Issuu Voices is a recurring segment on our blog. Each segment is written by and for publishers to highlight top quality publications and industry best practices. In this edition, Nicholas Lewis, the Editor-in-Chief of The Word Magazine, highlights some strategies to scale your magazine digitally. 
We’re 24 hours away from going to print on our April-May edition, and the question couldn’t be any more pertinent. Does size matter? Is small really better? How much of a challenge is it for us independent publishers to stay the course and compete with the bigger players? More importantly though, what tools are readily available for us to continue doing what we love doing, without loosing the keys to the house?
Having spent the better part of the last three weeks (well, last five years really) battling it out with advertisers to give us even one tenth of their national advertising budgets, our size-induced flexibility which at first seemed as our main competitive advantage today seems like our main challenge to overcome. We can’t scale through print, it’s simply too costly. But that isn’t to say we don’t have the means to scale otherwise….
Before anything, I don’t pretend to be dishing out some newfound truths that none of you other like-minded publishers haven’t figured out yet. I’m merely drawing on my own experience as the founding editor-in-chief of The Word Magazine to reflect upon what could possibly make us serious competitors to the mass media behemoths making our lives living hell (no, really. You have no idea the amount of times I’ve been told that budget cuts have meant so-and-so advertiser decided to put all his eggs in the same basket at our expense).
So, how can the small guys use their size to their advantage?
Firstly, use online platforms to increase brand awareness as well as your title’s digital pick-up rate. Put simply, platforms such as Issuu, but also Tumblr (for visually-strong titles), Mixcloud (for audio-based medias) or even YouTube all have their own specialist communities and can massively increase your chances of reaching a wider audience on your own terms.
This extends your brand’s reach, but in a specialist kind of way, to an eco-system that’s likely to buy into your offering. Issuu, for example, carries titles which we feel close to in one way or the other (Girls on film, Adbusters, Sid, Eye Magazine, Honk), so we know the platform’s audiences are by and large ours too, given we’re categorized in the rights groups. We know we’re likely to attract new readers with each new edition, and at no (or minimal) cost. This, to the small guys, has an incredible value.
Secondly, use these platforms to better your understanding of your audience – those all-too-valuable insights that advertisers are always asking about. For Issuu, for example, that means knowing who’s bookmarked an edition of yours, who’s following you and who’s subscribed to you.
Why does this matter? You’ll sell yourself better by knowing who you speak to, but you’ll also create stronger content if you keep your ear to the web.
Thirdly, be bolder in your initiatives, something the dinosaurs of media often cannot allow themselves to do. Forge partnerships with other magazines that are also present on Issuu – their readers are yours, and vice-versa. Browse its library for new talent, new contributors, new ideas. Think of ways to launch your digital edition in the same way you would your print edition (an online release party is an idea we’ve been toying with, but are not yet quite sure how to spin).
What can contribute towards increasing the talkability of a given edition’s launch? How can you make it that much more interesting for Issuu, for example, to make it one of its featured titles? Don’t take their platform for granted as I did (read on for more on that).
Lastly, toy around with the platforms at your disposable. I myself just really got into Issuu only a few weeks back, essentially because my web team brought my attention to the fact that some of our editions has a mind-boggling amount of views (think our Russian Issue clocked up something like 21742 views) and, well, there’s something to capitalize on there. But I’m also thinking of getting The Word Magazine onto Tumblr, Mixcloud (we’re about to go live this week with some Word-exclusive mixes) and maybe even Pinterest.
I have no doubt about it: aggregating all these platforms into one cohesive strategy is the future for us. Size does matter, yes, but that isn’t nearly as important as what you choose to do with that size (somehow an ex-girlfriend’s words spring to mind here).
Small publishers such as ourselves can and should be more creative in their initiatives – which also leaves room for having a little fun. What I mean by this is go beyond merely seeing yourself as selling ad space, click through rates and eyeballs, and develop a narrative that positions your content as key to advertisers’ strategies. If you cannot sell quantity, sell quality.
The next edition of The Word Magazine comes out on April 2. Subscribe to their Issuu profile to make sure you don’t miss it.
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