Issue 2

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LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish Digital Marketing Techniques of LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish the Woman’s Lifestyle Online LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish Publishing Sector LittleFishLittleFishLittleFish

Issue

2

Contents Traffic Building An introduction t, gaining insight and giving perspective

Offline & Online A new-era of technology and how’s impacting the industry

Making A Case Looking in to how Vogue, Heat & Ta k e A B r e a k a r e developing and how they can

Research What the market is saying; the publics attitudes are changing and developing

Finance How publications are making money and how they can change in developing technological times

Conclusions An outlook in to the possible future of traffic building in this sector

Digital Marketing Techniques the Women Lifestyle On Publishing Sector

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Issue One Recap In the previous issue, LittleFish explored the various components and factors influencing the future of online publishing within the women’s lifestyle sector. Focusing on digital trends.

LittleFish examined existing online content solution such as ‘pay walls’ which The Times uses to sell its content. We also looked to distribution of digital copies of magazines using services such as ‘Zinio’.

LittleFish also looked into the culture behind the sector, and what those who bought into it enjoyed doing whilst using digital platforms such as the internet or their mobiles. We also found that people were to pay for digital copies of magazines wanted more from them- making them more three dimensional and interactive; to include multi-media. We also found that certain p u b l i c a t i o n s wo u l d b e n e fi t m o r e f r o m digitalisation than others.

LittleFish conducted a financial analysis and found that 50% of publishers were seeking to change/create/improve a digital service to its customers. The way for the transition to move forward is for customers to get more ‘bang for their buck’, so new innovative ways of incorporating content into their digital magazines is the way to move out of the flux and into a new market.

In this issue LittleFish focuses on the digital marketing techniques of the women’s lifestyle online publishing sector; expanding and developing the themes and issues which arose from our last issue.

Traffic Building

How to build online traffic

Social Media Marketing E-Mail Marketing Demand Creation Organic (SEO/SEM) Analytics Pay Per Click (PPC) Content Marketing Conversion Optimisation

Introduction to Traffic Builing

Leading consumers and potential consumers to your site is called traffic building. The more the business is on top of this the more popular the site will become. It is important to offer the consumer an experience they will enjoy.

Consumers are spending more time online than ever before. With the rise of technology and internet features it has become easy to build traffic using online methods. However this must not push offline methods out of the picture. If done effectively consumers will be lead to the site.

Viral marketing can also build up traffic, especially with the power of a campaign that everybody wants to be apart of.

Interlinking all media forms such as adverts, websites and Facebook pages will keep consistency and build up a good brand image.

The Three T’s

Targets

– It must be outlined before

starting what are the key objectives that need to be achieved.

Techniques – Strategy needs to be clear and concise. Using both online and offline methods will help promote the website. In order to encourage consumers the right mix of relevant traffic building techniques must be used.

Timing – Timing is completely dependant on the site. Effective traffic building is usually continuous. However it can be used in short term processes, for instance a major event or site launch. It is crucial that the methods are put into the most relevant places, where the intended target audience will be subjected to it.

Social Media Marketing Business and Pleasure?

Web 2.0 has changed the internet. It has provided consumers and businesses a set of tools to communicate. There are several reasons as to why social media marketing is so important in today’s society.

With the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Linked in, there are networks of followers out there. People that love news, gossip, exclusives. A business on a social networking site can encourage consumers to share with their friends and networks, this brings positive attention and will spread to potential new consumers. It is often said that we now live in a world where news is 24/7. Therefore it is important to stay on top of what’s going on and be ready for crisis management. Social networking is a great method of keeping readers up to date with the company. It will also build up a good rapport as the consumer will know the source is credible.

Social Media Optimization is beneficial to all involved. It will bring the publication a data base of their consumers. This is valuable in gaining insight as well as promoting new products or services. It also allows the publication to claim a brand, and let people know their ideology. The consumer will interactively be apart of the publication and may be subjected to special offers and exclusive content.

Just being a part of social networks isn’t enough. It is crucial content is kept consistent and updated regularly. This ensures consumers will keep coming back to the page and feel content in it’s content.

E-Mail Marketing Email was at the beginning of the online communication revolution. Using Email as a marketing tool can be very powerful for a business. It can help maintain traffic building and keeps consumers satisfied. It is important that your email is effective, so keep layouts, fonts act consistent, be personal to the consumer, make sure there's a purpose and keep it concise.

Derek Scruggs who is Permission Advocate for Message Media has devised a set of rules which will successfully keep your customers happy and build traffic. www.messagemedia.com

1. Send email to those who have ‘opted-in to

receive it’ 2. Always honour a request to opt out.

3. Confirm everything by e-mail – the initial optin, orders, shipping notifications and changes to the customer profile.

4. Allow users to specify their preferences (what information to receive, how often) 5. Give and you shall receive (offer incentive) 6. Your list is an asset that only you can use; do not sell or rent it.

7. Develop and post a privacy policy for your web sire and do not violate it!

8. Respond to customer e-mail inquiries promptly.

9. Don’t n use rented lists.

10. Always remember the network effect – bad news travels much faster than good on the internet.

Demand Creation This is an important aspect of traffic building, this for the consumers that need that little extra push to invest into your website/business.

