Although it’s only July, media planners in advertising agencies across the country are gearing up for their 2009 planning efforts. That means that we are in full media kit mode here at Hammock—creating, editing, designing and distributing the 2009 kits for our clients to have the kits in front of buyers when they begin their planning phases. If your magazines are supported by advertising, here are 6 of our media kits tips to keep in mind during your media kit development:
Hammock’s work with the Marine Corps League is featured in the latest issue of the Custom Publishing Council’s magazine Content. The article “Across a Crowded Room, ” focuses on how marketers and custom publishers are finding new ways to target specific audiences with custom content. In the case of our client the Marine Corps League, the association wanted to reposition its magazine for a number of reasons—one of which was to recruit younger Marines.
Read the article from Content here to learn how we redesigned, refocused and repositioned Marine Corps League magazine (newly named Semper Fi) to accomplish the goals of the League. “In the two and a half years since the redesign,” says MCL executive director Mike Blum, “membership in the Marine Corps league has increased 25 percent. Between 15 and 20 percent of that increase can be attributed to the magazine.”
We enjoy our work here at Hammock Inc., and we get a great deal of satisfaction from knowing that it’s done well. But we won’t lie and tell you we don’t enjoy a pat on the back from time to time. So we’ve been grinning all day at our recent mention in Folio:, the magazine of the magazine industry.
The article on Folio:’s website details our work in redesigning and repositioning American Spirit, the member magazine we publish for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Read on to see how we helped the DAR:
Auditing is a must for consumer and business magazines that depend on advertising and newsstand sales, but if your magazine is controlled circulation or directed at a small, well-defined group, do you really need to pay for an audit?
“Yes, an audit is necessary regardless of whether or not your circulation is controlled,” says Sue Scott of James G. Elliott, Inc. “With the increased competition for audience and ROI accountability, agency media buyers are more focused on having a trusted, impartial third-party independent verify what they are paying for.”
The big two circulation audit agencies are ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) and BPA (Business of Performing Audits International). BPA Worldwide is similar to ABC, however it tends to focus on trade publications, rather than consumer titles. BPA Worldwide audits the circulation of primarily business-to-business publications. It also provides audit services for consumer magazines, newspapers, Web sites, events, email newsletters, digital magazines and other advertiser-supported media produced by its members.
When you want to share your organization’s story, a blog should be high on your list. Blogging is an easy way to share the inside scoop and help your customers feel like they have a relationship with your company that goes beyond the transaction. Before you rush out to get a WordPress account, make sure you are really ready with these tips.
[After the jump, read the 9 Rules of Corporate Blogging]
What do we do? Over the years at Hammock Inc., the way we’ve answered that question has changed. Back in 1994, we often described ourselves as relationship marketing experts. “Custom publishing” became a popular buzzword in the mid- and late-1990s. And sometimes, we’ve resorted to the shorthand: “We publish magazines and build websites for corporations and associations.” Simple, but for those in the know, it didn’t say nearly enough.
Today, we are a custom media company in the business of creating and managing magazines, videos and online media to help organizations build stronger relationships with customers, members and employees.
Recently, Folio: — the magazine and website for the publishing industry — interviewed Hammock Inc. President John Lavey in an article about the evolution of custom publishing. John shared his thoughts about how the evolving media landscape provides new opportunities for publishers, advertisers and readers — the kinds of things we’re working on every day.
Just a sample:
Customers are aware of the various [digital media] features and functionality that are out there, but are still relatively unsure how they can specifically apply them to campaigns, which puts the publisher in the fortunate position of educator. “We’re seeing a lot of questions about what they can use and what makes sense to use,” says John Lavey, president of custom publishing firm Hammock Inc. “At the same time, the pressures of the postal increases, increases in the cost of paper, and the difficulty of selling advertising without a robust package of assets to advertisers, are favoring bigger ideas and packages.”
Read the article on Folio:’s website.
We’re proud of Rex for his foresight in helping to found the Custom Publishing Council (CPC) back in 1998. The CPC has always been a special partner with Hammock in promoting and creating excellence in custom media, so we were thrilled to attend CPC’s first conference, the Custom Content Conference, held in New Orleans earlier this week.
Here are some of my favorite quotes and highlights from the sessions I attended:
Joe Duffy, Duffy & Partners: “Yesterday’s consumer is becoming today’s programmer.”
