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Indiana paper decides less is more when it comes to special sections
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| The most recent issue of Enjoy!, which was released June 11. |
By Michelle Finkler | Associate Editor
Consolidating a few special sections into one publication can lower costs and result in a better overall product.
Such was the case with “Enjoy!,” a quarterly lifestyle magazine created by The Republic, a 21,500-circulation daily newspaper located in Columbus, Ind.
Sharon Shumate, the advertising director for The Republic, said combining two quarterly publications with one annual special section resulted in “one robust publication.”
“There was ‘Your Home, Inside & Outside’; there was a health and fitness magazine called ‘Smart Living’—these were both quarterly,” Shumate said. “Then there was ‘Summer Scene,’ an annual publication that told you about fun things to do during the summer. We took those three and combined them into one.” Publisher Chuck Wells, who was the advertising director during the time of the change, said the three previous publications had lost their “newness” with advertisers and, consequently, began losing ad revenue.
The publications “were also very narrow in focus, which limited our audience and potential advertiser base,” Wells said. “It also allowed the reps to focus on one publication rather than three, which improved sales pressure and focus.
“The publication is producing more revenue than the others combined, and production, editorial and sales costs are a third of what they were before we made the change,” he said.
Shumate said Enjoy!, which launched in March 2007, has been one of the more successful special sections for the newspaper. To keep ad costs attractive and at a reasonable rate for businesses in The Republic’s market, Shumate said the newspaper opted to print the inside pages of the magazine on premium high bright stock, instead of glossy. The inside portion of the publication is printed at a sister newspaper’s facility, and the glossy covers are outsourced to a vendor, Shumate said. Typically, the magazine is between 44 and 60 pages long.
Enjoy! is distributed four times a year—March, June, September and December—as an insert inside the Thursday newspaper, which is one of The Republic’s higher circulation days, Shumate said. Choosing to distribute the magazine as an insert also saved on postage, Wells said. For Internet users, Enjoy! is also available as a virtual magazine on The Republic’s Web site, TheRepublic.com.
Inside
Enjoy! features a wide variety of content, including home, garden, health, fitness, travel, recreation and finance stories. Doug Showalter, special publications editor for The Republic, said the magazine hasn’t made many changes since its inception but tries to feature the same types of stories in each edition.
“We still try to touch on certain things in every issue,” he said. “We have an outstanding-home feature, home and garden content, health and fitness stories and travel—things you can go to within a day’s drive. There’s finance- and recreation-type stuff—those kinds of areas. No profiles; more lifestyle content.”
Past features have included cooking with tofu, visiting Nashville, Ind., and making holiday cards. Because the magazine is quarterly with spring, summer, fall and winter issues, Showalter said many of the stories are seasonal.
For the featured home article that runs in every issue, Showalter said finding houses to write about can be difficult. One way Showalter gets story ideas is from reader feedback.
“Occasionally, we get suggestions like, ‘You should do this house,’” he said. “For the [home] we’re doing now, I asked the local interior decorator. He had just finished decorating this house, and it turned out nice. We have a couple homes that are visible and are on busy streets and everyone says, ‘I’d like to see what’s inside that place.’ I also will just ask people if they know of any.”
Showalter said that although most of the homes featured in the magazine are large and upscale, newspaper staff tries to present the content in a way that is appealing to a general audience since Enjoy! is distributed inside the newspaper.
For the most part, local stringers and freelancers write the editorial content, Showalter said, adding that The Republic’s Special Publications Department is responsible for editing, layout and design.
“Our Special Publications Department is very small,” he said. “I might write a story here or there. I have a pool of maybe six or seven [stringers] I use regularly. I try to assign stories to writers to play to their strengths.”
For photos, Showalter said he submits requests to The Republic’s photo editor, and he gives the assignments to either staff photographers or freelancers. Showalter said stock art is also used in the magazine.
Advertisers
Enjoy! attracts many different types of advertisers, Shumate said. She said companies that specialize in home improvement—kitchen countertops and cabinetry businesses or home improvement stores—see results by advertising in the magazine. Shumate said a furniture store always advertises on the back cover, and restaurants, banks and Realtors have also run advertisements in the magazine.
