Tips on Barter and Incentives

Can you use your friends to promote your product? Find out how you can make word-of-mouth campaigns and social media tactics work for your business.

Ever since we’ve been watching sitcoms like Friends and Desperate Housewives, we’ve come to understand that friends are always there for us, have been, and will be. A few have even come to believe this ever since their baby days, when friends would draw graph charts for each other or complete another friend’s homework assignment.

Is life all that rosy and happy, even in business and advertising? If you launch a new campaign and look at your friends just like Puss-in-Boots looks at Shrek, will they sell their soul to help you achieve good results? Heck, will they at least take the pains to even tell a few people about your product? Perhaps, you’d say they would.

But as a seasoned oak that’s been bracing the strong winds of branding for a good amount of time, I’ll reveal a shocker.

Fact: Friends never sell for their friends.

Could it be true? Yes. It most definitely is. Friendships look pretty in sitcoms, but in the world of advertising, they could give you more trouble than good. I met a fresh entrepreneur at a business networking event, and he had the three most important things in the checklist to be a good and successful entrepreneur. Passion. Determination. A great product.  But unfortunately, he had nothing else on his side.

After the initial introductions, he told me about his publication and how he was going about to make it work. He asked me if it was worth telling others about his publication. I was surprised. Here was an enthusiastic kid with a good idea that could take him places, and there he was, asking if he should let people know about it. Of course, he should! I told him he should let people know about the idea ASAP! And he should definitely spread the word.

About a month later, he called me and told me that he was a failure. Apparently, the very next day after our meeting, he mass-mailed all his friends in his 200-odd member mailing list and told them about his new publication. He asked all of them to forward the mail to all their friends, and pester those friends to mass mail it forward to their friends and so on. Basically, he wanted to grow like rice on a chessboard! He even added a P.S. note saying “Please, please, please, please, guys, please forward my mail so people will think my book is a good one. With you guys to help me, I can seriously make it big through word-of-mouth. Thanks a lot for all the help. I really can’t do this without your help. You guys are my best pals! And hey, don’t forget to delete this part of the message before fwding! :-)”

You can probably figure what happened next. A few friends did forward his mail after deleting his P.S. note as real good friends do. Most of his good friends didn’t do anything more than glance over it once. Quite a few others smirked to themselves and forwarded the mail along with the P.S. note!

With all the drama though, he got no calls, and my guess is that his mail probably didn’t cross the first two chains to achieve a strong chain-mail status. What went wrong here? How could best friends not help? There’s always the jealously and the what-if-he-becomes-bigger-than-me syndrome. But most importantly, keeping the advertising perspective in mind, what would his friends get if they promoted his book? The simple answer is a big blip. Nothing.

The most basic concept in the world is that of Barter. We’ve been doing it for as long as we can remember. And another important concept that matters is Incentive. If a barter doesn’t work for someone, they look for an incentive. If that doesn’t come into the picture, people don’t promote. A simple, straight fact.

If you decide to retweet an article or tweet-follow Guy Kawasaki or follow Ashton, it’s probably because you think it makes you look better than the others around you. It either makes you more knowledgeable or better connected, and you want to let people know about it! You don’t do it keeping your friends’ sole interests in mind. You do it for You! So why should your friends be any different?

Fact: Friends never sell for their friends. Business associates do.

On the other hand, if you really want your word-of-mouth campaign to start off on a successful note, tell your business associates about it. There’s a big chance that it may show you better results if your idea is a good one. There’s always a good incentive in this picture. And as long as people can get something by associating with you, they’ll gladly pull your cart for you.

By talking about a good idea, your associates can pass the word around to people who may be interested in your product. This makes that particular associate seem well-connected and informed, which increases their brand value. They will talk about you as long as they think your idea is worthy enough to talk about. That’s Barter.

On the other hand, some associates may talk about your idea with their own business associates in the hope that they may be able to crack a deal in between and obtain a commission. That’s Incentive.

There could be several other reasons too. Perhaps, to impress someone, to gain brownie points for being well informed, to be in your good books, or plainly, to suck up to you! All this as long as you and your idea seem worthwhile. So word-of-mouth, my friend, can be just as fickle as fame. But what matters most is that IT WORKS!

