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There has been a lot of talk and predictions about the death of print over the
past decade or so and there is no denying that print publishing is facing
unprecedented challenges with the primary change being the shift of advertising
dollars from print to online media. Some newspapers and major markets have seized
their print publications, new print magazine launches, are down significantly
and digital books seem to be finally poised to become a viable and accepted
option by consumers. That said, not everything is gloom and doom
for traditional publishers. In fact, many companies that have more from
print only publishing, to publishing across media or even holding their own or
even thriving and poised to come out of the global economic turn down strong in
position for growth. Meredith Corporation is one such example of
this print to web trend. Now you may not have heard of Meredith before
but chances are you do know some of their print magazine brands, Better Homes
and Gardens, Family Circle magazine, Parents magazine and more magazine
to name a few. Meredith started as a magazine publisher but
over time evolved into a media and integrated marketing company primarily providing
content that reaches woman at every stage of their life.
Meredith published their first magazine Successful Farming in 1902, still in
print today with a circulation of over 440,000. And launched Better Homes and Gardens magazine
in 1922 and it's grown into a global brand which is ranked number 4 out
of the top 100 magazines with the largest circulation.
Today, Meredith publishes 23 subscription magazines, owns 12 TV stations and has
over 400 books in print while operating 32 websites.
They started investing online in the 1919s and they launched interactive and
integrated marketing groups in 2000 to start harnessing the benefits of the web
and expand their print brands online. At the 2008 Digital Magazine Conference in
Berlin, rather than as a threat, the Internet was described as a huge opportunity
for traditional print publishers, because of the potential to reach and extend
their brands to new audiences. In fact, it was mentioned that from most print
brands, the overlap between customers who accessed magazine brands via
print and online was less than 20%. This explains why some magazine websites are
actually branded differently than their print counterparts.
For example, the website for Meredith's first magazine, Successful Farming, is
actually agricultureonline.com. In fact, if you enter successfulfarming.com
into your browser, you will be redirected to agricultureonline.com.
This website serves a different purpose than the print magazine but as you can
see the connection to the print magazine is prominent.
At the 2009 FIPP World Magazine Congress in London, the Meredith CEO told the
audience that they met their goal to acquire the ten million new print
subscriptions they needed in 2008 to sustain revenue growth, 35% or 3.5 million
of those new subscriptions were acquired through their online properties at a
fraction of the cost of traditional response card acquisitions.
The price to acquire a new subscriber online was quoted as a $1.50 whereas the
prints acquisition cost $20. That makes it pretty easy to see why Meredith
has to use the web as an opportunity. In conclusion, asking if print is dead is
the wrong question. The better question is how you create a strong
brand that attracts the audience you wish to connect with.
For Meredith, their answer is to deliver content whenever wherever and however
their audience wants to consume it. Print continues to be a premium product they
offer customers, but is no longer their only focus.