Design Thinkers Conference Inspires UPPERCASE Magazine Publisher

[Travel bursaries for voting magazine members are just one of the many benefit programs that we provide at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association. We've asked bursary recipients to share their professional development travel experiences]

 

 

Having heard great reviews of DesignThinkers conference over the years, I finally got to experience it firsthand this year thanks to a bursary from AMPA. With an eclectic variety of speakers, presenters were from a graphic design background (advertising legend George Lois, book designer Chip Kidd, lettering goddess Jessica Hische) and from big companies (speakers representing Google, Oprah Magazine, and Method Home). The conference was very broadly about design thinking—about how creativity can affect change, enhance communities, engage consumers and entertain audiences. As magazine publishers, these are our goals.

Surprisingly, I found the most useful information for succeeding in publishing from two guys who make nice-smelling soap. Method, by combining eco-conscious products with innovative thinking and eye-catching design in a very traditional product category, has become an extremely successful company. Conference keynote presenter Eric Ryan (founder of Method) has a background in advertising; his friend (and co-founder) Adam Lowry was a climate scientist in his previous career. Theirs is an entertaining story, honestly presenting the failures alongside the success.

So how does running a cleaning products company relate to publishing a magazine? It's all in the attitude and using the Method method of business thinking. Here are some of the most relevant points:

Inspire Advocates

Create a product that people love and they will not only become dedicated customers but advocates for your brand. If you publish a magazine that people love (not just like), they can't live without it. The magazine becomes part of their way of life—they identify themselves by it. They proudly tell others about it, they're invested in the content and they support it financially. My magazine UPPERCASE is built on this notion; it was heartening to see this approach work so successful on a bigger scale.

Kick Ass at Fast

If you're not one of the "big guys" then you have to be better in other areas. For Method, this means that the relative small size of their company and manufacturing processes allows them to quickly seize opportunities of trends or customer feedback and implement change swiftly. For magazine publishers, it means that interacting and reacting with readers in real time is vital. You can no longer exist just in the realm of print—social media engagement is a vital and required offshoot of publishing content. Readers expect a dialogue; create a platform where this can happen and it will result in a stronger base for your publication. Smaller publications can achieve this much more easily than large publishing conglomerates, since readers can access us on a more intimate level.

Relationship Retail

Having fewer but more reliable customers is better than having lots of one-time customers. Method realized that their version of laundry detergent will never compete with "Tide", but they realized that their ideal customer will pay more for a product that they respect and understand. So fewer newsstand sales is fine if you have a strong subscriber base—a long term relationship is what magazines need to cultivate.

Win on Product Experience

Method is all about delivering an exceptional product experience. They take the mundane such as toilet bowl cleaner and reinvent the category, elevating the product design and packaging into something unique, useful and memorable. Whatever topic your magazine covers, yours should be the ultimate: the most reliable reference delivering the most intelligent expertise in the most engaging way possible.

Design Driven 

To differentiate your product on the shelves, your design needs to be different. And not just different for the sake of different, but different for good reason. When Method launched its first product, they hired Karim Rashid, a superstar in industrial design, who created a bottle that not only looked unique, but one that functioned in a whole new way. Theirs was so innovative and unique on the shelves that other companies had to struggle to catch up to this new standard. Good design comes from good thinking. Make sure that the packaging of your magazine is in service of its content and that it recognizes the intelligence of its readers.

I'm eager to take more of what I learned from Method and the DesignThinkers conference and apply it to my publishing adventure.

I invite you to read more highlights of DesignThinkers on the UPPERCASE blog.

--- Janine Vangool
Publisher, Editor, Designer, UPPERCASE Magazine

5 Ways to Increase Site Traffic: Lessons from the Niche Digital Conference, Part 1

[Travel bursaries for voting magazine members are just one of the many benefit programs that we provide at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association. We've asked bursary recipients to share their professional development travel experiences]

Lessons from the Niche Digital Conference (Part 1)

This past September, I was lucky enough to attend the Niche Digital Conference in Chicago, thanks to support from my employer, Venture Publishing, and AMPA. The Niche Digital Conference is devoted to teaching online revenue strategies to niche publications and their online extensions.  

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be giving you some of the best tips and tricks that I learned at the conference. Some of it will be old news to the web gurus among us, but hopefully I’ll pass on something useful for everyone. 

I’ll start off with the following five strategies to increase site traffic:
 

1. Spread out your content! Don’t publish all of your magazine’s content online at the beginning of the month. Use the date stamping tools of your content management system to load your content all at once, but publish it piece by piece over a period of time.  Encourage people to come back to your site multiple times and you’ll build a stronger audience and increase ad impressions.  

2. SEO, SEO, SEO - Stop investing money in Google ad words and start investing time in search engine optimization. The best argument I can make for this is from my own experience.  Thanks to some SEO changes we’ve made to our website albertaoilmagazine.com, site traffic has increased more than 240% since January 2011. Not all of this increase is due to our SEO work, but search engine popularity has become a major traffic component. Read an SEO book, website, magazine, or hire a consultant to teach your staff how to do it correctly.      

3. Connect with Local Influencers - With an internet filled with free content, actually having a printed product not only makes magazine websites elite, it also gives us massive social cache that many skilled writers and niche experts value. Reach out to popular bloggers, experts, or influencers that have established audiences and see if they’d be interested in blogging on your site. Provided they align with your editorial mandate and quality control, this can be a very quick way of increasing your site’s online audience. By giving them a legitimate platform to write from, you’ll gain their audience and their support.  