Friends are personal contacts, and they’re great for a good time. Business associates are professional contacts, and great for your business. Never mix business and friendship. This is just one of those things all over again. So if you want to take your company to the next level, remember the fact about Barter and Incentive. As long as you have one of these, who needs friends?!

Things you should never do while custom publishing an in-house magazine for your company. Using an in-house magazine for any of the purposes mentioned here could turn out to be disastrous for your company’s branding.

If you’re convinced that custom publishing is the ideal path for you to connect with your customers, and want to publish an in-house magazine, well, that’s a great start. There’s a lot of good that your company can get from a custom magazine. But at the same time, it can turn around and hit you right between the eyes if you misuse a company publication. Here are twelve “what-not-to-do” pointers when it comes to publishing an in-house magazine.

1. Go unprofessional

This is probably the biggest factor you need to consider while publishing your own company magazine. In your own line of work, you must have heard the old adage, “If you can’t do it yourself, give it to someone who can”. Employ a team of qualified professionals to work on the magazine internally, or contact a custom media house to publish it externally on your behalf. As an added perk, you may also be able to generate additional ad revenue to self-sustain the magazine by tying up with a custom media house.

2. Never go unqualified

Today, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Good for them. But is that good for you? Don’t publish your magazine by tying up with just about anyone who says they know to write and design. At the end of the day, a custom publication is a very strategic medium where every single page has a direct consequence on your profits. Underqualified people can publish brochures and booklets, not custom magazines.

3. Assume you have all the PR you need

You can’t get any further away from the truth here. An in-house publication is a start, but it’s by no means, the means to the end. Follow up your custom publication activity with additional activities to pack a power-punch.

4. Brag about yourself

Launching an in-house magazine is a proud moment, but try not to take it over your head. Just because you have the editorial control doesn’t mean you have to exploit all of it. Remember, Spiderman’s uncle once said “with great power comes great responsibility”. Try to keep the directors’ and boss’ family pictures and tall tales to a minimum. This is a company magazine, remember? Not an “I’m-paying-for-it, I’ll-stick-what-I-want” self promo piece.

5. Glow too bright

You’re obviously proud of your company and achievements. An occasional air-punch or thumbs up is a good boost of morale. But let’s not stretch the facts too far and take the tales of glory to far-fetched heights. Brag about your company in your magazine, but do it discreetly and professionally.

6. Promos galore!

An in-house magazine is a means of communication between the company and the customers. It’s not a regurgitator of promotions. Company advertisements and self-promotion pieces should not exceed twenty percent of the total number of pages. Anything more than that and your magazine loses its credibility.

7. Badmouth competition

This is a rather self-explanatory pointer. Much like we know that a person is judged not by how they treat their peers, but their subordinates, this is similar. When it comes to companies, people judge them by the way they talk about their competitors. So if you want to be respected through your publication, talk about your achievements without overly comparing and gloating over your success and your competitors’ losses in the pages.

8. Straying away…

This usually happens when an underqualified team is delegated to work on the custom publication. Unfortunately, for many writers who aren’t qualified in the custom publishing industry, sticking to the core ideology and long-term strategy of the magazine can be a hard task. But no matter what, retain the core focus of your in-house magazine. Your readers don’t want to read page after page about celebrity gossip in one issue, and read about luxury tourism in another issue. If they did want that sort of content, they could buy a mainstream magazine instead! Stick to your niche, and provide your readers with interesting, relevant information that focuses on your industry.

9. Partial distribution

This can be loyalty roadkill of the worst kind. If you’re publishing a magazine for your customers, or for a certain niche segment of your preferred customers, be fair to all. When you’re going to take the pains to publish a magazine for a few customers, print enough number of copies to ensure that you have spare copies to distribute the magazines to all your preferred customers. You don’t want to hear from a few disgruntled customers who are rather annoyed at being treated unfairly for no fault of theirs.

10. Rebuke customers

You may have a point to prove or a settle to score with a certain segment of the public or a few irate customers who would have created an issue about your company or a product. You definitely would have to bring up the issue in your publication. It’s always better to nip any gossip in the bud. But sort it courteously, making your customers aware of certain developments without insulting public sentiments.

11. Publish low quality mags

Deciding to launch an in-house magazine may only be the first of many strategic decisions that have to be made under careful consideration. However, one of the more important aspects of a publication is the number of pages and the quality of the publication. If you were a customer of a company that provides a thin, centre-pinned magazine with low quality paper, what would you do with it? Roll it up to swat flies or drop it straight over the stack of old newspapers? You be the judge.

