Ian Reeves

Customer publishing becomes ‘content marketing’ Customer magazines are used by large

corporate organisations as part of their marketing strategy

They encourage the ‘brand values’ of their organisations by using professional editorial teams to create content that reflects their customers’ aspirations

They often provide in-depth information on products, deals and services.

Examples

Airlines, retailers, car manufacturers, travel companies, membership clubs, financial institutions and property companies all produce customer magazines

Tesco Magazine 1,945,015Asda Magazine 1,944,393Morrisons Magazine 1,293,617Tesco Real Food 1,225,417John Lewis Edition 487,550Asos 446,055Waitrose Kitchen 412,681The Garden (RHS) 359,897Sainsbury’s Magazine 215,109Odeon Magazine 203,140

Customer publishing market Average customer magazine

circulation: 321,257

Combined total circulation: 137 million

5% of titles reach more than 1 million readers

14% have circulation greater than 250,000

Distribution

Magazines are circulated in several ways:

Direct mail Free at point of contact Distributed with newspapers Door drops Digital distribution

Customer publishing sectorvalue (£m)

The market was worth £496m in 2011

Customer publishing sector value forecast (£m)

Industry estimated to be worth £630m by 2016

Readers’ views

39.4% agreed they were as well produced and interesting to read as other magazines

68.2% said they didn’t bother to read customer magazines

23.3% said they would read in-flight magazine

22.2% said they would read free magazines from retail outlets such as Boots or M&S.

Does it work?

“In 2013 more than 60,000 car sales were directly attributable to behaviour prompted by the magazine” – claim from publishers of Audi magazine.

Customer publishing formats

Customer publishing companies Cedar Communications

clients include BA and Tesco

Condé Nastclients include Ferrari and Maybourne hotels

Inkclients include RyanAir and Thomas Cook

Redwoodclients include Barclays, Boots and Fiat

John Brownclients include Waitrose and John Lewis

Publicis Blueprint clients include Asda and Cath Kidson

River Publishingclients include Superdrug and Honda

Further reading

MediaWeek’s sector analysis:http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1125670/sector-analysis-customer-publishing

The Content Marketing Associationhttp://www.the-cma.com/