Digital Edition Trendwatch

An “aligning of the planets" is driving platform growth, experimentation and, most importantly, advertiser acceptance.

By Jane Zarem
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

No one expects print magazines to disappear, but the days of publishing in a single format are long gone. A paradigm shift toward electronic delivery has been underway. International delivery has been the primary driver of digital editions to save both time and postage. Encouraging digital delivery for domestic readers also saves costs for the publisher and provides immediacy and interactivity for readers. And many publishers and readers alike are choosing digital delivery for a philosophical reason: To save planet Earth.

Savvy publishers are already deeply involved, if not invested, in digital delivery. They have evolved their businesses into media companies that repurpose content and distribute it through whatever channel the consumer chooses to use. These publishers are seeking and reaping economic, demographic, and ecological benefits.

The new economy has encouraged true innovation in the use of digital editions. Some publishers are leveraging digital for back-issue sales to increase revenue or for immediate delivery of the first subscription issue to increase reader engagement. Others are creating all-digital magazines or supplements for similar compelling reasons.

Redbook created a digital-only “MVP Extra” supplement to the magazine’s annual beauty awards. In embedded video, the beauty editor guides readers through the product choice process and shows them how to use the products they view. The digital supplement was posted on Redbook.com and on partner site TotalBeauty.com to create additional audience growth opportunities. And the last page of the supplement contains a subscription offer for the digital edition of Redbook magazine.

Non-magazine content publishers have also discovered digital delivery. Hollywood Records, Disney’s music division, created digital versions of traditional liner notes for various albums by repurposing B-stock video and photography and other material. The fully digital “fanzine” features interactive video interviews, lyrics, a poster maker, and other extras, allowing “screenagers,” adolescents and young adults who have grown up getting all their information via the Web, to engage with their favorite artists. Fans buy the product for $4.99 as an extra when purchasing the CD.

Every interaction that occurs within a digital magazine’s content can be tracked, so advertisers can receive a tremendous amount of information about how readers engage with digital ads. According to a study that the Harrison Group conducted in early 2008, 87 percent of respondents said they pay more attention to ads in digital magazines than in print. They view interactive ads with click-to-call abilities and embedded music and video within the pages as engaging and useful. And these options are just the beginning. Behavioral targeting, regional targeting, and supplemental ads are waiting in the wings.

Popular Science’s Intriguing New (Ad)Venture

Popular Science is currently delivered virtually 100 percent in print, with a very small digital subscription base that is mostly international. One of the challenges to digital delivery, according to Gregg Hano, publisher, is that ad agencies don’t currently recognize digital editions as having the same value as print, so digital advertising doesn’t command the same CPM. The publisher is actively involved, however, in the development of an enhanced digital product that is expected to be compelling and engaging enough to attract advertisers. It will launch this spring. “We’re working through the mechanics right now,” he says. “We’re figuring out how we want to design and display our content creatively to give it the greatest impact but remain true to the magazine format.”

Certain characteristics of magazines transcend both print and digital versions, according to Hano. And as the world evolves both technologically and ecologically, Hano is confident that the move towards digital magazines will accelerate—in terms of both the user experience and the devices available. Clearly, the most obvious opportunity for publishers is to replicate the traditional print product as a digital edition and present it to the subscriber base as an either/or choice or with the option of getting both. The cost of delivering an additional electronic copy is almost insignificant. The really exciting opportunity, however, is the ability to create unique content and go into more depth on a subject that is of great interest to the readers.

“Every single advertiser that we speak to is interested in more than just pages,” Hano continues. “All of them want to learn as much as they can about where digital is going. We want to learn right along with them. We want to understand. We want to share.” Popular Science readers and advertisers that generally invest in that brand appear to be the perfect audience for new ideas. “It’s an evolving time in the industry, and we very much want to be on the leading edge of where digital is headed,” Hano says.

Premier Guitar Tunes In

“For us, the digital magazine is the same barn, different animal,” quips Peter Sprague, managing director of Premier Guitar, which treats its print and digital editions as an integrated entity. “We’re working all the time to evolve and promote both versions, albeit in different venues. We’re primarily looking to engage subscribers willing to pay $24.95 for the print product, but the digital edition is growing faster for the simple reason that it’s free.”

Premier Guitar’s controlled circulation of 60,000, mostly professional guitarists, splits roughly 50-50 between those who receive the paid print product (32,000 subscribers) and those who opt for the free digital version (34,000 subscribers). About 11 percent get both.

Why is the digital version free? Simple economics, according to Sprague. Digital is much less expensive to produce and deliver than print. Digital is also an efficient way to build rate base, as long as the demographics are good—and Premier Guitar measures every issue. The magazine’s digital subscribers are younger (average age 38 versus 46 for the print edition) but mirror the demographics of print subscribers in all other respects.