12. Go Sleazy Sleazy

Unless you’re a company that promotes mature content, stay off the minimally attired covers, peek-a-boos, the oops! and the teeny swimsuit spreads. At the end of the day, you’re publishing a magazine that will stay on the coffee tables of your customers for quite a while. You wouldn’t want your customers curling their toes or shuffling awkwardly when a visiting kid starts flipping the pages in front of his parents, would you?

The round-up

With these twelve pointers to avoid in mind, you’re almost ready to launch your own company magazine. But for the finer details that are specific to your company, well, call a custom media strategist who can help you add the right content and play the right strategic game. But however you choose to go, a magazine has always been one of the finest ways to firmly pave your path to success, positive customer feedback and branding.

P.S. If you’re looking for a custom media strategist, I know a really swell guy who’s all that and more. Look at the top right corner of this page. You’ll find him!!

How did Custom Media become the new King of Media Strategies?

How can Custom media strategies help your company? Why is Custom Media better than traditional advertising? Find out all the answers to why Custom Media is the real king of Media Strategies right here.

Primitive Advertising

Mankind has always been into the business of advertising. Perhaps, from the very first time we started communicating with crude hand signs. If there’s something we have that’s better than what’s available around us, that’s worth a brag.  It’s not too difficult to imagine what our ancestral primates could have been bragging about to each other. “I. Big. You. Invisible. Ha. Ha.”

But today’s modern age has given us a lot more to brag about. But bragging out loud or keeping things a wee bit subtle, we can call them all Advertising. Well, by definition, advertising is letting someone know you have something that they want. Even if they don’t want it, we’ll shove it down their throat anyways. That’s Advertising.

Enter the cycle of Advertising

We’ve been living in this cycle of advertising for a long time now. Around ten decades ago, there weren’t too many products to advertise. There were a few brands of toothpastes and a couple of colas. Clothes? We had neighbourhood tailors for that. But a few people had a few things that were worth advertising. And a few other clever people came up with ways to advertise things. Today, we call these two categories of people, Big Companies and Advertising Agencies. The decades rolled on, and it started coming closer to the ‘80s and the ‘90s. Advertising was on a high by now. People wanted new things. They wanted colourful clothes, innovative bath sponges, and instant noodles. Oh yeah, they wanted noodles!

Everything was so exciting in the early years. Make a mistake, and you bloody well would have made a creative invention. Blotting paper, dry cleaning, revealing clothes, Jim Carrey, they were all mistakes that we’ve come to love with time. Back then, people were hungry for new products. But good entrepreneurs were only a handful. So any product that was advertised was lapped up in a hurry.

Enter the New World of Entrepreneurship

Today, entrepreneurs are even more common than employers and employees put together! They’re everywhere, so much that it’s become an infestation. We have new products all the time. Create web browsers, and you have a horde of browsers in no time. Create Hotmail, and there comes even more mail providers. Make Orkut, and now Foursquare. Today is a bad time for entrepreneurs and manufacturers now.

But the consumers are having the time of their lives. They’re ridiculously spoilt for choice with all the things that clever people think are “worth advertising”. And that creates competition between the products. A good decade or more ago, all the making-products people and the advertising-products people sat together and hit upon an idea – Advertise more, more people will buy. It worked before. It’s going to work again!

And they increased their budgets and came up with clever ways to draw the customer. And it worked! Customers started buying products because advertisements made it look cool. VIP Frenchie’s “what’s he got that I ain’t got?!” was the mother of all underwear revolutions in India. Life was good.

Enter the Internet

Then dawned the era of the Internet. And with it came internet imagery of women. And mail. And web sites. Life in advertising didn’t change. A little over a decade ago though, people started exchanging ideas over the internet. And around the same time, people started getting bored of seeing more advertisements than their favourite soap operas on the idiot box, and being bombarded with flyers and crashing into billboard hoardings while driving. And any layman would know what happened next.

Money pumping brands started seeing a decline in their sales. They panicked. And pumped more money into advertising. It didn’t work. Advertisers panicked, and started creating innovative advertising campaigns to counter the effect. It worked to a certain extent. But the budgets were unimaginably huge. Something was missing though. People weren’t swaying to the tunes of the advertisements anymore. For the first time, advertisements were made to sway to the people’s tunes.

