On April 23, Jim Elliott was honored to deliver the presentation,"The Power of Print in the Digital Age," to many advertisers and staff of Otavamedia Oy, one of Finland's largest publishing houses. 

The Finns are avid magazine readers and consumers: Finland has the highest percentage in the world of magazines delivered by subscription. "We have much to learn in the US from the Finns about magazines, particularly on the circulation side of our business" was Jim Elliott's reaction after his visit. More on this visit in the next newsletter.

 Click to download a .pdf file of presentation. 

Excerpts: “ ‘The reason is practical,’ says … publisher/editorial director Teresa Duran, who recently switched to the business side after serving nine years as editor-in-chief. ‘We want to direct our members' fees … to conservation—which is our mission—rather than paying to produce a magazine.’”

 “Duran calls the parent Nature Conservancy ‘a big tent that is nonpartisan and nonconfrontational. We work with private landowners, corporations, and the government. For example, with BP, we worked to ensure that its …well settings in the West would not go in places that were harmful to species in their habitat. And, in the aftermath of the [2010] spillage in the Gulf of Mexico, we were a huge advocate of getting funds from BP and others directed back to the Gulf states for restoration work and conservation work.’”

 “ ‘We've protected more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide and we operate more than 100 marine conservation projects globally.’”

 “ ‘We won't allow anything from 'extractive industries,' meaning oil and gas….  Gambling is not allowed either…..’”

 “…Leading the sales effort is New York-based James G. Elliott Co. general manager…Dennis Connaughton (Field & Stream publisher during the 1990s).”

Note:  Four-color page rate is $55,250 on 650,000. 

First issue with advertising is March/April 2013

Magazines always attracted people with common interests, but except for association publications whose members belonged to the same organization, most readers were not really a community, because they didn’t have any convenient way to identify one another. That is all different now, as there are many ways to find and communicate with like-minded people, especially through websites and groups within social networks.

One might think that digital technologies are disruptive, as they are often described, but from our point of view they are not. In fact, digital editions, social media, mobile and other new approaches are not hurting our business. On the contrary, they are good for sales because advertisers are looking for communities, and digital technologies are helping communities to form.

Date: September 26, 2012

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY TO BEGIN ACCEPTING ADVERTISING IN ITS MAGAZINE AND ON ITS WEB SITE.

The Nature Conservancy announced today that it would begin accepting advertising both in its member magazine and on its web site in 2013. Advertising will begin appearing in the March / April 2013 issue of the organization’s bimonthly magazine, Nature Conservancy, which has a circulation of 650,000.

 “The magazine has proven to be an invaluable tool in attracting and retaining dues-paying members of our organization,” said Teresa Duran, Publisher of Nature Conservancy. “But producing an award-winning magazine and web site is an expensive undertaking.” By creating a revenue base for media properties from advertising, the Conservancy will now be able to channel funds previously used for member media toward supporting the organization’s core mission of protecting the lands and waters on which all life depends.

Read the full article here: http://www.foliomag.com/2012/saturday-evening-post-outsources-sales-operation

Because my company is charged with selling advertising, we are always looking for ways to reduce obstacles to sales, increase web traffic to the sites we sell, and keep the CPM (cost per thousand) at a level that makes the sales effort worthwhile.

Sometimes we find ourselves with a legacy situation, facing unnecessary obstacles. One of those is the existence of a smaller subsidiary commercial website run by the association's publication. Sometimes this commercial site is reachable via the association's main member site, and sometimes it is separate. Either way, selling the subsidiary site is tougher than it needs to be.

Full link click here

"Winning magazines believe in print and they have stamina — they haven’t made massive cutbacks — and they have the ability to prove a unique and committed audience.” 

http://online.qmags.com/SNAP0512#pg25&mode2