Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

How Are Small Mag./editorial Values Determined

Posted by Anonymous on 12/13/2013 at 11:52 AM ET 500 Points
How are city-life (metro specific) or Food (metro specific) magazine values determined for small publications?

I'm talking they have a circulation of 50,000-200,000 of a target audience.

Not only for print publications but also online editorials. I know these can be independently evaluated but for a lot of organizations I imagine it's too much money.

Are there market norms for these based on raw numbers? How are these norms determined? Is there a database or website I could look at to do some more research on this.

What are the market standards for "email databases" compared to a advertising on an online newsletter?
Does it have to do with perceived value?


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  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 12/13/2013 at 12:48 PM Accepted
    I can't say I fully understand your question, so could use some clarification. Are you asking how they choose what articles to publish? How they choose how to use any personal data they collect? Something else?

    I run a magazine that is smaller than you list (print run of about 10,000 copies per issue), and know other people who run smaller magazines also (though none food related or regional). In general, for small publications the main person running it (usually editor or publisher) sets a lot of this based on their personal values. What the region the magazine goes to will affect those values (if the editor's/publisher's values are too far off, it will turn off subscribers). And there are laws they have to follow. But beyond that it is up to a person or small group of people who set the direction (including values) for the publication.
  • Posted on 12/13/2013 at 1:00 PM Author
    Okay, sorry for the confusion.

    I'll try to be a little more frank.

    I am interested in dollar values of advertising in publications.

    For smaller pubs, what is the standard market value for an advertisement? I'm assuming this is due in part to brand recognition and subscription numbers. Is the variation too high to give a concise answer?
  • Posted by Moriarty on 12/13/2013 at 1:16 PM Accepted
    Aaron, my take on this is always to put the question the other way around. What will your market stand by way of a cost.

    That means forgetting everyone else, this is about you and your business and meeting your customers' needs. That means meeting their needs too.

    Now you mention perceived values - and these are notoriously difficult to determine in general terms. Mind you, people like things being general, they like to know where they stand. My take's a little different - my usual method is simply to work out how much money you need ... and divide by the number of slots you have. Just make sure that it's worth the money you're asking. I'm no magazine expert like Peter, but I can come up with fresh ideas nevertheless. Run a feature and the ads cost 10x more to be associated with it - I guess it's already been done?

    You may find that determining value is easier with your online mags. After all, tracking a click's a lot easier than tracking an ad through a printed magazine. The impact of the online ad can be extrapolated to the printed version.

    As much as anything you're offering value first - then brand recognition.
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 12/13/2013 at 4:26 PM Member
    Ads are rated in costs per thousand (or CPM) readers. The costs vary a lot, depending on how well targeted the the magazine is. The better the magazine is at reaching people that the advertiser wants to reach, the more they can (and will) charge. The more general it is, the less they charge (but usually the more total people they reach). Advertisers only care about how well it reaches the people they want. If a magazine has a distribution of 10k and all are people they want to reach, this has the same value to them as one with a distribution of 100k but only 10% are ones they want to reach.

    Using my own magazine example - it is a kayaking magazine focused on California and neighboring States. Someone who wants to reach kayakers in this area will be willing to pay a pretty high price for every 1000 customers. But when I approached a sports camera maker, they were not willing to pay the price, as they didn't need targeting of kayakers specifically, and could pay less CPM to go with a general outdoors magazine (like Outside).

    I made a blog post on how to sell ads in a new magazine a while back and posted it at https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/ads-in-new-publication.html. it is no clear if you are working with a magazine and trying to figure out how to set prices or looking at advertising in a magazine. If setting prices, there is a section directly relevant to you. But even if advertising, this may provide some additional insight into magazine ads.
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