Consumers love what everybody else is loving. Making them apart of something will get them on board. A good rapport with consumers is crucial. Positive brand image will help a lot in this area. However it might not be enough, demand creation is sales and marketing promotions that will be the final convincer.

Going the extra mile

The Take a Break website for example knows its consumer. It has gone the extra mile to ensure that there's support groups and help available for those who may need it.

Organic (SEO/SEM) Search engine optimisation is the process of maximising the visibility of the site in search engines. Organic SEO is when it naturally happens without the site having to invest any money.

Consumers tend to trust the content of the sites found higher up the list. If there's 600 pages of results, you would expect the most relevant to your search to be top of the list. This will build traffic to the site.

In regards to women's lifestyle magazines, today’s consumers have more access to the internet and therefore are more than likely to look up their favourite magazine or search trends, fashion or gossip.

Analytics Google Analytics has become a very powerful business tool in regards to websites. Using analytics can ensure you maximise the websites full potential.

Being able to tell what parts of the website consumers are responding the most and least too is very useful. It can inform you if your traffic building is working and if it’s not you can fix it without wasting money.

It is advisable to sign up to Google Analytics, its free and can dramatically improve your site. Turning visitors into consumers. The insight it will provide you with is priceless. It will tell you the most productive page as well as the most clicked on features. You can then build on this and create a website your consumers will respond to.

Pay Per Click Pay-Per-Click allows you to register your website at the top of the search engine results, this is done by advertising on select words which are most appropriate to your business. Obviously due to competitors the higher your bid determines on the higher you will be on the list.

Typing in fashion magazine into Google illustrates that Look magazine have obviously paid the most amount of money in order to be the first result. Vogue is quite far down the list. This is unusual as it is likely people searching will stick to the first few links.

Buying into key words is a great way to build traffic to your website.

You only pay when the consumer clicks onto your website. This means you will know if the keywords are working.

Content Marketing Its all very good having a great website, however if the content isn’t worth reading then consumers will lose interest and this is something you definitely don’t want.

The website must emphasise the brand. If the consumer is a regular visitor and enjoys spending time on the site, it is likely he/she will pass on how great it is to their peers. Consumer action becomes profitable and the brand loyalty increases.

Magazines offer their websites with further content that was in the issue. This can be extra interviews, video footage, online offers, blogs ect. The website allows the consumer to be more interactive, all of these aspects will drive a consumer to visit the magazine online.

Looking at the heat magazine website, it is a lot more 3D than the print publication. It has various aspects which entice the consumer to be more involved. Video news, rated by you, heat radio and video, all take the consumer to another level.

Conversion Optimisation Conversion optimisation is how to get your website to number one, consumers have to chose it over the competitors and feel the site is credible as well as meeting their needs. Landing pages are crucial in this, they have to convince the visitor to become a consumer. There's no point having a really good website if it doesn’t interest the consumer.

It also refers to when a visitor may come across the landing page, your website needs to appeal in order to make them into a consumer. This is explained in the cycle below. However it is said that 95% of marketing dollars on finding new customers and only 5% on keeping their existing customers. This is a substantial difference when it is really in the benefits of the business to keep existing consumers happy.

Suspect Someone who encounters marketing regarding the site.

Consumer has seen the website link on advert or in magazine.

Prospect Someone who pays attention to the promotion Consumer has taken note of promo and is likely going on the site.

Customer Someone who buys into the product/service Consumer goes on site, looks around, reads articles/watch videos.

Client Someone who comes back to the site again Consumer is back and has signed up.

Advocate A loyal consumer who speaks highly of the website/brand.

Consumer tells friends how good site is and keeps coming back.

Advocate is what we aim for.

Once upon a traffic building time...

Back when analytics and search engine optimisation were things we would only dream about, websites relied on traditional traffic building methods. These methods are still commonly used today, especially during campaigns . Offline methods are still as significant, not everybody is online therefore this attracts good attention. Offline usually creates buss and momentum to the campaign and draws people online.

PR

PR is cost effective and efficient. This works with Word Of Mouth. The publicity from the PR should encourage consumers to talk about it. Pr is good for site launches, campaigns or upcoming events. Pr can also get the website URL out there.

Word of Mouth

This is a very powerful technique in all areas of media.

If a consumer likes something it is likely they will tell a few people, however if they dislike something it is likely they will tell more people. However the good part of word of mouth is that it creates a buzz and a hype, and before long it could have become a phenomenon.

Offline &

& Online The Impacts of a New Wave of Technology

What is traffic building working towards?

Website Hits The most obvious result of traffic building is website hits.

These can be measured in unique visitors, therefore the hits represent each individual once and don’t produce inaccurate results. Getting the hits is the start of turning potential consumers into clients.

Online Subscriptions

Hopefully the hits will turn into regular consumers.

There is then the opportunity to turn the visitors into regular subscribers. A lot of websites have the facilities to join up. The promise of exclusive content and more user involvement entices people to sign up.

Consumer Satisfaction Traffic building all leads to new consumers and existing consumers satisfied with the content of the website, so much so they will keep using and preach to their peers.

The future of traffic building Online traffic building is dramatically increasing with the technology it is platformed on. However consumers do not like unnecessary annoyance when searching the internet. Some traffic building techniques may be seen as this.

With more and more people with access to the Internet, and campaigns getting more creative and interactive, I see the future of traffic building starting offline.

Building up hype and spreading around peer groups will get everybody talking this will interest people enough to look it up online for more content.

