstand, where sales had dropped approximately 25% through 2009.
This dip, and the associated advertiser panic that came with it, was apparently enough reason for publisher Conde Nast to pull the plug. When this happened, it sent a signal to many in the magazine industry that publishers were going to knee-jerk their way through this downturn rather than find a way to ride it out.
