How does the concept of Custom Publishing work, and why is it so effective? Understand the Concept of Custom Publishing in this post.

Custom Publishing is a simple concept, and one that’s been very effective for several companies in recent years, although it is a very modern entrant in the world of print media and print advertising. Unlike traditional print advertising where companies advertise their products and services in leading magazines, custom publishing takes a different approach to the same concept. Using custom publishing, companies start their own inhouse magazines instead of advertising in other companies’ magazines.

It may sound absurd to many, but this concept is one that definitely works. Many prospective clients of mine have asked me the same question, why should they start a magazine and enter the competitive field of print media when it’s so much easier to just advertise and forget all about it? It’s a great question, no doubt, but custom publishing also has a great answer.

When you advertise your product in another company’s magazine, there are a lot of disadvantages when it comes to branding. You can read this post on The Benefits of Custom Publishing over Traditional Print Media to understand all about that. The biggest disadvantage is the regular expense which cannot be reduced at any point of time. Still doesn’t seem relevant?

Let’s use an example here, if you had to travel 50 miles to and fro work every day, and you use a taxi cab every day, would you consider investing in a car so you can drive to work every day? I mean, it is a better option, isn’t it? If you have your own car, you can drive through the routes you want, make your pit stops wherever you want, you have your own mode of trustworthy transport and there will be no external factors like cab strikes or errant drivers that would ever affect you.

Now there are obviously many more reasons, and using a simple example like a car and a cab, you can understand the benefits of having your own car over a taxi cab. Now why should advertising really be any different? After all, you do have to spend every single month to increase awareness and improve branding. So isn’t that just like the same thing?

Comparisons can make us see things in a different way. But understanding it and using it well makes all the difference. Now I’m not saying Custom Publishing is the best thing that has ever happened to advertising. Instead, what I really am saying is that it is a great means to advertise and promote your company and brand as long as it works for you.

There are many means to advertise, but for almost all brands, there is one specific medium that literally kicks ass! I’ve written a post earlier, Is Custom Publishing the Best Medium to Advertise your Brand? That may help you decide if Custom Publishing can really help you better than other mediums.

Custom Publishing is a relatively newer concept of print advertising and may take time to trickle down to the masses, though it is extensively being used by leading brands across the world. But if you do want to brand your company well, and want to know more about custom publishing and how you can use it to brand your company in a better and more efficient manner than most advertising mediums, who you gonna call?

I’ll leave that thought to you, and ahem, my contact information too!

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What are the advantages of Custom Publishing over Traditional Media, and how can implementing it into your marketing strategies improve branding and positioning? Find out here.

For several brands and companies across the world, their marketing strategies have always been incomplete without a good print campaign. It isn’t a bad thing though, in fact, print advertising is a great medium to market a product. Print Media is especially great for branding campaigns because it can really help position a brand better than most other mass media advertising strategies.

Of all the marketing strategies and business strategies that matter, branding plays a very crucial part in the whole process. Branding alone can create exclusive brands and pave the way for more sales and a lot more expensive products. We can even stretch it to a point where we can safely say that everything that any company does with respect to marketing strategies is by keeping the concept of branding in mind. From Wal-Mart to Starbucks, it’s all about branding and brand positioning.

Now moving to Custom Publishing, we have to ask ourselves why custom publishing is a better alternative to other means of publishing. I mean, if it isn’t a better option, then why is the custom publishing market growing in leaps and bounds every year across the globe? There has to be some good in it, don’t you think? In this post, I’ve put together a few reasons why custom publishing can turn out to be a better advertising option than traditional print media.

A Classier Alternative

What’s more classy, advertising in a magazine or having your own magazine?! Seriously, that answer is obvious. Having your own magazine doesn’t just save additional advertising expenses, it also makes your company and brand look bigger and better. Your customers are bound to be impressed, won’t they? Having your own custom magazine gives you more than just a material to advertise, it gives you a great medium to tell your customers and potential customers more about your company and product, in a much classier way!

A Cheaper Alternative

No one would actually believe this. But if you really do understand how much you spend every month on advertising expenses, and also on branding activities, skipping most of that and starting your own magazine can actually turn out to be way cheaper for your company’s pocket! And you’re going to get more back for what you spend when you have your own magazine, in terms of marketing activities. Write to me, or speak to a good custom publisher, and once you’re done working out the expenses and the prospective Return On Investment by using Custom Publishing,  you’ll know exactly what I mean.

