• Increase the international subscriber list by offering a reasonably priced magazine that would not include the high cost of shipping
• Connect with the active cruising audience without a snail mail address by delivering the magazine electronically
• Offer expanded multimedia services to advertisers by hot linking from their ads and/or embedding animated images or video into their ads
• Improve reader experience with the digital version’s searchability
• Reach new subscribers by allowing digital subscribers to forward an issue or article to a friend.

Our questions and fears were the same as many other print publishers. Would the cost of digitizing the magazine have a measurable return on investment and how long would it take to reach that number? Would we lose subscribers to the print publication by offering digital? Would we actually gain digital subscribers? Would all the benefits of having a digital version of the magazine be realized by those subscribers? How would customer service balance the two types of subscriptions?

We eventually did get all our ducks in a row in order to offer a digital version of the magazine through Texterity and I think it will still be a while before the numbers can really be analyzed to see what the ROI of that conversion is. Going digital is a change and when a magazine has a loyal following, change can sometimes be shocking, unwelcomed, and takes time to become appreciated. The digital version created by Texterity was beautiful and easy to use, but it was still important that we engage digital subscribers in an education process of how to use the service. Did we lose print subscribers? No. Did we gain cruising and overseas subscribers? Yes, slowly, and I’m sure that list is continuing to grow. We found that  more people were interested in receiving both print and digital copies of the magazine: one for nostalgic reasons and the other for practical reasons like electronic archiving and searching of articles.

Print And Digital

When it comes to reading magazines, my personal opinion is that print is not dead. There is something special about holding a paper product in your hands that you can flip through, dog ear pages in, and tear out columns to save or pass along. However, we are in an electronic age and having the ability to electronically archive, search through, forward, and repurpose content is integral to being efficient in our busy lives and has the added benefit of saving on storage space required for printed magazines.

With regard to subscribers, I think the argument is not print vs. digital but print and digital.

Subscribers, however, are not the only facet of the print vs. digital debate. In addition to offering the magazine in both print and digital format, publishers must have dynamic, content-rich websites and they are creating electronic newsletters to stay connected to their readers. Having additional content in digital offerings means there is an opportunity to sell advertising around that content. Advertisers must then start to consider their own options, ROI, and effectiveness of print vs. digital advertising. Similar to how both mediums satisfy the many needs of subscribers, I think successful advertising will be a fine blend of print and digital. Customers are no longer only on the other side of a printed publication; they are on the other end of the internet and email and their PDAs and they should be connected with through the technologies they are using.

Make the Method Work for You

The important thing to remember with regard to both content and advertising is how those things are received in a print versus digital format. If print is not dead because of its nostalgic value, then there is a slow, methodic, and engaged audience on the other end of that print product. They are taking their time, absorbing each page, flipping back to what they liked. The person reading print has the time to read an in-depth article, to study graphs, to spend time on a word-heavy ad.

The person on the other end of a website or email is probably at work, or researching, or going through their daily routine of checking in with sites they like. Digital content, whether it’s an article or an ad, has to grab them immediately either with the subject matter, the writing style, or the graphics associated with the content. There should be a call to action–people who use the internet are used to clicking from one place to the next–give them a reason to navigate through your article or ad and make it quick and easy for them to do.

I can understand the fear of print dying and of digital not reaching the right demographic. But I think print and digtal can work together. So the question is, how will you make these two mediums work for you?

Post from: Chesapeake ProCon