Finding Your Digital Center

Mina Lux knows a thing or two about creating a winning digital presence.Lux, who recently ended a seven-year run as managing director and vice president of online for Scientific American to focus on consulting, once led USAToday.com to the top of the competitive field of general-interest news Web sites as its director of marketing. She also served as a marketing leader for the former Working Woman Network and Doubleday Interactive.She will join a panel of experts for the “Web Usability Strategies for Profit” session at the Publishing Business Conference and Expo (www.PublishingBusiness.com) scheduled for March 10-12 at the Marriott Marquis in New York. Publishing Executive Inbox caught up with Lux this week for a glimpse of some of the insight she’ll be sharing with conference attendees.Inbox: What are some of the trends you expect we’ll see develop on magazines’ Web sites in the coming year?Mina Lux: I think the trend going further is publishers, or the smart publishers, will be looking at the Web, and they’ll start putting the customer at the center of the product. In the past, a lot of us were publishing with the brand in mind and the editors decided what the readers were going to read. We have to understand the strength of the medium we’re delivering with. We have to take our customers as the center to see what they’re trying to get out of our brand or content. … The competition is great. Your readers don’t have to go to your site to read your content unless publishers put their customers at the center. Customers can be delivered content in multiple ways. Flesh out to see who your major customer set is. The [publishers] who are going to succeed are going to focus on that customer experience. Inbox: What are some of the mistakes you’ve seen publishers make in their online approaches in the last few years?Lux: I have seen a lot of publishers try to be aggressive with their digital development, but they did not focus. They did not stay true to their brand. They branched out, and then projects shut down real quickly. It’s not their strength. … In all the business plans I’m [developing] for my clients, I ask them to focus on their strengths. The most dangerous thing is when a group of execs get together and decide to invest in technology because everyone else is doing it. If [that technology] doesn’t lend itself to your brand, don’t do it. Take your money and invest it elsewhere. I’ve seen a lot of audio projects come out. Some publishers are just podcasting an audio version of their online articles. I don’t know if that lends itself to success. If you do something without the passion and without the ideas, it’s a formula for failure.Inbox: When looking for a technology partner to help with digital ambition, what are some of the most important things a publisher should look for in that company?Lux: No. 1 is to make sure that they have the technology you need. No. 2 is to make sure they have a track record of delivering on time and effectively. No. 3 is to make sure they understand that some of us have a large legacy system we have to deal with, and others don’t. That’s important. A lot of people take that for granted. I would always recommend, no matter how big your project is, to make sure that these people have [handled] the same [scale] of project and have a track record with that. And there has to be a personality match. You can hire somebody with a large technology background, but if the personalities don’t match, it makes a project really difficult. I’ve seen people part ways because of it, and it’s a shame.Inbox: How are advertisers responding differently to the options available to them on the Web?Lux: Up until two years ago, advertisers were still trying to buy impressions. They’re looking more now to buy solutions. If they have a message, they want a solution to convey that message. The solutions can be something that is integrated throughout many areas—print, digital, conferences. More and more we’re seeing advertisers experimenting with creative solutions. It’s more fun. I think it’s more fun for media buyers. It’s more fun for everyone.Inbox: What led to this shift in advertisers’ mindsets?Lux: I think [what led to this was] the onset of the data that was presented over and over again to advertisers that people spend 30 percent of their day online [while] less than 12 percent of the [advertiser’s] ad budget is being spent on the Internet. … With the possibility of video and audio now, we’re able to convey a brand in motion [better] than we were with a banner [ad]. We can get creative. It makes brand marketing more viable.Inbox: What advice would you give publishers about using a magazine’s brand most effectively when creating a true online presence? What are the successful publishers doing?Lux: They understand their costumers. They know how they like to digest the content. They know how often they need to update the content. They know how involved the audience needs to be. I’ve seen brands launch these huge complicated Web sites. There’s so much on the home page, and you’re overwhelmed. Then there are the sites you go to, and you know what you want. You find yourself spending 20 to 30 minutes every day. Sometimes, less is more.

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Finding Your Digital Center

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