Enter the Immunisation

People had become immune to the traditional forms of advertising. It just wasn’t working. Mass advertising was passé. The Regular Joe didn’t want to be advertised to anymore, he wanted to be connected to. And thus began the new Revolution of Custom Media. Advertising agencies didn’t understand most of it. To a large extent, they still don’t believe it. But today, it’s been seen time and again that the companies that connect directly with its customers are the ones that are thriving.

And that’s where Custom Media strategies take over the throne from traditional advertising. While traditional advertising has always focussed on the product, the essence of custom media is the customer. By focussing on the customer directly and exchanging ideas and feedback with them through different channels like custom in-house magazines, regular publications, social media drives, or personalised campaigns, etc., a company can create a better bond with the customer and increase brand awareness and loyalty.

If you’re still not convinced, think Redbull, Burger King, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut, or Foursquare. These are brands that focussed on a new and innovative custom media strategy to connect with the people. They didn’t need megabucks to become some of the most powerful brands in the world. They racked their brains to connect with their consumers, they used Custom Media. As long as you have a powerful custom media strategy that’s unique to your company, you can take it to every single consumer that needs it, and make the money! It’s all about the perfect custom media strategy and nothing else. Even mega brands across the world have now started producing their own in-house magazines to cater to their customers. That’s the big difference between custom media strategy and traditional media strategy.

Enter.

While all advertising campaigns have been revolving around creating content about the product, custom media companies across the globe have been creating content that caters to the customer. Traditional advertising agencies may still find it hard to create compelling content around the consumer, but a custom media house is years ahead of traditional media, with experience in creating customised content that sells directly to the customer.

Today, it isn’t an advertisement that sells a product, it’s the customer. If the customer is happy, chances are, the company’s going to be happy too. After all, it’s all about word of mouth and what the company would be willing to do, to go the extra mile for its customer and prospective customer.

The King.

All said and done, the word is out. Custom Media is out there to make a difference in the world of Company-Customer relationships. Custom Media is here to remind the Big Company that it isn’t the brand that makes the consumer bigger, it’s really the other way around. So take a bow, Custom Media, the new King has finally taken its rightful place. And you know what, something tells me the customers are going to be a happy lot too!

Are media trends predicting the end of Fashion magazines?

Media trends show that Custom Media is the best alternative to low advertising returns in glossy magazines.

Once upon a time, magazines were one of the uber-cool answers to big fashion labels and mega brands. But all this came to a grinding halt with the arrival of the new medium, a.k.a. Social Media. It came quietly like the calm before the storm, and shook the entire world of traditional media.

I remember the time when Cosmo India launched an almost thousand page magazine for Diwali a couple of years ago. That was something really, but unfortunately for those who didn’t see that day, you indeed must fret. For it will not happen again.

A year ago, fashion publications were having the time of their lives. They were heavily sought-after by all brands, the new and the old, the big and the small. But today, after the wave of recession has receded and life seems to be crawling back to normalcy, magazine readers have almost completely forgotten that they once used to splurge on fashion magazines. They’ve moved on, and seem to believe that they don’t need a fashion magazine to tell them what’s hot or not anymore. Readers now have reputed blogs and websites that give them the same information. And what’s better here? Social Media sites and blogs are updated more frequently. And the icing on the cake, these are written by media fashionistas and they’re really genre specific!

Mercifully, there was just one really good reason to pick up a fashion magazine though. A reader needed a fashion magazine to check out the new arrivals and haute products that are hitting rodeo drive and a few other smaller drives in town. But that’s where we have the killer blow.

I came across a link in a tweet from a friend (you can find the link on my ‘twitter faves’ on the right). It’s good news for Custom Media, because surveys estimate that in the UK alone, custom media would be worth £1bn by 2013, and is projected at a growth rate of twenty two percent even with the global slowdown hovering over our heads. That’s a seriously high growth rate considering the rest of the fashionable publishing world is clinging on to a hope of mere survival in the near future!

