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Beatrice Hanks, Circulation Director
Getting the magazine on airlines. The magazine pays a
service fee, so it is expensive. Concerned that not enough people are
seeing the magazine there, based in part on response to the blow-in
cards. They are moving away from that program.
"We're trying to sell the magazine," not give it away.
They sell a lot of copies in airports, which works against giving it
away on flights.
In order to meet the rate base, some magazines give
copies away by distributing them in public places, such as airlines,
some newsstands. Even though this costs something, it can be less
expensive than additional direct mail.
Circulation is 475,000. 35,000 is newsstand sales (a
rate typical of consumer magazines). Growing around 25,000 per
year.Pass-along rate: 6 or 7 people.
The day after the stock market crash, every financial
magazine's April issue sank. Nobody wanted to read about their
investments. Some dropped to 40% of the previous months.
BE, however, is still selling as much as it did before
the bust. BE went up during the boom of the '90s, but did not come
creashing down.
The magazine is not just about stocks; it is a more
rounded magazine about finances, business life, career in general, plus
a certain amount of motivational quality.
Renewal rates have remained good, much bertter than
others in the category.
Demographics:
Older and richer; for people who are serious about money; 50-50 m/f.
"The best thing we did is not lose our shirts on very
expensive promotions on the internet." Sending emails to subscribers.
Cross promoting with books. Gift promotions once a year.
Colleges are the worst places to develop subscriptions.
"Students do not have a fixed address; they don't have
any money; and if they do, they don't spend it on magazines. The best
you can hope for is that students are aware of your title, so they will
subscribe when they graduate and have a job."
Alfred Edmond, Jr.
Executive Editor, Black Enterprise
In his 16th year. Sr VP in the company, responsible for
all aspects of editorial, including web site, book series. '
First editor in the history of the magazine who has had
to be a multimedia editor.
Everything is driven by the magazine. The credibility of
the magazineis what enables us to do other things.
Founded 1970. Foundation is black entrepreneurship.
In the '90s, BE became the magazine of choice for
understanding investment opportunities. African Americans who did not
care what a stock or bond was in the '80s, in the '90s, had to know.
BE guide to starting a business; investing; black
business owners profiles; profiles of corporate African Americans.
Black Enterprise carries out several
large events that help them keep in close touch with their readers. The
events are also money-making functions for the company.
BE sponsors the world's largest non-professional
business golf tournament, BE Pepsi Gold and Tennis Challenge (1200
participants last year). Very competitive. It is a major networking
event. Major corporate executives come. Also held at major spas, for
people who do not golf.
National Entrepreneurship Conference--
Just held in Nashville-- around 1400 attendees. "These events bring our
audience to life for our advertisers: Here's a thousand of them, right
here.' It brings credibility to what our advertisers are paying for."
Kidpreneur program. Allied w
National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
What started as a babysitting service turned into a
new business. It sells out quickly.
BE produces a quarterly magazine, Teenpreneur.
The magazine sponsored its first summer camp for youth entrepreneurs in
2003. "The earlier we can expose people to the brand, the less we will
have to chase them when they grow into our market."
4-6 year olds are the youngest participants. They
make things, price the components, and sell it in the end (often to
their parents), and understand from age 4-5 how to create or buy
something and sell it for a profit. (The concept of kidpreneurs
originated with an intern at BE.)
BE gives four small business awards
per year, at end of Entrepreneurship conference. Most popular is the
kid/teenpreneur award. The latest one went to a 14 year old who has her
own magazine that brings in $25K per year. Teenpreneur writes about
such kids.
We didn't throw a lot of money at our website. Take it
slow and see what happens.
"The vast majority of people will not pay you for
content on the internet."
"But if you provide them with valuable information,
they will give you important information about themselves that you can
now use."
Editorial policies
Serious separation of church and state. Will write
negative stories about some of their advertisers.
