Know-How Exchange : Copywriting

What research have you already done that would support your SWOT analysis? Have you identified your competition and figured how you stack up against them? Have you identified your target audience and surveyed their needs?
There are no shortcuts. Right now, before you invest your resources in your magazine, invest your time in doing great research. And if you don't think you have the skills to do it (not everyone does), consider hiring a professional to coach you or do the legwork for you.

SWOTs (and entire business plan) are not meant to be easy, and short cutting just to fill it in provides no assistance. SWOTs are meant to be useful - the more you think about it and fill it in, the better chance of success for the business. They should be done by the people who are starting the business, as the process of filling in the blanks helps educate the founders, providing better guidance on how to start the business.

Here is a business plan template I made which I use for looking at business ideas. It is ugly and rough, but has worked for me so far. You'd probably want something more professional looking if you were going out to investors.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p5ht5jeicimc4ha/Business%20Plan%20Template.doc?dl...

I start by just filling in the sections I can, and then figure out how to find the info to I fill in the sections that don't have enough information. You'll never get 100%, so at some point you just have to decide to go for it or not.

About 15 years ago, I did one for a regional kayaking magazine I started (calkayakermag.com). Here is what I had for the SWOT.

Critical Success Factors (SWOT)
• Strengths:
o First mover advantage
o Founder has experience writing for various magazines – some content can be filled in by me
o Founder has contacts in area could hopefully bring some business right away
• Weaknesses:
o Lack of experience in laying out and printing magazines. Have done a variety of marketing print production, but not on this scale.
• Opportunities:
o Perceive a gap of customer desire for kayak information, but no one filling the gap
o Growth in kayaking as a sport
• Threats:
o Wavelength Magazine pushes more into CA, through greater US presence – not likely, as they seem happy to be doing what they are doing.
o Economy staying weak, causing kayak shops to go under

Looking back, I didn't catch in my SWOT that the market for kayaks was flattening and then dropping, being replaced by paddle boarding. And a weakness I had of not being a good salesperson (not liking rejection), so not being able to sell enough ads to make it work.

You may also want to do a PEST or PESTLE analysis, especially if you are in a market where political action could greatly impact you or the economy is not very stable.

Here is a blog post I wrote over 10 years ago that at the end has a link to a book that you may want to read on starting a magazine. https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/ads-in-new-publication.html