Gay News Publishers Need To Adjust Strategy Or Risk Extinction

[Scott Abel]

In this day and age, publishers of traditional gay and lesbian media need to rethink their strategies -- and quickly. The old school way of doing business no longer works. The Christian Science Monitor ceased printing a paper-based version of the daily news, opting instead for online-only daily news with weekly print magazines published for special purposes only. In addition, numerous US newspapers have filed for bankruptcy in the last year. And magazines are next in line.

In addition to technological advancements -- making content portable, platform agnostic and device-independent -- publishers of gay magazines can help avoid extinction by providing new-and-improved services and thinking outside the traditional publishing box. The first change that is needed is to make the subscriber the center of their universe. Subscribers are the bread and butter of the magazine industry. Without us, they can't sell advertising, their primary revenue source.

Making the subscriber the center of the business model can't be accomplished by lip-service. Just saying your customers come first isn't good enough anymore. Actions speak much louder than words and it is apparent to most that publishing hasn't been about subscribers, it's been about advertisers -- and it's failed miserably. Making the subscriber the focus of your business model means making the online magazine website the hub of all activity -- with the user profile at the center of this new model. Adding social media applications, content widgets that make content sharing easier, and enhancing the user experience by adding more interactive elements, are all good steps in the right direction.

But, not all magazine publishing problems are technology-oriented. Take magazine prescriptions, for example. If you subscribe to OUT or The Advocate in print format, and during your subscription period, you move in with your partner, how does one "marry" your print subscriptions? The answer today is "you don't". And, if you can, the publishers are doing a poor job of making it apparent -- and easy -- to do so.

Instead, publishers should create an easy way to merge two people's accounts into one. For example, Brad has one month left on his one year OUT subscription and his partner Larry has 10 months. Why not allow them to merge their print subscriptions into one and thus end up with one 11 month subscription? While merging the two accounts, the magazine could offer an extended subscription offer and hopefully earn some additional revenue.

Of course, in order to do this, you need to make the subscriber the center of the business model. On Facebook, for example, you can associate your profile with your partner's through the "relationship status" functionality ("Scott is in a relationship with Roger"). And, if you break up, you can just as easily "disassociate" your profiles.

That's useful and beneficial to subscribers. But, there's an even bigger benefit to publishers. If you take time to learn about and know your subscribers, you'll begin to build a relationship with them, learning about their situation as they disclose more (and interact with the site and related content). As you learn, you can offer them marketing messages from advertisers that are relevant -- for products and services people need when they merge two homes into one (or break one home into two). And, when gay marriage is legalized (and thus, gay divorce), these publications will find themselves in a marketing goldmine, being able to be the first point of contact for many companies hoping to reach newlywed gays and/or recently divorced/separated couples.

And, if you made the user profile the center of the business relationship, you could deliver relevant, customized news content dynamically. Both user=generated content and content created by the magazine's paid staff. This is the wave of the future, and one reason Google filed a patent application on personalized newspaper technology in 2006.

Once the shift to subscriber-focused publishing is complete, why stop there? Publishers could purchase (or hell, create their own) dating services, provide rating services (for people, news, and products), and a whole host of other services, each a potential revenue-maker. After all, if you know your subscribers and have a trust-based relationship with them they'll be inclined to participate in new services you launch. Imagine the possibilities of being matched with potential partners (or just friends) who like the same music and news articles as you do -- all possible today, but not being implemented, unfortunately -- yet!

As a content management strategist with experience helping global organizations make difficult changes in the way they create, manage, and deliver content, I see this approach work for publishers who are willing to think differently and let go of the "we've never done it that way here" way of thinking that does nothing to tackle the challenges publishers face today. Forward-thinking gay publications will have to adopt new strategies and refocus their efforts on interacting with subscribers, proving them valuable, relevant services based on their individual needs. Or, they'll suffer the consequences -- and will likely be replaced by some forward-thinking gay business folks with fresh new ideas that work in the socially-focused, location-aware, always-on world we live in today.