Advertisers are “trying to reach people in a higher income bracket, people in the 35 to 55 age group,” Shumate said. “It’s for men and women both; I’d say it’s about 50/50. For example, in the last issue, we had a story about making your own home brew. We try to not just appeal to women.”
Advertisers can connect with these readers through quarter-, half- and full-page ads, Shumate said. An advertising package is available that offers businesses the opportunity to advertise throughout the year in each of the four issues.
“We do try to secure an annual contract, a four-times-a-year contract,” Shumate said. “So a lot of the advertisers appear in every issue. We have two different rates—a contract rate and an open rate. Color is included in all of the ad rates.”
About 35 percent of the advertisers in Enjoy! are using the annual-contract option, she said. With the annual package, Shumate said the newspaper is flexible in offering advertisers different ad-size combinations depending on which seasons they want more or less exposure. She said the spring and summer issues tend to be larger with more gardening and outdoors-related advertisers wanting to get their ads in front of readers.
“We had one person who did a one-time, half-page ad—a landscaping company—and they said after the ad ran, they booked 13 jobs,” she said.
However, advertising in Enjoy! has fallen off a little with the sluggish economy. Advertising in Enjoy! is viewed as more of a branding-type message, which Shumate said advertisers are scaling back from and instead doing more call-to-action-type advertising.
“The first issues were strong and successful, and then it started waning a little bit,” she said. “After the elections, there were some local layoffs in the area. We’ve probably seen about a 20 to 25 percent drop since the earliest issues that were the most successful.”
As a way to attract advertisers in the tough economy, Shumate said the newspaper has offered companies specials, such as getting the annual contract rate without signing a contract. “Of course, we don’t want to do that, but we have,” she said.
Ultimately, Shumate said Enjoy! will make it through the tough times and bounce back to its previous advertising revenues.
“The way it’s positioned in the market, it will sustain itself,” she said. “We’re not that far from our goal as far as advertising revenue is concerned, so that says a lot given this economy.”
Contact: Sharon Shumate, sshumate@therepublic.com; Chuck Wells, cwells@therepublic.com; Doug Showalter, dshowalter@therepublic.com
To view the June 2009 and Fall 2007 editions of Enjoy!, click here.
Such was the case with “Enjoy!,” a quarterly lifestyle magazine created by The Republic, a 21,500-circulation daily newspaper located in Columbus, Ind.
Sharon Shumate, the advertising director for The Republic, said combining two quarterly publications with one annual special section resulted in “one robust publication.”
“There was ‘Your Home, Inside & Outside’; there was a health and fitness magazine called ‘Smart Living’—these were both quarterly,” Shumate said. “Then there was ‘Summer Scene,’ an annual publication that told you about fun things to do during the summer. We took those three and combined them into one.” Publisher Chuck Wells, who was the advertising director during the time of the change, said the three previous publications had lost their “newness” with advertisers and, consequently, began losing ad revenue.
The publications “were also very narrow in focus, which limited our audience and potential advertiser base,” Wells said. “It also allowed the reps to focus on one publication rather than three, which improved sales pressure and focus.
“The publication is producing more revenue than the others combined, and production, editorial and sales costs are a third of what they were before we made the change,” he said.
Shumate said Enjoy!, which launched in March 2007, has been one of the more successful special sections for the newspaper. To keep ad costs attractive and at a reasonable rate for businesses in The Republic’s market, Shumate said the newspaper opted to print the inside pages of the magazine on premium high bright stock, instead of glossy. The inside portion of the publication is printed at a sister newspaper’s facility, and the glossy covers are outsourced to a vendor, Shumate said. Typically, the magazine is between 44 and 60 pages long.
Enjoy! is distributed four times a year—March, June, September and December—as an insert inside the Thursday newspaper, which is one of The Republic’s higher circulation days, Shumate said. Choosing to distribute the magazine as an insert also saved on postage, Wells said. For Internet users, Enjoy! is also available as a virtual magazine on The Republic’s Web site, TheRepublic.com.
Inside
Enjoy! features a wide variety of content, including home, garden, health, fitness, travel, recreation and finance stories. Doug Showalter, special publications editor for The Republic, said the magazine hasn’t made many changes since its inception but tries to feature the same types of stories in each edition.