Several leading labels like Karl Lagerfeld (for Chanel), Acne Denim, Yves Saint Laurent and Forever 21 have already started publishing custom in-house magazines that are running successfully and showing favourable results to their brands. It’s a better alternative to traditional magazine advertising, considering the limited choices that advertisers have in terms of premium positioning. A Louis Vuitton Galliera wouldn’t really cringe if it’s printed adjacent to Megan Fox in her new Armani campaign, but what if it’s in a sticky spot next to Daisy Dee ling-a-ree? Bummer, right?

Big brands all over the world are asking themselves the same question too. Are ads in traditional print magazines worth the money, and is it good for power branding? The spanking new and easier solution? The all new In-house magazine shows the way…

So will the other brands flow suit and start their own publications to cater to their customers, or will they stick around with their traditional Inner Front Cover page advertisements with Miss Daisy Dee for company? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I believe that publishing an in-house magazine at least once every quarter is a fresh way to reach out to a specific audience, as long as it’s complimented with other niche social media campaigns. Better this than to lose potential customers in the battle for brand recollection with other competitive brands and better in-house magazines.

And hey, if it isn’t working, why is everyone else doing it?

Think out of the box to find out what your customers really want from your company. Henry Ford did it. So can you!

While we’re walking down our yellow brick road to fame and glory, we’ve all heard the famed adage, “the customer is king”. And most of us have lived by it. But is it always right, especially now, in this age of extensive social networking? Can we still trust our customers blindly and give them what they want? Today, a brand can connect directly with their customer and find out exactly what a customer wants. No more guesswork.

Thinking about it, do customers know what they want? I’ve had to deal with this problem one too many times in my line of work. Clients tell me they want to provide a specific solution to their customers’ problem. And when I suggest ideas to them that may seem a tad out of the box, most of them are ecstatic, while a few go into panic mode. Speaking about the ones that go into panic mode, they are the ones that want specific solutions. It’s not a bad thing to give a customer exactly what they want, but is that the best we can do? That’s the big question about your loyal customers and whether we can trust them blindly. Do customers really know what they want?

This reminds me of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, and what he had said about his customers, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.”

Ford’s customers would have been jumping with glee had he given them what they wanted, a better horse. But Ford thought beyond what his customers wanted from him. He gave them a car!

Ford probably would have asked himself why they needed a faster horse. Because they wanted to go somewhere faster. He would then have asked himself if the horse even mattered in the equation. His customers may have wanted a good horse, but give them good speed, and frankly, my dear, they wouldn’t give a damn!

Now that’s one of the pioneer “out of the box” strategies. This way, you don’t give your customers what they want, but you surprise them with a better idea that not only solves the problem, but gives them an alternative that’s way better than what they wanted. By understanding what your customers really want, and not just focussing on their social networking updates, any company can build itself an extremely satisfied and loyal set of customers who will turn evangelists for your cause!

So are you brave enough to think beyond what your customers are asking for, and take the plunge to find a better alternative for them? If you want my opinion, I’d say go ahead and take a plunge. You know it’s worth it!

Publishing in Buffalo? Or Custom Publishing in Bangalore?

Understanding the world of Custom Media and Outsourcing.  Is content outsourcing for the better, or for worse? It’s your call.

Last year, American president Barack Obama unveiled a new proposal to end tax breaks for American companies that shipped jobs overseas to countries like India, China, and the rest of South Asia. Many people cheered the move, but it was criticised by several others like the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times. Leaving the over-discussed fuss and the technicalities around the most hit sectors like BPO, let’s take a look at the world of media outsourcing.

Media outsourcing is definitely happening. And many articles that most Americans or people from other countries assume to be truly patriotic may actually be written from a time zone that’s five and a half hours ahead of GMT a.k.a. India. It’s been happening even before the term outsourcing was commonly used. In the world of media, we have a sugar-coated word to replace the word “outsourcing”. It’s called Freelancing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full scale, well structured Bangalore based media house that is producing magazines for an American company or a few individuals who work in a common room. It’s always called Freelancing in media terms.

Every time I interact with a curious client outside of India, five times out of ten, the client’s wary of any prospective associations. Media jobs in India have a history of being tagged with low quality and suitable for nothing more than technical content or user manuals. But that’s all in the past. The new Indian media house is anything but inferior. Flip through the pages of any magazine published by a reputed media house in India, and big chances are, you’re going to be impressed. Let’s not get into talking about fly-by companies that are launched by regular writers who couldn’t hold on to their job in the first place, and decide to jump into the bandwagon of launching a media house. Of course, they suck! I’m talking about Indian companies where their publications or other media ventures do the talking.

