One very important component of magazine publishing is circulation. It is probably just as important as your magazine itself. After giving so much of your time and energy coming up with concepts and finally choosing the one that you think will do your wonders then you of course proceed to promoting your magazine. You think you have the dream team of a marketing and publicity committee.
Their plans and grandiose and the initial implementation seem to point in the direction of a popularity explosion. Soon your magazine will be known everywhere but wait, are your magazines out on the stands already? Will your target consumers be able to buy it anytime and anywhere they can think of purchasing it? These are questions that can be addressed by your circulation department, a team which should be just as brilliant as your other teams.
When you launch a magazine, it is very important that you have very good circulation managers who are great at determining the best circulation points and as well as great in teaming up with circulation partners. Let us start off with circulation points. Your research and other important details behind the forming of the magazine will be very important to the circulation team.
Your target market’s hobbies and interests in short their psychographics and demographics will play a major role in ticking off which places should be considered as circulation points. Identifying these areas is crucial as an initial step. The next steps will be determinant of the decisions made from there.
Moving on to the circulation partners, this step entails sending out letter and meeting up with major distribution areas or establishments. This will include the country’s biggest bookstores or 24 hour chains. These two establishments are probably two of the most important deals you can ink. Now if you have identified certain key cities or hang outs where you are sure most of your target readers or subscribers reside or go to often then work on penetrating those as well. If you believe in your magazine and what it brings then your job of convincing these people will be easier. And when you have finally convinced them then you also have to make sure that you deliver copies on time.
Why is prompt delivery essential? In magazine publishing, it is in your best interests if you are on the stands first because there is a higher chance that people will buy whatever new issue is out already and available. Should there be any instance wherein you have the same celebrity on the cover of your magazine as your rival or you carry the same top stories, it is a greater advantage if you are seen first.
Being seen first means you completed everything first so it kind of brings about the notion that you had the scoop first. On the other hand if your magazines arrive late then there is a chance, no matter how fabulous your content is, that your consumers are no longer interested in shelling out money if they already have their stash and on something that came out late.
They say there is no business like show business but show business is not all there is because judging from everything that is written here there is also nothing else like the world of magazine publishing.