“We still try to touch on certain things in every issue,” he said. “We have an outstanding-home feature, home and garden content, health and fitness stories and travel—things you can go to within a day’s drive. There’s finance- and recreation-type stuff—those kinds of areas. No profiles; more lifestyle content.”
Past features have included cooking with tofu, visiting Nashville, Ind., and making holiday cards. Because the magazine is quarterly with spring, summer, fall and winter issues, Showalter said many of the stories are seasonal.
For the featured home article that runs in every issue, Showalter said finding houses to write about can be difficult. One way Showalter gets story ideas is from reader feedback.
“Occasionally, we get suggestions like, ‘You should do this house,’” he said. “For the [home] we’re doing now, I asked the local interior decorator. He had just finished decorating this house, and it turned out nice. We have a couple homes that are visible and are on busy streets and everyone says, ‘I’d like to see what’s inside that place.’ I also will just ask people if they know of any.”
Showalter said that although most of the homes featured in the magazine are large and upscale, newspaper staff tries to present the content in a way that is appealing to a general audience since Enjoy! is distributed inside the newspaper.
For the most part, local stringers and freelancers write the editorial content, Showalter said, adding that The Republic’s Special Publications Department is responsible for editing, layout and design.
“Our Special Publications Department is very small,” he said. “I might write a story here or there. I have a pool of maybe six or seven [stringers] I use regularly. I try to assign stories to writers to play to their strengths.”
For photos, Showalter said he submits requests to The Republic’s photo editor, and he gives the assignments to either staff photographers or freelancers. Showalter said stock art is also used in the magazine.
Advertisers
Enjoy! attracts many different types of advertisers, Shumate said. She said companies that specialize in home improvement—kitchen countertops and cabinetry businesses or home improvement stores—see results by advertising in the magazine. Shumate said a furniture store always advertises on the back cover, and restaurants, banks and Realtors have also run advertisements in the magazine.
Advertisers are “trying to reach people in a higher income bracket, people in the 35 to 55 age group,” Shumate said. “It’s for men and women both; I’d say it’s about 50/50. For example, in the last issue, we had a story about making your own home brew. We try to not just appeal to women.”
Advertisers can connect with these readers through quarter-, half- and full-page ads, Shumate said. An advertising package is available that offers businesses the opportunity to advertise throughout the year in each of the four issues.
“We do try to secure an annual contract, a four-times-a-year contract,” Shumate said. “So a lot of the advertisers appear in every issue. We have two different rates—a contract rate and an open rate. Color is included in all of the ad rates.”
About 35 percent of the advertisers in Enjoy! are using the annual-contract option, she said. With the annual package, Shumate said the newspaper is flexible in offering advertisers different ad-size combinations depending on which seasons they want more or less exposure. She said the spring and summer issues tend to be larger with more gardening and outdoors-related advertisers wanting to get their ads in front of readers.
“We had one person who did a one-time, half-page ad—a landscaping company—and they said after the ad ran, they booked 13 jobs,” she said.
However, advertising in Enjoy! has fallen off a little with the sluggish economy. Advertising in Enjoy! is viewed as more of a branding-type message, which Shumate said advertisers are scaling back from and instead doing more call-to-action-type advertising.
“The first issues were strong and successful, and then it started waning a little bit,” she said. “After the elections, there were some local layoffs in the area. We’ve probably seen about a 20 to 25 percent drop since the earliest issues that were the most successful.”
As a way to attract advertisers in the tough economy, Shumate said the newspaper has offered companies specials, such as getting the annual contract rate without signing a contract. “Of course, we don’t want to do that, but we have,” she said.
Ultimately, Shumate said Enjoy! will make it through the tough times and bounce back to its previous advertising revenues.
“The way it’s positioned in the market, it will sustain itself,” she said. “We’re not that far from our goal as far as advertising revenue is concerned, so that says a lot given this economy.”
Contact: Sharon Shumate, sshumate@therepublic.com; Chuck Wells, cwells@therepublic.com; Doug Showalter, dshowalter@therepublic.com
To view the June 2009 and Fall 2007 editions of Enjoy!, click here.
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| Georgia paper creates an online destination for readers |
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