A Strategy for Web Immersion

Go to any magazine event, and you’re likely to hear this word with a hint of desperation: tactile. That’s the reason many publishers give for not having a strong online presence—readers like a magazine in their hands. True, but they like a PDA in it as well, and there seems to be a wireless laptop for every lap in the country. In other words, it may be time to trade in tactile for a new tactic: Web immersion. Changing Policy Washington, D.C.-based Foreign Policy has gone from sticking its toe in the Web waters to diving in over the last decade. Launching in 1997, FOREIGNPOLICY.COM had minimal content and was updated all of three to four times a year. But with the arrival of the new millennium, the 110,000-circ magazine knew it was time for a change. Rather than hiring an outside company to design and maintain the site, Travis Daub, the magazine’s art and production director, led an in-house team so they could solve problems down the road without waiting on a third party. The first step in the process was archiving Foreign Policy’s complete three-decade catalog of articles—less expensive than one might think. “Six years ago, it only cost us $2,000 to create PDF formats for all our articles, but now it’s even less expensive,” says Daub. “By limiting the archives to subscribers only, we were able to double our subscriptions quickly.”The next step was getting demographic information for marketing, so they added non-subscriber viewer-registration requirement pages to access certain articles, requiring visitors to fill in profession, age, gender, address and e-mail address fields. So far, the practice has resulted in a database of 100,000. The last step was creating content specifically for the site, rather than just posting articles from the print edition. In the last year, they added an online editor who only works on Web content, creating about 10 articles each month.This all sounds good, right? But what about the investment? The cost of Foreign Policy updating daily is mainly incurred in the salaries of the online editor and webmaster. In total, FOREIGNPOLICY.COM costs far less than $20,000 plus the webmaster’s and online editor’s salaries to be done in-house, but it’s been the magazine’s No. 1 source for print subscriptions. In addition, online advertising revenue is growing 20 percent to 30 percent per year. “It’s been significantly profitable for us,” says Daub. “And I think that profit is only going to rise with online’s continuing growth.”Though Foreign Policy has been happy with keeping it in-house, again, a magazine doesn’t have to take the complete burden of site development on its shoulders. “I assign out anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 a month in freelance articles,” says Stephanie Wagle, site director for FITNESSMAGAZINE.COM. Of course, you can always stick to a bare-bones archive for the site, requiring someone to maintain it part-time only. That’s what Rorie Sherman, editor in chief of New York-based Trust & Estates, says her 11,000-circ magazine is doing because her readership hasn’t asked for more. “I think all magazines know they have to be interactive,” she says, “but the question is: How? Our readers’ ages are so spread out to the point where it’s not clear that Web sites are the main way they want to ingest information. We have a large pool of subscribers who pay $240 a year just for the archive, but we’re not sure they’d pay much more for the usual things sites offer.”What Do You Need?So what if you want to be able to do those “usual things” without a six-figure investment? After Daub’s experience budgeting for FOREIGNPOLICY.COM, he says a vital magazine site can be done for less than five figures. “Open source programmers have created comprehensive packages available for free that are like a Web site in a box,” he says. “Sites like WORKPRESS.ORG or MOVABLETYPE.COM can be used by someone with a little tech savvy to get started. I would hire someone with Web experience for a week, and they should be able to set you up. Make sure you have them create a blog if you want one, have images of your magazine covers up, and get your contact info in visible spots on the site. You could do this part for $5,000 or much less with a strong programmer who’s also affordable.” If you don’t yet have a domain name, you will obviously need one, which will cost $35 a year or less, says Daub. Popular companies for this are GODADDY.COM or REGISTER.COM. Next, you find a Web host, which Daub says is basically renting a computer to store the files of your Web site. It can cost anywhere from $15 a month for a smaller site to $500 for a larger one. Hosting facilities such as Hostway and RACKSPACE.COM are two examples.In terms of products, digital cameras can add the necessary site visuals for a professional look. The Canon Powershot A610 digital camera ($250 at SHOPPER.COM) can take rechargeable or AA batteries, but no matter what camera you get, make sure it has at least 5 megapixels. This ensures that you’ll create large enough shots for cropping pictures and blowing them up. Also, be certain the camera has USB 2.0 capability for uploading quickly. Don’t skimp on the camera, says Daub, because cheap ones make you wait a long time between each picture you can take. If you want video capabilities, cameras like the Canon Powershot S2 IS can take continuous movie recordings—2-gigabyte memory cards can boost your filming length to an hour at a cost of around $400. It Takes TimeLike many things, how successful your site will be is often proportional to the time you put into it. Foreign Policy just recently launched a blog and has been surprised by the blog’s quick boost in readership. But the reason it even had a chance is because they updated it seven to eight times a day. How often your audience wants its content, however, may vary. “Since we’re a magazine about current events,” says Daub, “our audience is used to checking out news every hour and wants that format. Many other magazines could update once a day or even once a week and serve their readers.”Regardless, Daub says you must market whatever you put up on your site to the right channels. “After we post something on the site,” he says, “I’m always looking for other sites that might be interested in mentioning our content. We recently put something up about the auto industry—unusual for us—and after putting feelers out, we had autobloggers linking to us, and their audience now knew who we were. Those are potential readers we wouldn’t have had a chance at without our site.”Eric Butterman is a New York-based media writer who also teaches courses in publishing. He can be reached at ERICBUTTERMAN@YAHOO.COM.

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A Strategy for Web Immersion

Eric Butterman

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Eric Butterman