Remember when Time named its 2007 Person of the Year “The Consumer”? As Joe’s session illustrated, now consumers are in control—from the color of our Nikes to the playlist on our iPod to the design for our Mini. In this atmosphere, it’s vital for brands to deliver authentic experiences. One exciting way to make that happen is through custom content.
Robert Passikoff and Amy Shea, Brand Keys: “The percentage of contribution that ‘customization’ makes to products and services through engagement, adoption and loyalty is 18%. It was 4% in 1997.”
People are bombarded with advertising messages all day, every day. To cut through the clutter, you have to speak directly to your audience with messages targeted specifically to their wants and needs and desires. With customization’s growing reach, how can you afford not to?
Joseph Plummer, Advertising Research Foundation: “Engaging storytelling campaigns prove superior in creating relevant, lasting connections with consumers that enrich brand meaning and ultimately impact brand behavior.”
At Hammock, we say “Your Story Starts Here.” It’s not only a catchy slogan, but it represents how we feel about the work we do for our clients. To us, a client’s story is the essence of their brand, so our primary goal is to communicate that story in the most engaging way possible to their members and customers.
I got a chuckle this morning when I read my latest Barron’s at breakfast (Thanks, Dow Jones, for the unsolicited comp issue that has been showing up in my driveway every Monday for the past two years and Mr. Rupert Murdoch, sir, I hope I’m not dragging down your reader demographic.)
On the cover of the January 28 issue is the headline: “Whack That Bear! The trouble may not be over, but we found 10 stocks that look irresistibly cheap.” Just ten pages later is an advertisement for State Street Global Advisors that reads: The naked eye sees ten good investments. The trained eye sees one.”
State Street and their trained eye: 1
Barron’s and their naked eye: 0
It had me thinking about how bewildering ten choices can be. It also had me thinking about how much of a value it is to help guide clients to the right choice, or, set of choices. If you are making decisions about media for your organization, are you buying the “hot stocks” of the day, or do you have a portfolio” of your marketing media that was planned and managed?
We help clients develop a portfolio of media tools, and assist in the front end planning followed up with back-end implementation.
On to the “hot stocks” of the day: social media. There are a bewildering number of social media products being spawned, all with goals of connecting people for different reasons. Starting a blog, like buying a hot stock, might work out for your organization or it might not. As I stated when I started writing this blog, I’m interested in social media that can be employed in the service of organizations, associations and media companies for strategic and financial gain.
One area of research I look to (2007 E-Publishing Trends & Metrics from the Angerosa Foundation) shows how member associations, for example, experience great anxiety about “keeping up with new e-publishing technology and figuring out how to implement the new technologies effectively for their membership.” Not surprising, perhaps, but with associations the stakes are high.
As associations struggle to attract and maintain members without raising dues, they look to do two things simultaneously. Trim costs and create more value for members at the same price. The temptation to migrate to electronic publishing and social media is great as a short-term cost-cutting move. Especially when there are a lot of shiny new communications opportunities that didn’t exist a few years ago that seem poised to solve a lot of problems.
Without a plan that is matched to the goals of the organization, it’s like investing in the latest hot stock. Some of those investments might run counter to one another. Getting out of print (a risky strategy that many associations consider all the time) may lower costs, but destroy the value that’s been created for members.
Wise organizations plan well, and utilize a portfolio of media, integrated by each asset’s own particular purpose and strength, within the context of a plan. Social media provides great opportunity. Just don’t use a naked eye to evaluate it.
When Hammock Inc. launched MyBusiness magazine in 2000, we created a website for the magazine, even though the National Federation of Independent Business already had its own site. From the beginning, MyBusinessMag.com has served as a magazine archive, a repository of information for advertisers and freelance writers and a place to offer additional value to print advertisers, with an online package.
Opportunities grew online over the years, and in 2006, we decided it was time to re-launch MyBusinessMag.com, in a fashion that more fully supported the magazine’s editorial mission and continued to offer full archives and advertising information and opportunities.
The new MyBusinessMag.com launched in April 2006, with a daily blog from the MyBusiness editors featuring news, stories and tips for small-business owners. The blog covers politics, business management and unusual stories, and it injects the same personality onto the website that we feature in the magazine.
Traffic to the site has increased 400 percent since the redesigned site launched, a stat we attribute to the new format’s ability to link out to other content and attract significantly more incoming links.