The print publications just aren’t what they use to be. Converting to online platforms is becoming the norm. Traffic building naturally happens when a consumer likes a publication, they want to see what more they can get online.

The Mintel graph below from 2009 shows that 6% of women buy less magazines because of content that’s available online. This will only increase, as online content is becoming competitive and worthy.

The sole purpose of traffic building is to encourage new and existing consumers to get involved with what a site has to offer.

Traffic building techniques throughout the digital magazine sector are one of the many that have proved successful, ’More than half of the consumer magazines with a monthly traffic of 1.5 million unique users and more are profitable’.

Using social media to build relationships has been a strategy many print publishers have adopted. As digital content becomes more popular, bridging the gap between print and digital is imperative for magazines. Not doing so may result in a loss of audience members. Taking a static print product and incorporating online interaction will continue to show value in the relationship.

Take a break uses very little trafficking techniques which is evidential through out there social networking figures and online subscriptions. This in turn means they rely mainly on their print revenue. This is a massive downfall as there is the potential market here as weekly magazines are more than twice as likely to be profitable than those of quarterlies. Heat on the other hand uses all aspects of traffic building to their full potential, offering a full newsletter, personal emails and mobile apps.

Almost two-thirds of sites that do make a profit offer their content for free after subscribing, Heat magazine is the perfect example for adapting traffic building and free information to crack the new digital industry. This is evidential in the figures as this UK based alone magazine company has 50,000 ‘fans’ on Facebook alone.

Figure one says the more monthly traffic in unique visitors to magazine websites the less decisions on budget is made by the print editor and more so by the web editor.

The second image says that the more monthly traffic in unique visitors; the less say print editors get in making content decisions and more say goes to the web editors. At a certain stage (500k) the publisher is removed from the process all together.

For more info see http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2010/03/06/summary-ofmagazines-and-their-websites-columbia-journalism-review-study-byvictor-navasky-and-evan-lerner/

1980 - Teletext magazines - Use of DTP

For more on the history of magazines see magforum

1990 - CD ROM Magazines - Launch of magazine websites - Adding interactivity

2000

Magazines have followed innovations throughout it’s existence. Once breaking free from centauries of the restrictions of print; history shows us the advances taken through the years:

-Brand extension : TV channels and SMS texting for mobile phones -Online news stands for magazines and newspapers - Downloadable magazines for mobiles -Magazines use youtube and social networking sites -Some digital only magazines published online - iPhone apps for magazines

2010 - Launch of the iPad

New Digital Platforms

The iPad and other tablets are the newest platforms for magazines and newspapers.

With more and more creating ‘apps’ for their online magazines and websites; this new market will only grow in the coming years.

Mintel (2011) states that “Publishers’ optimism is largely focused on the take-up success of new media platforms such as iPad apps, tablets and similar devices which represent a route to survival should print live up to its worst expectations.”

It also goes on to confirm that “Research by Ofcom has revealed that UK consumers are more likely to be early adopters of new technology than those in any other country.

According to Condé Nast, for example, almost one in five readers of the UK version of Wired men’s magazine, which has a circulation of 50,000, already own an iPad.”

Digitals affect on RPC and AIR

This section explores the impact digital will have on things such as RPC and AIR. It’s here that we see digital unveiling certain truths and enabling new methods which will cause advertisers to pay attention.

AIR of any magazine is based on the primary readers (the person who has bought the magazine) and the secondary readers (those who the magazine has been passed onto).

This being measured over a 6/12 month period inflates the readership and enables publishers to charge considerable amounts for ad space.

RPC – Readers Per Copy AIR – Average Issue Readership

NRS – National Readership Survey

One body that measures this is the NRS via CAPI (computer assisted personal interviewing).

One problem with the NRS measurement is that it doesn’t ask the respondent which issue they have read.

This means that an issue read from the doctors surgery dated the year before, may be included in the recent RPC. It is not asked if the respondent was the primary reader or part of the pass on readership.

For the full data release of women's magazines for January – December 2010 follow this link: Women’s Magazines Jan - Dec 2010

NRS Readership Adults Estimates total AIR – LatestUnweighted 12 months: 36266 Sample2010 January-December Est. pop.

49920 15+ Women’s Weekly Magazines Heat H* 1768 Take a H* 2820 Break Women’s Monthly Magazines Vogue H* 1212

ABC1

C2DE

15-44

45+ 21683

Men Total 15962

Women Total 20304

21840

14426

14583

27446

22474

24505

25415

24361

25559

3.5 3.6

3.6 8.1

6.3 5.7

0.9 5.6

1.2 2.0

5.8 9.2

3.1

1.6

3.4

1.4

0.7

4.1

H* - May be analysed on a base of 6 months or longer

Total UK Circulation & Readership What changes will digital make?

This information accessed from BRAD shows; total UK circulation and total adult readership of the selected women’s lifestyle magazines for 1st July 2010 to 31st December 2010.

Divide the Total Adult Readership

by The Total UK Circulation and you are given the RPC. So for every copy sold, about 6 people read Heat, 7 read Take a Break and 4 Read Vogue. But how will these figures change if the magazine was to go digital?