If you’re a media professional in the UK or the USA and have cherished a dream of launching your own publication house, or if you’re the head of corporate communications for your company and want to launch a custom publication but don’t have the funds for a full blown team, what are you going to do about it?

Think outsourcing? For the price of a couple of good writers, you could have a glossy publication printed, published and delivered on schedule to your office, all the way from India. And not many people know the story but you. So is outsourced media publishing a good option to test the waters? One may disagree, keeping in mind the speculation about loss of prospective jobs within their own country. But think about it, if not for hushed-up custom content outsourcing, would some companies have launched their magazines or in-house publications in the first place? I think not.

And let’s not even get to talking about media houses that have been suffering due to the economic slowdown. Outsourcing of Custom Content from Bangalore may seem like a job-stealer. But in the long run, as a company grows, it inevitably has to create more job openings in its own country too. This has been discussed with respect to the BPO industry in several other blogs, but I couldn’t see too many pages about outsourcing and editorial content.

Editorial Content outsourcing has been happening for a while, and it is only going to increase in future. No more is the world a small place. With the advent of social media and networking, it’s no surprise to see a company based in London or New York with employees from all over the world, sitting at home in their pjs and working on a project.

But is it the right approach to having your own publication. Well, that thought, I’ll leave to you. To each their own!

A simple comparison between Custom Media and your fitness workout.

Custom Media is to your company, what a healthy lifestyle is to your body. If you’ve taken reasonably good care of your health and then enrol into a gym or fitness program, you’re bound to see good results in less than a few months. On the other hand, if you’ve never lifted anything more than your T.V. remote while precariously balancing a six pack of beer and a bag of potato chips on your tummy, chances are you’re going to take a while to get back in shape.

Most people assume that custom media is, plainly, custom media. They assume that Custom Media summarises itself, and everything that tags itself with custom media is one and the same. But they couldn’t be further away from the truth. That’s like saying all body workouts are the same. To a layman or someone who hasn’t lifted weights all their life, all workouts could seem similar. But to someone who is focussed on seeing specific results, they would definitely be aware of different exercise regimens for different parts of the body.

Likewise, Custom Media too is a big fitness centre full of unique solutions for different requirements. It’s easy to understand once we see the big picture, and work out on the smaller issues that need immediate attention. All this, while constantly focussing on the long term results. Comparing a custom media exercise to a body workout, a basic media awareness campaign is like losing the first five pounds at a fitness centre. Beyond those first few pounds come a series of other milestones. Are you happy with a toned physique, or are you looking for six pack abs? Or perhaps, you want to buff up until you make a Spartan warrior huddle back into his cape with humiliation.

It’s your body, and you know how it works. Likewise, application of Custom Media solutions too is a set of milestones and goals that cumulate to give you the big result. So the next time you’re sitting around and wondering how soon you’re going to see results in a media exercise, go home and weigh yourself. Perhaps, you could then tally up the time frames!

What do you want your ROI to be?

If your company wants to start an in-house publication, that’s a definite start to a better future. But then what do you do with it? And most importantly, how do you determine the return on investment in the publication?

The best way to judge the return on investment would be to divide them into different requirements of your particular company, and how it can help achieve your goals.

Increase in Market Share

A custom magazine is a great medium to improve the market share of a company, especially if it provides services in a competitive environment, where there are several other players operating within the same environment.

E.g. Hospitals, Supermarkets, Restaurants.

Increased Customer Loyalty

For companies operating in environments where all competitors offer commodities of values that are more or less similar, a custom magazine can play a very crucial part in subconsciously increasing customers’ loyalty towards a company.

E.g. Cellular Companies, Airline Services.

Creation of New Customers

A lot of companies depend on word of mouth. When you head out on a vacation, you’d prefer to stay at a place where a friend had previously stayed in and had a pleasant time. Similarly, having a company publication that can be taken home by a customer can add a big bonus to companies that depend on word of mouth, especially if the magazine makes for a great looking souvenir.

E.g. Hotels, Travel Agencies, Holiday Makers.

