Checking the online pulse

Hi all, this is an article Nomfundo Makhanya sent me. As a fashion/magazine person this made think. What do you guys think? I personally do buy magazines a lot less than i use to. 

A few years ago the trend was to pick up a copy of our preferred sports, fashion or business magazine, while shopping at the local mall or sitting at home. There was a strong magazine culture. This was my experience and probably most of the world.

In the last few years, the magazine industry has experienced a steady decline due to a number of factors affecting the publishing sector.  The ABC figures released in February for the 4^th quarter exhibited declining sales or stagnant growth for most women’s titles like Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire and others. The surprising revelations in the results from this category was that all, but one had experienced a decline and this was Destiny Magazine. So I decided to conduct my study on this. The topic of the study was: Exploring Online Consumer Behaviour & Preferences that increase brand loyalty and print sales for magazines - a case study on Destiny Magazine.

What emerged during the research process was that it is easy to access information contained from magazines and online and there is an issue with the choice of content which is not always on the mark. Being less loyal to certain magazines has been easy as I feel blogs are more interactive than magazines.  Discussions can be had on blogs amongst other aspects.

Like newspapers, magazines should realise that consumer behaviour is constantly evolving. Destiny Magazine appreciates that an online strategy is crucial unlike its older competitors. The future of magazines lies online. Most magazines and companies think creating a page on Facebook, Twitter or a website is enough. Interaction with consumers  came out as an important factor for most of the participants in the study. Destiny Magazine makes an effort to close the gap between itself and its consumers. The magazine has a lively blog, events section and creates interaction on Twitter and Facebook. This has augured well for their consumers and has maintained loyalty to the magazine. It has also aided the brand in occupying its consumers’ spaces.

Working on this study has revealed that decline is not inevitable.  Magazines should embrace a new business model that seamlessly joins the two communications mediums so that each complements and enhances the other instead of merely posting material to create a web presence. The consumer is smarter than what they were a few years ago and loyalty cannot be expected easily, survival is tough as some have not survived this period like Cleo and Shape amongst others.