Course Specialist Magazine Media Kit
2016
Welcome to www.course-specialist.co.uk, the independent website celebrating the best in British and Irish horse racing. st
Course-Specialist was launched on November 1 , as a means to covering the big races, providing racing news, a look at the history of the big races and a look behind the scenes of our great sport. As the site has evolved and grown, with pure investment and patience and no return for investment, we felt it was time to launch the digital Course-Specialist Magazine, reviewing the month’s racing headlines from the UK, Ireland and France, with additional sections devoted to international racing, bloodstock and sales, features and a look ahead to the coming month, including features on the histories of the big races to come. I fell in love with racing in the late 1970s and the exploits of horses like Bird’s Nest, Kris, Monksfield, Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon, Silver Buck, Tied Cottage and Troy. My passion from a very early age was all about the vivid colours, the drama of a Sir Peter O’Sullevan race commentary, the familiarity of names and the stories behind the victories. Betting was never the focus. I hope that my website conveys my passion and is something I can share with people, to help promote racing. Course-Specialist is devoid of betting news or tipping; there are many websites people can choose to visit to indulge in that aspect of our sport, but for me the attraction lies elsewhere and there are far more qualities to racing that I hope the site brings out, not least the sporting element. I hope that this will be conveyed within the magazine also. I worked at The Sporting Life on work experience at the age of 20, when Robert Maxwell owned Mirror Group Newspapers. I have also written published articles to the Racing UK Club Magazine and for the Famous Racehorses website. I like to give the big races context, provide in-depth previews of forthcoming big races, racing news, sales news, race reports, focus on the big international races, details of fixtures; and in-depth features on famous horses, famous races, trainers and jockeys, racecourses and behind the scenes of racing. Since launching, Course-Specialist has been privileged to interview: Criquette Head-Maarek about her career pre-Treve; Simon Crisford on the career of Halling; Richard Linley, Director of Racecourses, on his success as a jockey in the Mackeson Gold Cup; Clive Brittain about Pebbles’ success in the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Turf; John Hammond about Suave Dancer’s 1991 Arc victory; Sir Michael Stoute about Ajdal’s July Cup win; Willie Mullins about Hurricane Fly Nigel Twiston-Davies about The New One; Mark Tompkins about Bob’s Return winning the St Leger; Owner Jeff Smith for a feature on his great miler Chief Singer; Henrietta Knight on the career of Edredon Bleu; Luke Harvey on his career as a jumps jockey; Mark Johnston, on the career of his 2,000 Guineas winner Mister Baileys; John Oxx on his Epsom Derby winner Sinndar; Barry Hills on his 2,000 Guineas winner Tap On Wood; Oliver Sherwood, looking back over his career, Many Clouds’ Grand National victory and the future; Richard Rowe on Eulogy and Shady Deal; William Jarvis on the career of Grand Lodge; Dermot Weld on Sinndar; Jim Bolger on New Approach; James Fanshawe on Environment Friend
We also run a section within the Features called ‘Off The Track’ which has featured the likes of: Banstead Manor Stud, Gary Witheford the Horse Whisperer, the history of Lewes Racecourse, a behind the scenes look at Racing UK’s operations, Tattersalls Sales, the benefits and strategy of sponsorship in horse racing (an exclusive article written for the website by Jon Ivan-Duke at William Hill), Horse Racing Aboard on the phenomenon of horse racing tourism, stable visits to Alison Hutchinson’s Exning yard and Martin Smith’s Newmarket base, a feature with Harry Herbert on syndication and Highclere Thoroughbred Racing; Discover Newmarket; the National Stud; th Newmarket’s 350 anniversary of horse racing; and UK Jockey Coaching (with Steve Smith Eccles). We have also featured profiles on a number of racecourses including: Cheltenham; Chepstow; The Curragh; Epsom Downs; Huntingdon; Leopardstown; Newbury; Newmarket; Punchestown, Sandown Park and York. The site also tries to promote worthwhile causes and has featured the outstanding work of Redwings Horse Sanctuary and the excellent endeavours of the Bob Champion Cancer Trust. We run a regular column on news from Newmarket-based Martin Smith Racing, while Equine Management and Training also supplies copy for a column. One of the beauties of horse racing is that it is a sport that never stops moving. There is a constant churn of news and significant racing in Britain, Ireland and France most weekends, giving visitors plenty of reason to visit Course-Specialist on a daily basis. Course-Specialist is proud to work with various news sources including Weatherbys, Johnno Spence Communications, Square In The Air, Goffs, Tattersalls, Tattersalls Ireland, Racenews.co.uk, Jockey Club Racecourses, and Horse Racing Ireland. We are also privileged to work with some of the best racing photographers in the business, providing bright, effervescent pictures that capture the drama of a race and entice visitors to the website. I invite you to visit our website at www.course-specialist.co.uk and hope you will like our content, the site layout and find everything easy to navigate. Yours sincerely,
Andrew Pelis Founder and Editor www.course-specialist.co.uk
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WEBSITE STATISTICS FROM GOOGLE ANALYTICS st
The following information is taken from Google Analytics, from launch date (November 1 , 2013), to st August 1 , 2016.