Increased Revenues based on Sales

People don’t like receiving annoying mailers or pamphlets in their newspapers. But if a company has commodities that are mostly based on point-of-purchase, the company has no choice but to find a good spot under a potential customer’s fridge magnet. In such cases, a publication can actually make for a classier read that would be better appreciated by a customer. And customers don’t overlook initiatives taken by a customer-focussed company.

E.g. Supermarkets, Malls, Food Chains.

Higher Brand Recollection

In a world filled to the brim with brands, and with new brands coming into our lives every day, a company can find it hard-pressed to ensure brand recollection. But a customer-focussed lifestyle publication can ensure all that and more, especially if the customer brings a friend along, and thanks the company representative for a great magazine!

E.g. Designer Labels, Apparel, Spas, Salons.

Increased Evangelism and Goodwill

This is got to be the best thing that a custom publication can do for any company. Get its customers talking for the company! It’s like a reality show. When you watch your favourite contestant on the television, and feel connected by some unknown bond, chances are you’re going to vote for them. You may even blog about them, and tell your friends about how nice this contestant is. That’s evangelism for you. Voters did that. Ordinary people did that. Guy Kawasaki did that. With a specially planned publication, so can you!

E.g. Hotels, Resorts, Health Chains.

Etc.

There are several other aspects that may be specific to certain companies based on which the Return On Investment can be calculated. Summarising the concept of ROI though, every company can find their own unique means to ensure that their investment can make a significant ROI when it comes to Custom Publications.

A Basic Estimate of Custom Publishing Expenses

Most companies want to know how much a custom publication costs, even before they give a thought about its advantages, or how it can help their company. It’s a shot in the dark, but I’ve come to acknowledge this question in the very first meeting with most new clients. And here too, I’m going to keep it straight and simple, as I have in all my other posts.

Simply put, WSYISYG. What You See Is What You Get. What do you want from the magazine? And that’s how much it will cost you. Additionally, what do you want to do, other than the magazine, to see the results? Sometimes, my clients want surveys conducted along with periodical feedback on different grounds. A few others want specific pages with unique content to be inserted for specific audiences. Some others want the magazines to be distributed in specific areas or at events where it would be most profitable for them. Almost all of them want me to create a self-sustaining environment by establishing teams to generate revenues for the magazine.

But if we’re speaking about a simple production cost only, it would be easier to explain it. To companies outside of India, most of these prices can seem ridiculous, but well, that’s why we have outsourcing, don’t we?!

Production of magazines, at least at Confetti Media, varies based on the photographic elements, the content and its requirements, etc., and etc. The number of pages too plays a crucial part in the estimation of the cost of magazine production.

But all publishing activities are based on the client’s specific requirements, so if your company would be interested in a publication, just ask. It only takes a conversation to find out how your company can make a difference.

Why do companies have custom publications, and what benefit can your company get by having an in-house magazine?

Every meeting with a new client can leave one with interesting pointers and a new view on custom magazines. During my meetings with directors or CXOs, I explain new strategies that could help their companies with respect to their specific markets. At times, I know I’m not going anywhere with the meeting. They’ve made up their mind already. It’s easy to sense the negative vibe that’s filled the room.

For a comparative explanation, I tell them about a few other companies in their line of work who have started profitable in-house publications and how it has benefitted those companies.

During one such meeting with a new company, I told the head of this particular company about another company that had a publication. This person shot back at me and said, “That company is minting money, that’s why they have a magazine!”

Do you see the fine print here? It means that everyone assumes you’re printing a publication because “your company has a lot of money”! Isn’t that beautiful? Sometimes, we can’t see the obvious answer even if it’s stark naked doing the hula right in front of us! So by having a good in-house publication, people assume that your company is growing in leaps and bounds. They assume that this publication is a luxury that you can afford to give your customers because you have a lot of money to spare, which also means that you are willing to go the extra mile for your customer and potential customer.

This just shows that companies that publish their own in-house magazine are perceived to be well-established, and customer-focussed. It’s an intuitive perception that works wonders for any company.

Leaving the perceptions aside, a custom magazine has several excellent tricks in its pages. A company can use it in different ways to improve loyalty, or obtain more customers, while at the same time improving its brand recall, brand loyalty, and the number of people who become evangelists for the company on their own. Get in touch with me, so I can help you understand the different ways by which a custom publication can make a big difference to your company and its image.