Magazine

UK Circulation (1st Jul ’1031st Dec ‘10)

Total Adult Readership (1st Jul ’1031st Dec ‘10)

RPC

Heat

211,277

1,212,332

5.74

Take a Break

370,132

1,768,280

7.48

Vogue

833,522

2,819,708

3.38

* Circulation taken from ABC and Readership from NRS

“you won’t be in your dentists waiting room r e a d i n g downloaded magazines on a communal iPad.”

If traffic building to websites and online magazines increases then things will inevitably change.

The RPC will be reduced to virtually naught. This is due to the diminishing pass on factor. Print magazines get passed on from reader to reader after the primary source. This can be in forms of family members, friends or even the magazines that lay around in every waiting room.

Converting a magazine to online would transfer content consumption to platforms such as; laptops, e-readers and Smartphones.

After purchasing the latest issue of your preferred women’s magazine; you more than likely won’t be lending your Smartphone to your mates enabling them to read the same issue. This also means you won’t be in your dentists waiting room reading downloaded magazines on a communal iPad. Traffic building techniques encouraging digital reduces the RPC which includes the recorded AIR. So what? Well with AIR no longer inflating the readership; publishers can’t charge for ad space based on these figures, or not at least in the same way.

Making

a case Charlotte Rawlings looks at Vogue, Heat and Take A Break

Vogue

Vogue

Overall in digital marketing terms Vogue is the most active in both its o n l i n e a n d o f fl i n e publications. This therefore makes the t r a f fi c k i n g t o t h e i r website somewhat easier.

Vogue offers a wide variety of designer and celebrity blogs, however there is a main official blogging site by the name of ‘Style’. This site provides a chance to receive weekly updates and top stories via e m a i l ; h oweve r t h i s c o m e s f r o m ‘ we e k l y style’ and not the official

Vogue website. Viewing the online blog it becomes apparent that there is very little reference to the Vogue site itself; within this site the only link imbedded to Vogue is a subscription link on its homepage.

This provides very little access for curious consumers to get to know Vogue digitally. This is a gap within their market that Vogue has room to improve on.

Subscribing online for regular monthly issues of Vogue involves filling out a simple online form.

When completing a subscription new members have the opportunity to receive carefully selected partner offers, competitions and messages to their personal inbox.

To receive these emails via the official Vogue website would mean signing up and paying a subscription charge for print copies; these emails are an add on to this package. Becoming part o f o n l i n e Vo g u e discussions and communities are to be obtained free via social networking sites.

Evidentially Vogue currently holds the most ‘fans’ within both there Facebook and Twitter accounts; Facebook racking up over 1,296,485 online group members. Along their main menu they have two very important pages; subscribe and sign up link. Along the main menu of Vogue Facebook page is a subscribe button, this leads users to both a customer care line which answers any questions about their current subscription and also a link for new customers. Signing up by email to Vogue online means viewers can get the latest front lines of fashion and culture direct from Vogue to their inbox. This gives users the chance to get inside information, receive special offers, share their personal thoughts and become part of the online vogue community.

Vogue as yet do not hold a verified UK account, however @voguemagazine has been established which is NY USA based. This account alone proves the popularity of Vogue with over 160,766 followers, the highest throughout all three magazines. Majority of tweets included are mainly about fashion and the celebrity/designers in the industry. The website does not make their twitter name as obvious as heat does on the homepage but when inside the website on articles it does suggest to follow the story online. Their tweets do not overtly promote the webpage but it is stated by the account name. This is in keeping with Vogue’s ethos of being quite contained and that they trust their readers are the type to be in the know of all that is Vogue (website/twitter/Facebook)

Heat

Heat

Heat is one of the country’s most popular weekly celebrity magazines and now is becoming ever more popular in online publications. This is due to trafficking new audiences and keeping current users up to date via paper, on air and online.

Unlike both Vogue and Take a break Heat offers discounts and gifts as added benefits to signing up to a subscription; claiming to have the very best offers (heat 2010) For example users can subscribe to heat and save 22% plus a fitness coach dance workout Wii game, other offers include saving up to 29% on each issue. All issues come direct from Heat the publisher and all free delivery within the UK. Targeting social networks is the perfect way to traffic new viewers towards Heat world online; this is due to the network of people it can reach whilst remaining in complete control of what information is displayed.

Heat

Facebook is without a doubt the most popular social-networking site for Heat, with over 49,696 who view there official page. All it requires is users to simply ‘like’ there page to receive all the latest updates and videos.

Majority of posts from Heat link back to their website encouraging online audiences to the site. Within these links they also provide an integrated page of the latest Heat news; this consists of summaries of headlines with links to the website to read the full articles. Heats

official Facebook page also provides a link for consumers to sign up to a free newsletter which contains all celebrity news, entertainment a n d c o m p e t i t i o n s.

These Newsletters make consistent reference to the website and subscribing fully to receive the full articles.

Heat have recently become very active on the latest up and coming social networking site Twitter, now with over 18,934 followers.

Having opened a verified account they

make it a priority to respond to as many followers as possible, post a variety of images/videos and most importantly regularly direct to the print magazines and online.

The Heat website also has a link to their tweets; this is displayed on the website itself rather than taking you to twitter itself. There is also an opportunity to get onto twitter and follow their tweets for the iPhone. This removes effort for the consumer and makes it easier for them to connect.

Heat

Any mobile users can also access the latest gossip from Heat via their phones. User’s simply text Heat and will then be sent their own unique link that will take them straight to the site. Here they will then be updated of the latest celebrity news throughout the day and also have the opportunity to get free wallpapers and videos.