“One thing that worried me about digital delivery was whether we would see through-the-book readership,” says Sprague. “I expected digital readers to be more impulsive and less thorough, but that’s not the case. While very few people read the electronic version in a single sitting, they come back a number of times in any given month. The print experience seems to be more consolidated. Our average print reader spends about an hour and 20 minutes with the product; for the digital version, it’s about an hour and 10 minutes in two or three sessions.”

Premier Guitar’s advertisers are buying digital blow-in cards to draw further attention to their ads and are experimenting with rich media embeds of an MP3 or a video. “We’re starting to work with advertisers to create microsites to which their ads will link,” says Sprague. “Currently, most advertisers use a general Web site address. These new microsites will have content relating to a specific product.”
Sprague expects more and more publishers to migrate to digital delivery. “Demographics may not apply in all cases,” he notes, “but certainly the economics do. Accountability is also a factor that is attractive to advertisers and sponsors. Once they begin to get that information, there’s no going back. And frankly, delivering information through interactive links is appealing.”

Uptime Evolves Big-Time

Reliabilityweb.com, an online community of more than 55,000 maintenance and reliability professionals worldwide, began as a bootstrap startup in 1999. “The focus then was on building eyeballs, creating audience by creating useful content and figuring out how to monetize them later,” says Terrence O’Hanlon, publisher. “Our business model didn’t concentrate on advertising.”

Clinging to its philosophy of providing instantaneous value to readers through practical Web content, the organization actually did build an audience and did get a number of advertisers. After purchasing two distressed print magazines that eventually withered and died, Reliabilityweb.com finally struck gold three years ago with its third foray into the print world. Uptime is a bimonthly, controlled-circulation magazine with more than 50,000 subscribers—about half outside North America.

“We stumbled, we fumbled, and we lost lots of money as we developed the audience,” says O’Hanlon, “but Uptime magazine is now financially successful.”

As part of its progression, Uptime included a simple page-turning digital version, hosted on its own Web servers, which the magazine’s printer “spit out” for an extra fee. With no monetization, no tracking, no metrics, and really no digital strategy, the publisher unplugged it toward the end of 2007 and now delivers a state-of-the-art companion digital edition.

“All the articles are now published both in print and in HTML,” O’Hanlon says, “and we embed audio and video feeds in the digital edition that begin to play when the page is turned. The book has really become a multimedia experience.” The entire circulation, which includes 23,000 international subscribers, receives the digital edition; 27,000 domestic subscribers receive both print and digital.

Advertisers are becoming more interested in Uptime’s new digital edition, as well. They’re running flash ads that move, putting digital tabs on inserts, and adding direct-request forms for further information. Advertisers don’t want Web traffic. They want leads. So rather than linking to an advertiser’s Web site, putting a lead form in an ad sends interested readers directly to the advertiser for an immediate response.

The next step will be to take advantage of a mobile delivery product. “We want to extend our influence off the desktop and off the printed page,” explains O’Hanlon. Uptime’s readers work in industrial plants and can’t sit at a computer for 40 minutes to listen to the audiocasts that the publisher delivers on its Web site. They want to access the information on a laptop, BlackBerry, iPod, iPhone, or SmartPhone while working out, commuting, jogging…wherever.

“There are 13 billion SmartPhones in the world—more than there are personal computers,” says O’Hanlon, “so we believe it’s smart to move in this direction. Our content will now be available three ways, and the reader can get the information where, when, and how he or she wants to access it.”

eWeek’s New Look

eWeek, a Ziff Davis Enterprise publication targeted to IT professionals, has more than 400,000 qualified subscribers, about 65,000 of whom have elected to receive a digital version of the magazine instead of print. That’s slightly more than the average 15 percent of b-to-b readers who typically elect digital delivery over print.

“Environmental and cost issues make digital delivery increasingly compelling for us and for our readers,” says Debra Donston, editor. But neither converting subscribers nor enhancing the digital edition has been a top goal for the publisher in recent weeks. Rather, the eWeek staff has been consumed by a significant redesign of the print product that debuted with the January 5, 2009, issue.

“The new book will be the same size and orientation, but everything inside has been changed,” says Donston. “It has a new look, a new feel, and new sections. It will have a product focus—actionable, practical, and purposeful—with fewer long, deep-dive articles. The previous design was more analytical and news-focused.”

For the immediate future, the digital version of eWeek will be an exact replica of the new print edition in PDF form but with links to eWeek.com or other Web sites for additional or updated information. “For example,” says Donston, “a new section called ‘Products to Watch,’ which is designed to point readers to new products, will be very image-heavy in the print edition, with captions and an URL for more information. In the digital edition, a link will take the reader directly to the vendor’s site for the most relevant information about that product, perhaps an interactive video, and more.” eWeek expects to develop content and advertising products specifically for the digital edition by the latter part of 2009.

Donston describes the changing market for digital magazines and current financial and environmental concerns as “an aligning of the planets. It costs a lot of money to distribute a print publication,” she says, “and concerns about paper use and energy used for transportation are also making publishers look harder at the opportunities that digital delivery affords. Digital provides the bridge between the packaging opportunities that we can provide in print and the interactivity and immediacy of the Web.”