Passion Sells
“They have to advertise with us. We’re the association magazine.” An association executive actually said that to me once. That was before the recession but it was shocking even at the time. As I said in my book , “they” don’t have to do anything. They can take their ad dollars and their membership dues and their event registration fees and go anywhere they want.
Then this week, I sat in on a Vocus Webinar about trends in media where Rebecca Bredholt, Vocus managing editor for magazine content said that more associations are going to launch print magazines because the ability to deliver a highly targeted qualified audience is still a compelling message for advertisers.
Then, also this week, I saw the ad projections for the spring issue of one of our association magazines and heard that rep firms that traditionally relied on member goodwill to sell ads were having to beat the bushes a lot harder in an effort to find non-member advertisers.
According to everyone, niche magazines are where it’s at these days. Readers of niche and special-interest magazines are described as “cults.” About 12,000 readers of Paste actually donated $275,000 to keep the magazine they love afloat. Some of them actually had benefit concerts for the independent music magazine.
So here’s my question: if your association magazine has always been niche, if your readers can’t get what you publish anywhere else, if your cult is devoted to the subject matter, why are you struggling financially? It’s not necessarily easy—nothing is these days—but if you’re giving them what they want and can prove it, why don’t advertisers buy?
Possible reasons:
- Laziness. Lazy editorial and lazy ad reps. If your editorial is not cult-worthy, get out of the business. If you’re killing trees to tell readers who got elected to your board and to run pictures of your conference gala, get out of the business. If you’re publishing the same thing that your competing trade magazine publishes only not as good and not as timely, get out of the business. If your ad reps still rely on member goodwill, fire them. That scenario just hits your members for more money. They won’t get leads from it—they’re all in the same business so why would they buy from each other? If non-member advertisers don’t see your cult as worth reaching, your already dismal ad revenues will only get smaller.
- Not Going Where the Love Is. One of my old bosses used to use that expression. Play to the crowd that loves you. Specialize the hell out of it. Niche the niche into targeted audiences that they can’t reach any other way. If you’re trying to attract readers that are only marginally interested in what you offer, you’re spreading yourself too thin and won’t get anywhere anyway.
- Being All Things to All Readers. It’s tempting to plan a magazine that has something for everyone in an effort to attract readers and advertisers. Something for the C-suite as well as something for entry-level, something for manufacturers as well as something for academics; some thought leadership and some product reviews, some opinion and some how-to. Wrong. In the immortal words of the late Ann Richards, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road, but roadkill.” If you’re all things to all readers, you’re nothing special to anyone.
- Inagility. You publish what you’ve got or what’s on your editorial calendar instead of adjusting to what readers are really interested in. I saw an association magazine recently that led with an article about the shop floor. I talked to another that was considering a cover story about employee discipline. Readers just aren’t interested in that right now. They want to know how to keep their customers, how to maximize revenues. You could write about those two topics in every issue from now till the turnaround actually feels real and readers wouldn’t get tired of it. If your editorial is so evergreen that it is the journalistic equivalent of preservative-rich junk food—eat it now, eat it 10 years from now—you will not last much longer.
- Being Too Old-School. I’m a print journalist. I ascribe to John Updike’s words: To create content that results in “dark marks on paper which become handsomely reproducible many times over…seems to me…a magical act, and a delightful technical process.” But dark marks on paper don’t attract revenues by themselves. Lead generation, audience management, e-commerce, content marketing can supplement traditional space advertising sales in ways that old print technology never could.
This is not a fun time to be in the publishing business but, look at it this way, you’ve got what everyone else in the business wants—a passionate audience. Passion sells, always has, always will.
Hey! Take it easy there…
Why? There are a lot of association pubs out there that deserve it–present company excepted, of course.