4. Create a social media interaction plan - Come up with a clear goal for your social media usage and assign a member of your team to monitor and reply to social media comments each day. Use programs like Hootsuite and TweetDeck to schedule multiple posts a day (aim for 5-10 throughout the day, depending on your market and ability) and make sure to tag your story subject’s social media accounts to ensure lots of reposts and retweets.    

5. Don’t Just Post Your Own Stuff – The best thing about the internet is how interconnected it is, so why are you treating your magazine website like a walled garden? Don’t be afraid to post links to other websites. Become a web content curator in addition to a producer and you’ll see your page rank and traffic rise. The more links out you give, the more links back you’ll get, and Google rewards sites that boast numerous connections to others. 

My next post will be devoted to banner ads, media kits, and the sales side of digital revenue generation. Be sure to check back then! 

--- Andrew Williams
Assistant Publisher, Venture Publishing

Andrew Williams is the Assistant Publisher at Venture Publishing. When he’s not working on Alberta Venture, Alberta Oil, or unlimitedmagazine.com, he mostly spends his time coming up with bad magazine headline puns. Follow him on twitter @Andrew_NVS for the aforementioned magazine puns.

The Elements of Editing in a Two-Day Workshop: A Staff Writer's Experience

Travel bursaries for voting magazine members are just one of the many benefit programs that we provide at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association. We've asked bursary recipients to share their professional development travel experiences. 

Paul Stastny, staff writer at Oilweek magazine, made use of an AMPA travel subsidy to attend a one-day workshop as part of Simon Fraser University's Summer Publishing program in Vancouver.

An Adventurous Start in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

I arrive in downtown Vancouver by SkyTrain and confirm the address of my hotel in my planner, thinking how convenient it is to be only a few blocks from Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus. But as I head out of the downtown core, the neighbourhood starts to look seedy. Apparently I’m headed in the right direction, until a man next to me at an intersection convinces me otherwise; he puts down a refrigerator grill and explodes into a flurry of shadow punches. 

I phone the hotel to find that I've written down the wrong address. It’s a painful reminder of my lack of attention to detail and why I’m here for a course on editing in the first place. Somehow, in a lapse of attention, I've ended up on the edge of Vancouver’s notorious East Hastings district. 

The Elements of Editing Workshop with Shelley Youngblut

We introduce ourselves in class and say a few words about what brings us to the Elements of Editing workshop led by Calgary’s Swerve magazine editor, Shelley Youngblut. Without going into the embarrassing minutiae of my mini adventure, I say I hope to reign in my distressing lack of attention to detail. But as a writer for Oilweek, I’m also here to gather some insights into the creativity and sensibilities that have made Swerve an award-winning publication, and a magazine that features some of my favourite Canadian non-fiction writers.  

Shelley draws on her consumer publication experience from some 30 years of editing in New York and Canada. She’s a great speaker; her passion for editing and working with creative people is inspiring. Her anecdotes and observations make you want to be a better editor, even if you’re a writer, which is to say there’s a lot of takeaway for both writers and editors here. 

As for my lack of attention to detail, I can’t say I’m cured. My sense is that any course that could actually help me with this weakness is one I probably couldn’t sit through. Fact checking or the nuts and bolts of line editing isn’t what this course is about. Thankfully. 

--- Paul Stastny

Oilweek Staff Writer, JuneWarren-Nickle's Publishing

Magazine Editor Shares MagNet Conference Experience

Travel bursaries for voting magazine members are just one of the many benefit programs that we provide at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association. We've asked bursary recipients to share their professional development travel experiences. 

Karen D. Crowdis, former editor of AMPA member Birthing magazine, saw the AMPA travel subsidy as her opportunity to attend MagNet, the national magazine conference in Toronto, for the first time.

Rookie on the Road 

Off to the MagNet Conference 
By publishing industry standards, I am a rookie in the biz with six years under my belt. In terms of the big show, I am the quintessential newbie—everything is still so thrilling to me about this industry.  This is my rookie voyage to MagNet. I work mostly remotely so the prospect of being in the company of industry pros always pulls at me.  Rookie or not, it’s nice to be with people who understand what I do. 

The Conference Experience 
Walking into the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott downtown Toronto quells my tenderfoot excitement just a bit. I am struck by the sheer number of people there. A flash of regret surges through my body as the introverted—aka: painfully shy—me questions my sanity for coming at all. 

I try to look like I know where to go, but I miss the room I need at least three times. Eventually, I run into some cohorts from the Professional Writers Association of Canada and dutifully become their ‘cling on’,  following them to the Marquee presentation room.  From keynote speaker Evan Hansen I learn that I really need to buff up my online skills.

Soon I find AMPA Executive Director, Andrew Mah, and AMPA’s own Editor of the Year, Kathe Lemon. Familiar faces were just what this MagNet virgin needed to stay the course.  In terms of seminars, MagNet did not disappoint.  The seminars completely whet my appetite for this industry.  I took something new away from all of them—that is the rookie advantage at these things.  

Love of the Magazine Industry Refreshed 
As the plane engines rumble under my feet again too soon, I realize my rookie season at MagNet is over. Witnessing the size of our Canadian industry was inspiring. I leave recharged and in love with this industry all over again. I know this is my industry; it’s where I belong. 

Thank you AMPA for the opportunity to attend MagNet—it was so worth the investment!

--- Karen D. Crowdis

Karen D. Crowdis is an experienced writer and editor, whose work has appeared in Alberta Conservation’s Discovery Guide, Ottawa Outdoors, Birthing Magazine, various corporate publications, as well as her recently launched blog about balancing life as a writer and family. Clinging to the rebel within, she still listens to music too loud, wrote her honours thesis on heavy metal culture and denies driving a minivan.