"The only thing that allows us to compete with top
magazines is that our content is seen to have integrity. We measure
ourselves against Forbes, Fortune, and
Money. Awards: 3 out of the past 7 years, BE was one of the
top financial magazines accfording to Folio awards."
"Our goal is not to be the best black magazine, but the
best business magazine."
This is an editor-driven magazine.
60% is freelance.
"We develop all the stories internally and assign them
to regular freelancers around the country."
"Every editor of the magazine is like an editor of his
own magazine within the magazine."
"We're not a magazine per se; we're a consulting firm.
We can't have a half million people come to our offices ea month; what
we do is package the information and send it out to you. We call our
readers clients."
"Editors decide what our clients need and how to serve
those needs."
"Editors all write, but we have no staff writers."
"This is what I think our clients need to know this
month about technology (etc) to advance in their business."
"Our goal is to provide information that is actually
useful."
"We stopped asking whether they found articles
interesting. We ask what they found useful. What they found useful, we
gave them more of."
12 yrs ago, Folio commissioned Gallup to poll: If you
had to do without one form of media, what would you eliminate?
Conventional wisdom predicted it would be books.
Answer came back: magazines.
Another question: Would you give up YOUR magazine? The
answer was no.
While readers may not see magazines in general as
important, they see as important the magazines they read and use in
their daily lives.
Black magazines once thrived on the Johnson Ebony model:
Nobody is going to write about black people, so we will. But now black
people are covered by many media.
"Being the black version of a white magazinestopped
being enough about 20 years ago. Yes we are a black magazinein the
sense that our audience is black, but mainly we are a magazine."
Magazine management. Bottom-up
model: section editors are supposed to go to the readers, their
clients, to conferences, to find out what they are dealing with, what
they care about, what they need. "'Journalist's hubris' can't exist
here; editors can't tell readers what they need, they have to listen to
readers."
They try to hire people people, not journalism people.
Emphasis on REALLY serving readers. Looks for editors
who have run their own magazines and can do everything as a miniature
ed-in-chief.
"If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I've got 4 people on
my staff who know everything I know about running a magazine."
First rule of management: "Money is not a motivator;
it is a minimum requirement."
"Now, I'm turned on by the prospect of bringing
together a group of people with finite resources who have to compete
with publications with much greater resources. And you are only as good
as your last issue."
"I like people who don't like to be told what to do;
who are smarter than I am; who emotionally care about the audience; who
know more than I do."
"There is more diversity here than most places:
[African Americans on the staff are diverse; they] don't agree about
anything. They have different countries, backgrounds, ages.
Internships. They get 300
applications per year for internships. They look for actual working
journalists, who know what to do to cover a press conference,
interview, copyediting, etc. They hire 4-6 interns in editorial.
This year, all the interns are women.
"We evaluate them like employees on the job. Last year
we had a terrible intern. Never finished a story. Never had an
explanation. Looked good on paper, interviewed well."
"Three of our interns from last year still write for
the magazine. Our goal with interns is to recruit people who can write
for the magazine."
"We look for attitude and someone we don't have to
tell what a lead is. Someone who has written for publications, covered
things."
Interns have stories to tell about their experiences
doing journalism already. They are already writers and journalists, and
they now want to do it in a professional environment.
Apply early. Resume. Clips. Recommendations. It helps
if you have been editing and writing.
(FAMU has an intern here summer 2003: Naeemah Khabir.)
Fact-Checking. 5 copy editors
fact-check every story in the magazine.
Pet peeve: The diff btn a journalist
and journalism student: "Journalists worked for the campus paper, radio
station, etc. There are students who are truly journalists, whether or
not they majored in journalism. We are looking for people who are not
studying to be journalists, but who ARE journalists."
He is aghast that students don't automatically read
the paper every day.
Edmond's Background. He was in a
head-start program at age 4, when he learned he could draw. Spent his
youth reading and drawing and writing, an introvert.
Voted outstanding writer and artist in his HS clsss.