Year on year comparison: st
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November 1 2013 – November 1 2014 Unique Visitors: 10,463 Sessions: 14,694 Page views: 49,605 Number of pages visited per session: 3.38 Bounce Rate: 9.48% st
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November 1 2014 – November 1 2015 Unique Visitors: 32,285 Sessions: 44,989 Page views: 130,239 Number of pages visited per session: 2.89 Bounce Rate: 1.28% st
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November 1 2015 – August 1 2016 Unique Visitors: 47,824 Sessions: 73,604 Page views: 206,647 Number of pages visited per session: 2.81 Bounce Rate: 1.00%
Year On Year Unique Visitors: 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000
Unique Visitors:
10,000 0 November 1st 2013 – November 1st 2014
November 1st 2014 – November 1st 2015
November 1st 2015 – August 1st 2016 (8 months)
Overall Performance
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November 1 2013 – August 1 2016 Unique Visitors: 88,427 Sessions: 133,028 Page views: 385,704 Number of pages visited per session: 2.90 Bounce Race: 2.03%
Key Geographic Locations (by number of sessions): UK: 98.586 (74.11%) Ireland: 12,478 (9.38%) USA: 5,692 (4.28%) France: 2,749 (2.07%) Australia: 1,953 (1.47%) Germany: 1,586 (1.19%)
Course-Specialist has been viewed in 169 countries
Age Demographics (data from Google Analytics) Age
Sessions
Percentage
45-54 25-34 55-64 65+ 18-24
12,580 8,971 8,644 4,678 4,569
25.41% 20.34% 17.46% 9.45% 9.23%
Advertising information
As you can see, the Course-Specialist online formula for content and layout is growing (over 300% growth in unique visitors from Year 1 to Year 2 and significantly more during the first 8 months of 2016) and proving very popular among racing fans and industry figures and is seen as something different, because it is niche. This helps to define a very specific demographic, the racing fan, the owner, the trainer, the jockey, the racing administrator, the fan who has a genuine appreciation and understanding of horse racing and who attends race meetings. Course-Specialist does carry big race previews and inevitably this will attract plenty of punters, however, we provide information to help would-be gamblers form their own educated decisions and provide unbiased previews, devoid of any tipping. So this is a unique opportunity to become an exclusive advertiser in front of a very racing-specific audience, on a page where your advertisement will never get lost among a myriad of other advertisements. Course-Specialist Magazine has its home prominently positioned on the home page of the CourseSpecialist website, with archive issues easily retrievable on the site for all time. Each issue will be vigorously marketed through the same social media sites that have served our website so well.
Advertising Rates (Digital publication)L Double Page Spread @ £2,400 Full Page @ £1,600 3 months Double Page Spread @ £1,900 per month Full Page @ £1,400 per month 6 months Double Page Spread @ £1,750 per month Full Page @ £1275 per month 12 months Double Page Spread @ £1,500 per month Full Page @ £1,000 per month
Course Specialist Magazine Artwork Specifications: Full Page ads are sized at A4 - W210 x H297 mm. Ads need to ideally be press-ready hi-res PDFs please, ideally X-1a:2001 standard. We can however also accept a hi-res (300dpi) jpeg or tiff
Contact:
We welcome horse racing-related advertising enquiries and are open to story ideas.
In the first instance, please feel free to email Andrew at: coursespecialistweb@gmail.com or telephone 01508 813275.
Thank you for your time.