It is throughout Heats offline publications that Heats online radio is advertised the most in order to gain online audiences. Here the latest celebrity gossip is discussed and up to date music is played. http://radioplayer.heatradio.com/

Take A Break

Take A Break

Take a break subscription operates completely different to Heat and Vogue. Instead of advertising a subscription thorough out there site, articles and social networking they leave it up to a separate magazine subscription website. This is not mentioned or linked within their online website and has to be accessed through a search engine. However on Take a breaks online site there is a registration provided to their active services and campaigns; Chums 4 mums is the currently the top service advertised on site. They offer no subscriptions to free newsletters or personal emails about the latest stories and competitions which they revolve there print publications around. Instead Take a Break have imbedded a page that gives users links to free online catalogues and newsletters, this is unusual to see as they help advertise other companies instead of centring around there own.

Although Take a Break have established a Facebook page it is safe to say it is virtually in-active. It currently has only 87 mere ’fans’ which retains no information about the magazine (other than a web address), or references to its website. It is in fact members of the public who control and post information about their thoughts on previous prints and imbed links to other sites /articles that they feel could help others. The only added menu bar which has not been included in Heat and Vogue is a ‘discussion’ page, however this currently holds no posts. Instead consumers who read Take a Break print copies use this Facebook account as a link to other forums for discussion. This is a major proportion that Take a break has still not explored, yet the viewers have proved there is a perfect market here for them.

Take a break currently does not hold a verified Twitter account. That may in fact be down to the type of readership as they do not fall into the category of people who would use or have the time for Twitter. However this is a current account dedicated to stalking the headlines of this magazines and others just like it such as ‘Chat’; this is found as @takeaweirdbreak. Although this account promotes its own website, this twitter account may have an impact on the ‘Take a Break’ magazine itself by intriguing follows with mentioned headlines.

Research

iSay We spoke to Vic Davies who worked as an account director on IPC magazines and the Daily and Sunday Telegraph at a leading media agency. We ask for his views as he ran the team who carried out research behind the launch of Marie Claire and on launch of Hello in the UK. What is your personal experience in publishing?

My job was to ensure the titles could be developed, in such a way that they could maintain and develop their circulation base against valuable target audiences. This would help in the provision of income via copy sales and increased advertising revenue.

This was done via detailed analysis of secondary research resources plus primary research. This was used to develop marketing and communications strategies for each brand as well as helping to develop marketing and advertising support material.

With the growth of digital platforms such as the iPad, do you believe in the imminent demise of print magazines in the female sector?

In the short term this is unlikely.

Why ? Hard core regular readers of monthly mags tend to be older, who are often less likely to be digital natives. This is made more difficult by the fact that tablet technology platforms still lack critical mass in the market. What will happen is that this technology will continue the already existing decline in the use of magazines as a primary source of news and information by younger women

continued

What Marketing challenges would this pose for online publications?

Who for? Publishers need to find a digital business model that does n o t t h r e a t e n o f fl i n e p a p e r revenues, whilst for advertisers it is a question of how to use the digital versions either exclusively or in combination with the paper version.

How do you think online and offline publishing can support each other in the future?

The best way will be to have a long term strategy, but this depends upon having a long term view of how the technological platforms will develop. As with most things this leads to thinking about how you develop brand values that can live in all suitable and relevant environments – Gordon and Valentine called this the moment of identity between brand and consumer and this is just as valid for mags as it is for other brands.

continued

How much more will marketers have to focus on digital marketing in this sector?

For younger titles or those dependent upon celebs this will have to sooner and more dynamic s. For others – an extreme example might be People’s Friend, this will be much more gradual , if at all – some titles may just not survive.

Which traffic building tools are best to use to target the readers of women’s lifestyle magazines?

There will be no definitive plan or must use set of tools – see 4 and 5.

The key will be to constantly monitor results and to adjust not just your marketing activity , but also your content.

How is the relationship between publishers and advertisers altered in the world of online marketing?

This may grow closer to the point at which agencies as middle men may be under threat, the dynamics of how the market must operate 24, 7 365, may mean that there is not enough time to use an agency.

Or agencies may have to alter to cope – the large unknown is how much power will organisations like Apple or Google have.

“the dynamics of how the market must operate 23, 7 365, may mean that there is not enough time to use an agency.”

Consumers Responses to Traffic Building Attempts Little Fish has conducted a survey based around the reactions of consumers when faced with the attempts to build traffic to brand and company websites.

We looked at the subject both generally and more specifically to that of the women’s online publishing sector.

The research was carried out via online questionnaire and filled out by females aged between 16 and 45.

Emails were distributed via social networks and email.

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What Social Media do you use for these Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lifestyle !"(1%&'$#()%*+,#(%,'%-'.%./+%2'3%1"+/+% !"(1%&'$#()%*+,#(%,'%-'.%./+%2'3%1"+/+% Magazines? !'4+56/%7#2+/1-)+%*(8(9#5+/0 !'4+56/%7#2+/1-)+%*(8(9#5+/0 #@! #@! #!! #!! $%&'())* $%&'())* C! C! B! B! ./0--'1 ./0--'1 A! A! @! @! ! ! ;)=G)&0%H= ;)=G)&0%H= 2'90% D)E,' D)E,'F'%-F'%-.%*'=%= .%*'=%= 2'90% 61'%*61'%*

When it comes to the use of social media; the respondents have proved to be quite involved. 100% of those who completed the survey use Facebook, over 80% use Youtube and 40% use Twitter. Social media such as Bebo and MySpace, though quite popular when new, now only have a tiny percent of respondents using them.