Warning. What you’re about to read is filled with pride. It is an unabashed and completely shameless exercise in self-promotional shout-outs. But forgive me: I am very proud of some folks at Hammock Publishing and, well, I’ve warned you.
There’s a saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. When we recently got the opportunity to revamp and relaunch a magazine for a new client, The Marine Corps League (founded in 1923 and the only federally chartered Marine veterans organization), I “volunteered” several already busy people: an editorial team led by Bill Hudgins and creative director Susie Garland. Designer Kerri Davis (and the rest of the design squad: Lynne Boyer, Carrie Wakeford and Sandy Mueller Shelstad) charged into the project, as well. Also, intern Matt Kelley — a recent Vanderbit graduate — was drafted into service when we learned that he’d spent a year in Navy ROTC and has an encyclopedic knowledge of military history. (John Lavey and I we’re cheerleaders from the peanut gallery.) The team produced the first issue of the magazine in just seven weeks, from creative presentation to rolling off the presses.
I can’t say enough about how extraordinarily helpful Mike Blum, the League’s Executive Director, was. He repeatedly spent all the time with us we requested in helping us understand what the League is all about, and, more critical, to school us on the Marine Corps and Marines. Collaborating with Mike and sitting down with Marine Corps League members was critical to the process. Mike also challenged us with a healthy dose of skepticism — a not unfamiliar skepticism we often greet with new clients. He didn’t think a bunch of non-Marine publisher-types could ever “get it” enough to produce a magazine that would ring true with League members. Especially, this fast. I kept telling him that the key to producing a great magazine was for us to listen and absorb and listen more — and then not only “get it,” but, more importantly, to get out of the way of the conversation taking place among the only folks who matter: the members of the Marine Corps League.
(Left: The “before” magazine.)
Within moments of our first meeting with officials at the League, we heard the expression we’ve heards hundreds of time since: “Once a Marine, Always a Marine.” The more we listened and learned, the more we saw that the League and its programs embody that. Bill Hudgins and I mentioned the project and that motto to a number of veterans from services other than the Marines. Every one of them said something like, “You are a Marine for life. I wish we had something like that.” After that initial meeting, the crucial question in our minds and in Mike’s was how we could get out of the way of that message, one of pride and loyalty that knows no bounds.
Our mission had several objectives: Transition from the current publisher, increase frequency, revamp the editorial mix, redesign the publication. We also made a recommendation to do something rather radical: to rename the magazine Semper Fi, the Magazine of the Marine Corps League,” after the Corpsﾕ motto, Semper Fidelis — “always faithful.” Mike, who uses the expression in all correspondence and to end each conversation, was supportive of the recommendation and helped us tweak the exact wording of the title. He also guided our incorporation of “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” into a theme expressed throughout the magazine.
A highlight of the process was Mike’s approval of our attempts to “get it” in our meeting to present him our recommendations. After seeing our ideas, he declared: “Welcome aboard and OOORAH!” ﾑ- an exclamation not often given non-Marines. We were humbled. We were also highly ﾉ motivated. Our press date was only seven weeks away, and we had three other magazines and a host of newsletters moving through at the same time. It was truly all-hands on deck! The Hammock team burned a lot of midnight and weekend fluorescent during those seven weeks. Colleagues from other projects pitched in to help when they had spare time. Editors and writers roughed in some layouts to make it easier for the real designers to work with accurately trimmed copy. Our ace circulation and office management staff juggled multiple circulation and distribution challenges. The production team solved numerous printing and production issues, and pre-pressed the layouts into shipshape files that would require minimum if any tweaking at the printer.
Despite the pressure not only to meet deadlines but to refine designs on the fly and polish copy until it shone like a pair of boots at inspection (I apologize for the military metaphors). Despite the tension that always accompanies the launch of a magazine — and despite the inevitable glitches and computer hiccups — everyone worked in close harmony. Challenges arose and the team here met them head-on. They thought we were busy before, but they fit Semper Fi into our workflow brilliantly.
Mike Blum gave us another “Oorah!” when he saw his first copy, and as the issues arrive at members home, we’re hearing from them, too. Mike spent a lot of time and effort alerting members to the change, and from the early feed-back, it is a welcome change. It makes us proud to now be a tiny part of the history of this storied fighting force and to be exploring its rich traditions and extraordinary camaraderie.
And it makes me proud to work with such a great group of folks.