One of 4 children, divorced single mother, welfare. Longbranch NJ, did
not grow up around people who went to college. Grandparents took him
around to colleges.
"I lived at the public library. I did not know how
starved I was for culture until I left."
Rutgers College grad, '83. Majored in art. Drawn into
editing and writing for a student newspaper.
First job was edit asst at Asbury Park press. Got
another part time job as layout artist at what is now the NY Beacon. 3
hour commute to Brooklyn.
On that job, he kept asking: "If this was my paper,
what would I do with it?"
"I was one of the few people who knew how to put out a
paper" [thanks to his experience on college publications.]
Where his art background fits in:
Magazines are pieces of art as mucha s they are
journalistic institutions.
"I'm the only editor on staff with a Mac. I'm the only
one who can speak the language of the art director. I let him do his
job. All of our designers are journalists; your job is to communicate
information. I don't get into the art-editorial wars that are common in
magazines."
Responsible for editorial, art, production depts.. "I
don't know if I could be ed in chief without the art degree."
"Selling is an emotional response not an inellectual
response."
"When you understand art, that is helpful in choosing
the cover."
Cover: You've got 4 seconds max to communicate
emotionally with your reader.
If you use art appropriately, you can get the
attention of the audience. Then the intellectual part kicks in, with
the cover lines, headlines, captions.
Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman. Emotional
response is first; intellectual response follows a fraction later.
"Preview"-- They show the whole
magazine to a sample of their readership every time and ask them to
take it apart. I didn't get this article; this is not true; I was
offended; I don't like this, etc. "Editors have to get beyond the
hubris and listen to what readers say."
"How to succeeed in business without being
white," by Earl Graves. This book required at BE, and
explains the voice of the magazine: a mission-oriented voice.
There used to be a sign in the editorial office that
read,
"If we're not saying How To, we're not doing our
jobs."
At times we got away from showing How To and started
showing how brilliant we are. Editors who write for other editors.
Our articles: How to solve a problem, how to take
advantage of an opportunity. Service voice.
"Interesting" vs "useful."
Celebrities in the magazine. Our
readers are not slaves to celebrity. We walk a fine line on how and
when we use celebrity.
Story recently about how celebs manage their money,
not knowing any more about money than reader does. In addit to learning
about the celeb, article taught readers more about how to manage their
finances.
A recent cover on Shak did not work well.
Worst issue in terms of newsstand sales and
evaluation. Every story scored 80% usefulness, except the celeb story.
Research showed that the big cover story on celeb endorsement in that
issue had the least to do with readers' decision to buy it on the
newsstand.
Fortune sold well with a Michael
Jordan cover, picking up many readers who normally do not buy the mag,
but it did not lead to additional subscribers. "I can read about Shak
anywhere. I don't sub to BE for that. I can get that anywhere."
"We're a consulting firm and you're our clients."
"If you've been reading BE for 2 years and don't feel
you are doing better in your business because of it, don't subscribe to
it."
Chris Noel, Advertising
Dept, in charge of schools, universities, and franchises
$96,800 = av household income
67% of subscribers have MBAs
Niche publication for affluent AA market.
Amherst grad. Manager for OfficeMax store. Goal to be a
high-ranking executive in a corporation.
Dedicated audience. Very little duplication: few readers
of BE also read Money, Bus Week, Forbes, Fortune.
Highest duplication at Money with 20%;. Other bus
pubs have as much as 70% duplicate readership with another major
business magazine.
They are actively cultivating potential advertisers,
against the time when the economy turns around and they start to
advertise more.
Travel and tourism -- one of the biggest categories to
decline in advertising. A huge industry. Tech companies next in amount
of cutbacks. Consumer products in general.
Extensive schools and universities program. Biannual
"top colleges" issue (every other year). Many look to this issue for
what colleges are best for their children.
3X year, special university section: 300 words by the
university about its programs.
"Many executive readers in this economic slump are
going back for education that will help them in their careers later.
Universities benefit from such grads when they return to corporate
jobs."
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