The social media sites such as Facebook and Youtube have adverts displayed on their web pages. Twitter doesn’t have any of these adverts but it is a place where brands and companies have a direct outlet to the world, connecting to consumers when ‘followed’.

In terms of the chosen women’s lifestyle magazines; the respondents only used Facebook or twitter to connect with the publications. Take a Break saw no involvement of social media at all. A point to be taken from this may be that the publications should look hard into the social media their readers are using and making use of that for their traffic building techniques.

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People do have the legal option of opting out of receiving emails from any brand or company. This chance is normally located towards the bottom of each email in the terms and conditions.

Our results have shown that just below 10% of respondents have never opted out of email marketing techniques. Over half of those who have done so say its due to the emails â&#x20AC;&#x153;clogging up their inboxâ&#x20AC;? and others say itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because they no longer have any interest in the company or brand sending the emails.

It seems to be a balance has to be obtained; get your message across with interesting and tempting content, but do not bombard the recipients to the point of being agitated by the quantity in which you send. Another case of quality rather than quantity.

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Search engine optimisation is normally a tool most brands look into investing in. when looking at the results of action taking when using search engines; some were surprising.

Some may say that people only stick to the first page of results but in fact within this sample over 40% said they would visit the second page of results if the first had not delivered what they were looking for.

Taking the action to physically click on an advert placed on a webpage is not something easily done. Many of the respondents admitted to purposely ignoring them but equally some people said they notice them but only if they are designed well, yet this still does not lead to a successful PPC.

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These respondents suggest that email marketing is the best)*+,+ way -+,./01+02, to get the attention on+6578 publication websites.

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consumers interest. Again, when investing in banner ads, the content has to be spot on for any success.

We with industry professionals Those in the sector answer our questions; â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is the future of digital marketing for online publishing of women's lifestyle magazines and the traffic building to their web pages?â&#x20AC;?

& Simon Richardson Owner at CPA Group There are going to be two different things to consider.

Firstly, if the (theoretical) magazine exists in print you will really want to push users/ readers to the web site.

Simply replicating the content will be a waste of time and probably do more harm than good.

Online magazine will be able to utilise real-time content, but broadly in line with the monthly magazine content.

By offering real additional content you will be able to convert a large % of offline readers to online.

Secondly, using SEO techniques to drag in additional readers (which will drive offline sales too – to some degree).

Depending on the niche this will be either very difficult or extremely difficult, but with new and relevant content being added every day it will be possible.

So that’s the content. Now you need to do linking. Using link-farms to get links will be a waste of time. Google isn’t stupid.

You need to get someone to research competitors and see who is linking to them. Find a reason for the target site to put a link in and then go after them. “please place a link” will get you the odd link, but not from the really important sites that will help with your SEO and also actually direct readers.

Link building is a skill, science and an art.

On top of the above you might want to consider trade show attendance, special promotions with advertisers and any other legitimate traffic methods.

Finally : This is not rocket science, but it is a skilled process. It will take time and results will not be instant. In the long run it will work, however.

& Elina Ojanen Marketing and Business Development Manager at Impactia Elina Talks about Digital Marketing in daily business emails I can't speak directly for Women's Lifestyle magazines, but I know that Impactia Te c h n o l o g i e s w o r k s w i t h s e v e r a l Newspaper companies and they use our Intelligent Email marketing and promotion tool to increase their web traffic to specific landing pages, which has been proven to increase subscriptions for them.

Impactiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Intelligent Email SaaS application allows marketing managers to add banners, links and logos to the daily or â&#x20AC;&#x153;regularâ&#x20AC;? outgoing emails (versus newsletters or other bulk mail). The manager can then measure the success of each promotion in real-time, by viewing several analytic reports.

You mentioned how ImpactiaTechnologies has worked with several newspaper companies; would you be able to tell me which publications these are and how they use your Intellegent Email Marketing and Promotion Tool? Can you please explain any more on these particular traffic building techniques, their success and challenges?

Well as you know our Intelligent Email allows the Marketing Manager to add promotions and branding to their daily/ everyday emails.

One technique that I saw being used is that a newspaper company took the article headlines, picture and the first paragraph of text and just put it into the email as a banner. These banners were changed daily.

People who received these emails, got interested in the stories, clicked on them to read more in the article. From there, they are taken to a landing page that has the story they were reading, plus a section to register for an online subscription, print subscription, etc.

Another technique that was successful, used by another company, was to increase their magazine sales. They had a bright red banner in the bottom of their emails, with pictures of their magazines and a promotion to get the first month free. This got also got a good number of clicks.

The Click Through Rate is dependent on how interesting the banner is, but usually our average Click Through Rate on the promotional templates in Emails is 4-7%, which are very good rates for banners.

From what I have read in articles, banners online usually get only 0.2-0.5% Click Through Rate.

& Rolf Rohwer Director Global Media at eZ Systems Rolf adds a little insight into the trends online with women's magazines.

