SNOW Magazine: Digital Publishing Done Right

If you have a digital version of your magazines, chances are you’ve had to make some critical decisions about your strategy, like:

• Will you include interactivity?
• Will you charge for it? Charge only if it is digital only, or charge for any access to it altogether?
• To which platforms will you publish?
• Will you have a native app for it?
• Does the digital version add value to your digital advertising and web traffic, or is it meant to supplement the website traffic and onine advertising opps?

These are just a few of the questions.

For many publishers, agonizing over these questions can often drive tremendous stress and strain on companies. In many cases, these decisions mean the difference between success and failure, especially if you are a smaller publisher, or a newer publication.

With so many questions and options, what is a publisher to do?

In an effort to shine some light on this topic and provide direction, I reached out to a woman who is one of my idols in the publishing business, Barbara Sanders.

If you don’t know Barbara Sanders, she is the founder, editor and publisher of a high end, luxury magazine called SNOW. After founding the magazine, Barbara built the business so well that Bonnier bought it from her. Recently, she bought the magazine back from Bonnier and decided to take the reins herself.

After being challenged with all of the questions above, Barbara did something that was very unique and different than many publishers have done in the past; she made some quick decisions (to all of the questions above) to keep the business moving. Yet she put her focus on staying true to her roots and focusing on one main thing: the quality of the content.

For Barbara (and SNOW), creating and curating quality content has been her guiding light. Instead of asking the questions above in a vacuum, she is asking these questions in a bit of a different manner. She is asking, will this decision improve the quality of, experience with or access to my content?

I loved this idea and decided to test it out with a few of my own efforts. I was amazed how my answers to some of these questions changed with the right quality content qualifying content.

With the latest issue of SNOW released this week, to subscribers as well as to anyone interested in visiting the website, Barbara is putting her decision to the ultimate test. And I’m curious to watch to.

Expectations are that the quality of the content will drive a higher level of engaged fans who can drive better word of mouth, validation of the product and true interest.

I’ll be watching to see how well it works. I hope you will, too!