These days producing ones own content is a matter of course for most enterprises. Customer magazines, in particular, play a decisive role when it comes to customer loyalty and cultivating the corporate image. Here we show you six steps to creating a successful magazine.
Content marketing has never been so popular: in the D-A-CH area alone, companies are investing about €6.9 billion annually. The largest portion of the budget is spent on the digital sphere and the promotion of content. Due to the increase in cross-media communications, corporate funds invested in individual channels are dwindling and being used instead in comprehensive campaigns. Overall budget allocation is already indicating which fields of content-marketing are particularly popular.Source: CMF-Basisstudie V 2016
However, before digital implementation and the cross-media dissemination and advertising of content can be addressed, it is advisable to first create a strategy for your own corporate publishing.
Step 1: Your content marketing strategy
Your strategy is the basis for your customer magazine. Although it takes some initial effort, it is well worth it in the long run.
First of all you need to determine the goals of your corporate communications.
These could be to increase the magazine’s sales and reach, strengthen your branding, or become a leader in a particular area. You should then define your target group. To help keep your addressees in mind when planning and implementing content, it is very useful to create buyer personas based on the defined target group, including a profile of their information requirements and user behaviour. Also establish in your strategy what means and what opportunities are available to realise your goals and reach your customers. What financial and human resources do you have? Industry and competitor analysis should also be included in the strategy.
Before it comes to the design and realisation of a new customer magazine, it is worth taking a closer look at your existing communications. Check what has been communicated to whom, whether and how the channels are used, and what content is obsolete. Especially when it comes to the basics of your own content strategy, it can make sense to consult an agency.
Step 2: Content – the heart of your magazine
The most frequently read content is the content that provides the customer with information they can value at a personal level. This could be useful tips, interesting background information about the product or the production, insights into the industry, or entertaining anecdotes from the company’s history. But keep your content authentic: Write about what you know – your product or service, and the area in which you are producing or selling – after all, that’s where your expertise lies. Become your customer’s friend and advisor, the one they turn to for the right answers to questions in your specialist field.
You don’t necessarily require an agency for this part. Just let your staff have a say or integrate guest contributions from experts, scientific studies, contributions from local journalists, or customer comments. Cooperating with specialist publishers is also a great way to create high-quality content tailored to your industry. You’ll soon find out that a lack of topics isn’t usually a problem. However, keep your strategy and customers in mind when planning your content.
The Allianz customer magazine ‘1890’ has been published four times a year since 2013 and is a specialist magazine dealing with a wide range of topics from the world of insurance. It avails of multimedia platforms and is interactive to boot.
Step 3: Digital implementation
Printed customer magazines often impress with their tactile quality design and are well-suited to reaching older readers. For younger readers, however, the magazine has to get from the mailbox to the sofa – and it’s a shame about the print and logistics costs, if it doesn’t make it. On the other hand a digital customer magazine with its integrated multimedia elements offers the reader extra value and entices them to read and find out more (without having to leave the sofa!). Digital design and advanced features, such as a reading mode, a read-aloud function, detailed views of images, and enrichment with links and videos make for a reading experience your customers will come back for.
Many enterprises are already working with apps in their own corporate design and appreciate the more effective communication with customers and employees, greater availability of information and the ability to customize processes.
Step 4: Crossmedia publishing for more reach
Crossmedia publishing is a great way to reach your customers between magazines and provide up-to-the-minute, readable information on social channels. It allows you to distribute your content more extensively and reach more customers more frequently, increasing the visibility of your enterprise.
However, you should not simply publish all content on all channels. Find out which (if any) customers you can access on the various channels and look into how these customers use the respective channels. That way you can discover the channels that really suit your customers and promote your goals. The user group, the approach, the content itself and the design vary from channel to channel: Twitter is suitable for fast messages and clear statements; Facebook with its articles and explanatory videos is geared to entertainment and the transmission of knowledge. Both channels are used largely in the mobile sphere and parallel to other media. With pure image networks, such as Instagram or Snapchat, you can showcase your products in visual mode.
An important note for all social channels: Listen to your readers and customers! The main advantage of all social channels is the direct contact with your customers and readers, which you simply have to use. Through social sharing activities, likes, and comments, you see what your users like and can respond directly to questions and suggestions.
The official Bundesliga magazine combines football with the business side of the sport. It is distinguished by contributions from renowned authors and background reports that go well beyond the daily sports reports. The design is cool, elaborate, and contains interactive elements.
Step 5: Going from unknown to relevant – targeted advertising
The most thoughtfully produced customer magazine will not be read if nobody knows about it. You need to advertise your magazine appropriately. Your own website and social channels offer plenty of space to announce the latest edition; individual articles can refer to the relevant table of contents. Prize games appearing exclusively in the magazine can also attract customers and readers. Use product channels and newsletters to refer to the customer magazine, specifying a QR code to download the app.
Local events and sponsoring events can also serve to draw attention to your customer magazine. The sports club you support has won? Write about it in the magazine and tell the club about the article, referring of course to the magazine it has been published in. Are you advertising your product or planning projects in your district? Here, too, posters and adverts should guide interested customers to the relevant articles in your magazine.
The bottom line is: a satisfied customer is the best advertisement. Publish content with intrinsic value and your customers will tell others about it – online or offline.
Step 6: Tracking
Tailoring your content according to user interests, appropriate channels, and individual reader requirements is only possible if you know your customers very well. Through personas, surveys, and communication with your customers, you can gain a solid, fundamental understanding of what your customers are interested in. For efficient customer communication, it is also worth measuring in a targeted manner and on a daily basis how well your communication is working.
Many software solutions and social media channels already provide their own analysis tools, which contain statistics on user behaviour, magazine downloads, sharing behaviour and in-app purchases. These figures should help get a feeling for what content is really getting through to the customer and what channels are relevant for you. Take this knowledge on board in your next planning sessions and step-by-step you can optimise your customer magazine and how your enterprise communicates.
Before you get started, we have put together three inspiring customer magazines that impress in terms of content, design and digital realisation. They are mentioned in the text and you can also find them here:
Wacker Chemie’s customer magazine “WWW” shows chemistry at work in the reader’s everyday life. The magazine looks at manufacturing processes, explains the use of chemical substances in industry and the home and also gives helpful user tips.
