Hot Trends in Regional Magazine Revenue

BoSacks has a thing for regional titles and the people who create them.

“Each time I go a CRMA event the air is charged with excitement, brothers and sisters sitting in a conference room sharing new ideas and divergent internal employee motivational strategies,” he writes in Publishing Executive. “Every time I go I remember how much I love being there. If my career had taken another course, there is no doubt I would have been a member having started several local publications in my early career. Perhaps that is why I feel so comfortable among them. That, and the fact that CRMA members are consummate, never-say-die, scrappy entrepreneurs.”

Those scrappy entrepreneurs are killing it when it comes to new revenue sources, and they aren’t afraid to share with their cohorts in the industry, as evidenced by the discussions as the recent City and Regional Magazine Association conference that BoSacks attended.

“They are not competing with each other, so they are completely open to the cross-pollination of ideas,” BoSacks writes, noting that we can all learn from these folks.

He shared some of the great ideas in his post:

• One local publisher hired an ice cream truck and drove it around to local advertisers to “break the ice” and build new relationships.
• Another spoke about their Festival of the Arts they are creating, selling exhibit space, VIP access and other goodies.
• Another trend is for local publishers to act as agencies for local businesses, giving them the kind of social and web presence they’d unlikely be able to manage on their own.

“I could go on but you get the idea. Publishing is alive and well and thriving at the local level and … they are not averse to risk in this changing environment,” he concludes.

We see the same thing, in regional publications that are absolutely nailing it in creative ways to grow. And while a word of caution is advised for publishers that would cross the line from being journalistically-focused to revenue driven, there is much to celebrate in the regional and city title niche.