I work for a leading open source web content management (CMS) company called, eZ Systems, our software is used by many of the worlds biggest women's magazine brands to run and manage their websites, mobile & social content amongst other things.

Currently we have over 60 women's magazine websites worldwide on our platform and absolutely none are currently charging for content online.

This is despite the fact that many of the sites h a v e v e r y h i g h t r a f fi c s u c h a s Womansday.com with 2.75 Million Unique Visitors per Month or ELLE.com with 1.83 Million Unique Visitors per Month.

Almost all do offer online subscriptions which may offer users a variety of either access to exclusive/premium content or newsletters but these are also free and are primarily used to gather data for ad sales.

So you can see some examples of our customer sites I am referring to, below I have added a list of some 45 examples of our women's magazine clients, as you will also see each is either the no.1 or top 5 brand in their respective market & segments.

Currently within our client base the only areas where we have worked on pay walls, premium content & micro-payments solutions and have seen an increase in their use are in the B2B & Consumer Specialist magazine sectors and Newspapers.

Some eZ Publish clients by Brand & Country: Closer, France Cosmopolitan, Italy Cuore, Spain Diez Minutos, Spain ELLE, Belgium ELLE, Hong Kong ELLE, UK ELLE, USA Elle Girl, Taiwan Femina, China Femina, France GALA, France GIOIA, Italy Grazia, France Klub Nova, Indonesia Marie Claire, China Marie Claire, Italy Que Me Dices!, Spain RED, UK Revista Ana Rosa, Spain Suomen Lomapiste, Finland Tabloid Nova, Indonesia Vogue, Australia Woman, Spain Woman's Day, USA

Gathered from the insight given by the professionals on LinkedIn; we see that some traffic building techniques are considered more than others.

Both Elina and Rolf talk about ‘Intelligent Email Marketing’ and the use of online subscriptions.

Elina elaborates with news of one technique using sneak preview content as part of the body work of the received emails. Another direction was a banner purely promoting special offers on issues which received a surprisingly high click through rate.

Rolf who speaks about his content management systems explains the women’s magazines his company is involved with, have online subscribers who has opted in for the exclusive content. He reiterates our past conclusions that repeated content is worthless.

Simon on the other hand speaks about the uses of SEO. He suggests that not only will it drive people to the website, but also have an impact on the offline sales.

He goes on to explain the impracticalities of using link farms as he says “Google isn’t stupid”. He thinks that link building should be part of hard graft, looking at competitors, what they’re linking to and validating suitable sites to target.

Finance

Finance The way in which a publication makes money within the sector is four fold.

1.

Selling copies of the magazine (subscriptions and via distributors)

2.

Advertising

3.

Classified Ads.

4.

Advertorials

1. Subscriptions

When a magazine is sold at a newsagents or vendor (like WHSmith), it makes a small profit for the magazine; in terms of production costs vs retail price. When a magazine is sold the circulation of the magazine increase, and this makes it more valuable to the publisher; the more people who see the more that can be charged for advertising.

Single copy sale is an inefficient way for a magazine to make money there are several costs to take in to account •

Publishing costs (printing)

•

Production costs (editorial content, photography etc.)

•

Logistics (transport to vendors and outlets etc.)

•

Commission to the outlet (newsagents, bookstore etc.)

Single Copy Sale

As these costs amount, single copy sale results in being costly, and narrow margins in the publishing sectorespecially in the high-end Women’s Lifestyle Sector, with magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Red, Marie Clare having high production costs. A way a magazine gets around this is via subscriptions, cutting on the ‘middleman’. This way the publication goes straight from publishing to the consumers’ house/office, without having to

spend funds transporting it to various depots and points of transition, and cuts out the commission costs. This also allows the magazine to gain further information about their customers: Where they live, occupations, interests, what parts of the magazines they enjoy, what they’d like to see and other market research. It gives the publication direct access to their customer which can prove to be a far superior marketing tool when not only selling the magazine brand to the consumer but also to those with advertising interest.

2. Classified Advertising Classified Advertising is common practice in nearly all publications both consumer and business to business. They are usually ‘want ads’, or are recruitment, sales, promotional offers, something that is either needed or sold; and each magazine usually has a defined succinct set of classified products or services being advertised.

These work well in print forms; but to over-look classifieds when entering the digital age would be making a mistake. Though they aren’t a sophisticated form of advertising, they have the potential to still remain current as the climate changes.

Currently classified advertisements are charged by the publisher based on the size, content (words, lines etc.) colour or black and white, placement on the page and where in the classified sections.

There is an opportunity for classifieds to become more interactive. Rather than being annoying banners they can incorporate in to the page/digital publication with more grace and sophistication. This is because if you click on them they take you to the information you want to know, and don’t necessarily always need to fight for the consumer’s attention. Pricing will be determined by size, and location on the page (whether it’s a digital app for mobile devices or an expanded version of a website) and this can be conducted by using services such as eyetracking and page analytics to find the most valuable parts of the page. It would be up to the magazine as to how they chose to display this content to their audience or of its worth them doing it.

3. Advertising Advertising is the primary way that a magazine earns income; to allow advertisers to use unused space throughout the magazine.

This benefits the magazine in two ways; it earns money and also adds more content to the magazine allowing the consumer to feel that they are buying more content than is actually there.