The Clash of Competing Brands

When any company initiates a marketing campaign, it is usually very careful about the prospective brands it may be associated with. For example, when you advertise in a lifestyle magazine, there’s a good chance that you would find yourself in between sheets advertising many other products. Bigger brands always have to be careful about where they appear on a magazine, and sometimes, even the best planning and marketing strategies can screw things up. Check out these examples below to see what I mean.

By having your own inhouse magazines, not only would you eliminate such embarrassing accidents, but you can also brand your company better without any hassles. This is one of the biggest reasons why most well-established companies have their own exclusive inhouse magazines to give away to their guests and customers.

Connections with Customers

Even though I may have written this as a third pointer, this is really one of the biggest reasons to start an inhouse magazine. Inhouse magazines and custom publishing is primarily created with an intention to communicate, spread ideas and get people to talk about the company. So, more or less, an inhouse magazine’s sole purpose is to help customers and potential customers understand more about the company, and also to get them to start unconsciously evangelising about the company. And I can say this safely, there is no better medium on a broad level to spread ideas and get people talking other than an inhouse magazine. But it also does depend on the type of company that launches a magazine though.

Show you the money!

This is what you’re going to like. Custom Publishing may seem like an advertising expenditure, but if you know how to go about it, it can actually be a potential means of creating monetary income. What does that really mean? Well, it means you can start your own magazine, spread ideas about your company, get people talking about your company, understand more about your company, and with all of that, your company can make more money than it started out with! That really is the Power of Custom Media and Custom Publishing!

You can understand more about the benefits of using Custom Media over Traditional Media by reading this post on Custom Media Strategies Vs. Traditional Media Strategies.

What I’ve mentioned above are just five small pointers on how custom publishing can make your life better, easier, and richer. Depending on the type of company you run, chances are, there will be a lot more that you can do to increase awareness, create better branding opportunities, and increase the number of people that talk about you!

And all this, just by launching an inhouse magazine that can save you money, and make more for you at the same time! Can it get any better? I. Think. Not.

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An Introduction to Custom Publishing. How can Custom Publishing help a company? How can branded magazines be profitable in the long run? Find out here.

Custom Publishing, you must have come across this phrase while browsing through a few websites, or chances are, you just came across this phrase and wanted to know more about it. For starters, Custom Publishing is the process by which a company can create its own customised publishing solutions, a great example of which is custom magazines. And custom magazines and branded magazines are one and the same. But what is it really? And why is it so talked about these days?

The History of Custom Publishing

Several decades ago, I don’t think anyone’s really sure when, but someone decided to start advertising in magazines and little paper flyers. This concept took off, and now, just about every brand does the same, and we’ve given it a fancy name, print advertising.

Around a couple of decades ago, just when advertising in magazines, newspapers and flyers was on a total high, some brand somewhere in the world started thinking and innovating. The brains behind the brand probably asked themselves why they needed to spend so much money on print advertising when they could start their own magazine for a small percentage of the costs incurred by regular print advertising. They tried it, it cost them a lot less, and they were able to reach out to a lot more people who were genuinely interested in the brand, and most of all, their new magazine gave them a bigger and better reputation!

And that, my friends, is my version of the story of Custom Publishing. And that is how it probably began. No one really knows, because this concept may really have begun many years before we even knew it existed. But it’s a great, profitable story anyhow!

The Growth of Custom Publishing

Today, across the world, every brand has already started its own magazine, or is thinking about it. But why do brands really need it, and is it really as good as everyone says it is? In my opinion, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, Custom Publishing is the new next big thing for brands. That is, if they really understand the benefits of their own magazine, and know how to create a great magazine and implement it well.

But before I get into the details, you should know what these brand magazines are called. Some companies call it custom magazines, some call them custom publications, while some parts of the world call them contract publications and inhouse magazines. On the other hand, based on the parent company that starts the magazine, the magazines can be called corporate magazines (distributed within a corporate circle, usually companies) or branded magazines (if the magazine is started by a consumer brand).

Call it what you want, but they’re all the same. And they’re all safely tucked into a new type of publishing called Custom Publishing. And this one packs a mean punch, because it’s cheaper, more efficient and a lot classier. I’ve written more about Custom Publishing and why it’s better in other posts of mine, which should help you understand why custom publishing is a better option, and also the different requirements if you need to start a custom magazine yourself.

You can click on this link, Benefits of Custom Publishing over Traditional Print Media to know more about the advantages of Custom Publishing.

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How expensive is starting your own magazine? Here’s the last part on how to run a successful magazine all by yourself.

Talking about expenses involved seems to go on forever, though I’m really trying to keep the pointers as brief as possible. But anyways, this is my final post on expenses involved with a magazine, so you could probably work your own calculations to understand how expensive your new magazine would turn out to be on a per issue basis. But in case you’ve come here straight without reading my earlier post on expenses involved with a magazine, you could start by reading How much does it costs to start a magazine?

