TRUSTED MEDIA BRANDS IN BRIEF
• US-based company founded in 1922
• Company name changed 2 years ago from Reader’s Digest Association
• Several publishing companies joined together early this century
• Books division
• Publish approximately 12 magazine titles, of which, 4 largest are:
– Taste of Home
– Reader’s Digest
– The Family Handyman
– Birds & Blooms
50+ countries
In the U.S.
•Top 50 ComScore Property
•50+ Million Monthly Unique Visitors
•40+ Million Monthly Print Readership
In Canada
•Reader’s Digest & Sélection #1 read magazine in Canada
•Sélection.ca reaches 15% of all French Canadian adults
TRUSTED MEDIA BRANDS IN BRIEF
1. UPDATE & DEFINE YOUR BRAND FOR THE DIGITAL, MULTI-MEDIA ENVIRONMENT
Competitors,
near competitors,
substitutes
Areas of competitive
advantage & differentiation
Revenue sources:
• Magazine subscriptions
• Books sales
• Advertising
• Other?
Audience
• Characteristics
• Segments
• Differences from
print and other
media
Your Brand Here
MAKE A PERCEPTUAL MAP OF YOUR BRAND USING YOUR MOST IMPORTANT BRAND ATTRIBUTES
OP
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BRAND ATTRIBUTE
OPPOSITE BRAND ATTRIBUTE
Your Brand Here
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Blogs
BlogsBlogs
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Know the strengths and weaknesses
of the various media
• Most digital media is inherently interactive
and people expect to do more than just
read
Not always easy to make the transition
from print to interactive
• Digital ecosystem is inherently more
complex than print
Digital employees have to have a
broader set of skills
• Editors who are strong analysts and/or
process oriented
• Ad sales people who also understand
technology to drive larger deals with better
margins
• Designers who code and/or understand
Information Architecture
2. Know the medium deeply… & add more people on your team who do
Leapfrog ahead
• Avoid the analog replication trap, don’t replicate what you’re doing offline
LEAPFROG AHEAD
Carriage Horseless Carriage Automobile
• Highly likely that more people
will encounter your brand and
your content in another
environment or on another site
than on your own site
YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE MORE EXPOSURE FOR YOUR CONTENT ON OTHER SITES THAN YOUR OWN
• Requires a shift in industry
thinking from publishing to
distributed audience
aggregation and engagement
through content
• Videos, articles, slideshows, listicles, audio, infographics, UGC, photos, etc.…
• Assign a manager for each traffic driving channel
– Have a channel P&L for each
– Hint: Search is probably your highest margin channel
3. KNOW THE COSTS & REVENUES OF YOUR TRAFFIC DRIVING EFFORTS
SEARCH
TasteOfHome.com
FamilyHandyman.com
ReadersDigest.com
BirdsAndBlooms.com
PARTNERS
MSN
AOL
DailyMotion
AccuWeather
SOCIAL
NEWSLETTERS
TasteOfHome.com
FamilyHandyman.com
ReadersDigest.com
BirdsAndBlooms.com
PAID TRAFFIC
• Don’t go NASCAR
• Beware: “it’s just a little java script”
• Fewer well-managed partners drives faster page load
times and more revenue
– Assign a manager for each vendor partner
– Develop a vendor partner P&L
• Drive to overall yield management (of revenue and/or
margins as appropriate) from all revenue sources
4. MANAGE THE DISINTERMEDIATION OF AD TECHNOLOGY VENDORS AND PARTNERS
• You will always have more projects than resources
• Determine priorities based on goals
– Revenue (or Margin or both)
– Dependencies
• Align resources to parallel track where possible
• Identify skills and resources gaps early and start recruiting or licensing tools
• Tell everyone who might need to know
• Tell everyone again
• When they act surprised, patiently, tell them again
• Measure and report…often
5. DEVELOP VERY CLEAR PLANS AND
COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE
• The print publishing business is narrative driven; digital multi-
media business is data driven
• Don’t pretend there won’t be any cultural changes or that they
don’t exist – process changes are cultural too!
• Be prepared by understanding how transformation happens
and what you need to do to support it
• Don’t be surprised if it leads you to different or totally new
businesses
6. FINALLY, TACKLE CULTURAL CHANGES HEAD-ON
Vince Errico | Chief Digital Officer | Trusted Media Brands | [email protected]