It’s understood that in some of the ‘glossy-monthlies’ such as Vogue, Elle, GQ, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair, advertisements can add to the magazines appeal and value; displaying aspiration brands and products making it a more desirable magazine to buy into- to buy the magazine is to buy in to the brands that are advertised within it and feeling included with an elite.

Digitalisation of an advert creates new opportunities both creatively and economically. With touch intuitive devices such as the iPad/ iPhone, HTC Mobiles, Samsung Galaxy platforms, there are new ways to connect with audiences and demographics.

In 2010, Apple launched iAd. A service which allows app developers

to incorporate interactive advertisements within their applications; and receive an extra income. The service was first launched in the first quarter of 2011. iAd and magazines- iAd can enhance the magazine experience for the high end fashion magazines such as Vogue; allowing advertisers to create more enhanced adverts which people can respond to and take them more in to the world of fashion.

The Daily- a digital-only publication being produced by News Corporation exclusively for the iPad is able to track users by finding out how long they spend on each page, where they ‘touch’, where they ‘zoom’, their dwell time and which parts of the magazine are the most popular. This data gives The Daily huge amounts of data for them to analyse and find out which parts of their magazine are most valuable to advertisers, and who their demographics; in the simplest and inexpensive way yet. What is happening here is they are cutting out the researcher, and finding out straight from the customer.

4. Advertorials

Advertorials are quickly becoming a useful tool for online publishing companies. What the publisher can offer is an authority to their audience; a source of trust and belief about a product or service.

An advertorial is a piece of content which is paid for by advertisers and PR companies to look and act as a piece of editorial within a publication and is normally published on the magazine/newspaperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website.

Companies such as Conde Nast charge around ÂŁ12,000 to companies to host an advertorial on their website for around a month, proving to be a lucrative source of income.

Digitally, new technology will allow for more content, and lower overheads. This content is mostly provided by the Advertising companies and PRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, so their is little cost to the publication; no printing fees and very little production costs. With a broad media available digitally the quality of advertorials for an online publication will only increase and benefit the magazine more in the future.

How this relates to traffic building Magazines are content driven. Their purpose is to provide information or entertain, and in most cases both.

A magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website is able to produce further content, evolved from the magazine at little extra price as it already being produced for the print publication; though in a different media form.

Using this amalgamation of content driven services and providing SEO is key in obtaining traffic to the website. What is more important to understand, is who this traffic is, so to know who is buying in to the magazine and what brands may benefit. It would be naive to say that the demographic for the online version of a magazine is the same as the print copy; though there is a pre-existing market for those whom buy the publication, a website is free to access; thus attracting a different audience.

Using services like Alexa Rankings we are able to gain an insight in to the demographics of websites, and to an extent create a profile from the information that is provided.

Analytics and reasoning behind how the consumer gets to the publications website allows them to determine how they can gain new customers through digital marketing techniques.

A key benefit of digital marketing in the online publication sector is that it is that investment in new customers is generally lower than in print; as there are far fewer costs involved. Which has become a key aim for publishers looking to the future.

C Reco

Conclusions & ommendations

We Conclude

What LittleFish has found is that Traffic Building provides a massive use to all internet businesses in every sector in helping generating unique users and page impressions.

The tool kit with traffic building is varied and far each and has encompassed a new take on the marketing mix, to include an ever growing platform that is limitless in space and market share.

We found that traffic building is using tools that make users come to the publications website, and to keep existing customers. From having a high amount of traffic on a site, publications are able to charge more for advertising and content; which allows them to keep generating a high quality of content because they can afford to.

We found that some tools are more popular than others and may require some differentiation in how they work in regards to a site.

SEO is something a lot of websites invest and our research shows that the majority of people when using search engines click on the top 3 links first; but many publications respond to different keywords, so looking to the future a way of developing a hierarchy of search needs may be a way of increasing a more specific traffic to the publications website and generating new traffic.

We also found that e-mail marketing in terms of subscriptions and newsletters can be a powerful tool. They are able to be media rich and personal; although often publications emails can get filtered in spams and missed all together.

What has become clear is that in terms of selling online content, it has pros and it has cons; the mains being if you charge for content you bring in a fixed amount of money from customers, but loose revenue from advertising (unless the subscription system really works); a con would be that you deter people from visiting your site and decreasing traffic, without gaining enough subscriptions to fill this foot hole.

A norm for this industry needs to be developed for supplying online content, but as different publications opt for different options it is going to be some time before we find a model that works for all publications dealing with online media.

We Recommend

Looking to the future we believe that traffic building will continue to develop and needs to in order to cope with a large amount of businesses vying for traffic to their website.

We have found that using traffic building with other tools in the marketing mix such as PR will help boost a publications popularity in terms of volume of traffic. Word of mouth is increasingly becoming the most successful tool for marketing so an online application of this aimed towards the publication section needs to be developed further rather than the ability to just share and tweet about something.

Looking to the future it is clear that the volumes of people looking at the website of publications shows that there is still a very strong interest in the medium and that a new way to generate traffic and increase brand value digitally will come over time, as the industry finds it feet.

LittleFish Issue 2 Report Conducted by:

Elliott Saliba- 20905669 Elizabeth Lyons- 20914440 Rachel Pritchard- 20902515 & Charlotte Rawlings- 20826853 March 2011 Bucks New University BA (Hons.) Publication Relations & Marketing Communications (2012)