And if you want to know everything you ever need to know about starting your own magazine, including all the details from the smallest ones to the biggest ones, I have a series of posts that can turn you into a professional magazine publisher in no time. You can read the entire series by starting from this earlier post of mine, The Beginners Guide to Starting your Own Magazine.

Continuing on the expenses involved with the creation of your own magazine, we have the following expenses that can’t be missed.

Subscription Team

If you’ve read my earlier post on Partners you need when you launch your Own Magazine, you’d realise that subscriptions can actually bring in a good amount of pocket money for your media house. Along with that, subscriptions can increase the credibility of your magazine, and also help you win more loyal readers and get more advertisement offers. Overall, a good subscription campaign can make a big difference in the success of your magazine. Most media houses hire subscription agencies on part-time basis rather than full time because it’s just not worth the pain of have a hundred interns walking around the office doing nothing when there are no subscription drives. It’s easier to partner with an external team or hire an event manager to set the whole campaign up for you, a few months in a year.

In most cases, you can get away without spending any additional money, by parting with a percentage of the money generated by the subscription drive to the agency. But a bigger subscription agency may want a share and an additional retainer fee to work on a project. In either case, if you can get this right, there’s a good chance that you can make a decent sum of money, and help raise awareness, at the same time.

Printing

A birthday present just doesn’t feel right unless it’s all wrapped and tied on top with a pretty ribbon. Likewise, a magazine just isn’t good enough unless it’s printed on the appropriate paper with the right colours. Additionally, the cover page has to be laminated, and the spine of the magazine has to look firm and neat. As a general rule of thumb, printing is the bulk of the expenses for all print magazines, and generally costs around 50% of all the expenses put together to publish a magazine. But this also depends greatly on the number of copies that you would be printing, so at least for the first couple of years, this rule of thumb may not be applicable to your relatively new magazine. Speak to a few good printers and get the best rates you can get from them.

When it comes to printing, it is always a good idea to speak with quite a few printing presses so you can get the best quotes without compromising on quality or delivery time. Along with the expenses involved with the printing press, you would also need a production head or a print coordinator to ensure that the colours are set to perfection without any errors, just the way you want your final magazine copy to look like.

Surveys and Market Research

You may assume that you run a great magazine, and your editorial team too may be convinced that you are running a great magazine. But it’s not your opinion that matters, but the opinions of your readers and potential readers. Occasionally, you can partner with a research company or hire a few interns, or even partner with an event management company to conduct surveys and research into the type of content people want to read, and also to get a feedback from your loyal readers. This is not a fixed cost and can vary based on how detailed you want your responses to be, and depending on the number of cities in which you would want to conduct a research. You can also increase the awareness of your new magazine by conducting surveys as you would be able to reach out to more people, and also to potential readers who wouldn’t have heard of your magazine yet.

Cover Shoots

This is the most exciting splurge in the entire magazine, but it is also an expense that can make or break your magazine. We’ve heard the old adage, don’t judge a book by its cover, and we’ve come to believe it. But in the case of magazines, it’s all about the cover. There are hundreds of magazines available every month, and all of them are displayed together. What are the chances of someone finding your magazine, and deciding to pick yours up over all other magazines in the rack?

This is where a great cover makes all the difference. A good cover page automatically rouses curiosity and involuntarily makes a reader reach out to read more, even if it’s an unheard-of magazine. So always try to conceptualise the best covers that you possibly can create. Cover shoots involve a lot of people, and it’s crucial that you hire the best you can afford.

You would need everyone from renowned photographers, gorgeous models, hair stylists, make-up artists, costume designers, clothes stylists, concept designers, well-equipped studios and shoot coordinators and conceptualisers. And all of these involved people should deliver their best at the same time to ensure a great shoot. I can’t really put a price to a great shoot, but I can tell you that it is not going to be cheap. But here again, by creating favourable partnerships with all the involved parties, you can cut costs by a large extent.

So there it is, all of the basic expenses that are involved with the production of a magazine. I’m still warning you though, running a magazine doesn’t come cheap, and you’d probably have to be well funded to launch and run a great magazine that can compete with the best magazines available on the stands.

But then again, I started my first magazine with limited funds too! Remember that it is not easy. In fact, turning your first magazine into a successful media house is as hard as hard can be, especially for a start-up with limited funds.

If you’re passionate and dedicated and believe that you can become a success, well, no one can hold you down! Here’s me wishing you the best of luck!

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