What is your organization doing to develop a digital strategy? Digital magazine advertisers and digital publishers want to know.
It is estimated that at this point in the digital publishing transition, the percentage of digital media companies who can claim that their digital strategies are fully developed are in the lower single digits. This includes digital magazine marketing and advertising.
Traditional media and publishing executives have just begun to understand that the two most important groups driving industry change today are mobile technology device makers and readers/subscribers. Social media sites are now considered main stream, and they are accepted as the third type of organizations influencing the most change in the industry.
The majority of publishing companies, even those that are not fully invested in digital formats, generate at least some revenue from digital activities, but the percentages differ greatly depending on their industry segment. Even those that have not fully embraced digital are beginning to understand that it is imperative to develop and implement a digital strategy of some kind, and that digital magazine advertising is a necessary component for any success in the publishing industry going forward. Overall, at this early stage of the technology shift, the percentage of total revenue resulting from digital is still small but changing fast. In five years, the overall industry forecast is for a significant jump in the importance of digital magazine advertising in terms of the percentage of total organizational publishing and media gross revenue.
The potential is huge for companies that have implemented a digital marketing strategy focusing on digital magazine advertising in particular. The opportunities to publishers include digital magazine subscriptions, single-issue digital sales, e-newsletters with advertising, blogs, advertisement emails, etc. The sky is the limit.
When determining a digital marketing strategy and how to handle digital magazine advertising as a part of an overall digital strategy, it is important for businesses to understand which specific areas of their overall digital strategy and traditional marketing currently drive the most revenue, and adjust depending on the results they find. Publishers and their digital magazine advertisers must understand who their readership is, what drives them to act on information they find, and what their customers need to become and stay loyal to the brand.
Global digital advertising spending broke $100 billion for the first time in 2012, and is growing exponentially every year. This is serious money. Digital magazine advertising has proven to be effective in many ways, not least being a method of customer engagement that provides real-time data through digital analytics that allows publishers and advertisers to react immediately and cater to the needs and wants of their customers. This capability creates an interactive relationship between business and consumer that has never before been possible. The importance for publishers to develop a solid digital strategy and put digital magazine advertising at the top of their marketing plan cannot be over emphasized.