September always makes us happy. No, it’s not because the kids go back to school, but because it’s the start of a new fashion year. And that means fashion publishers pull out all the stops to create memorable issues.
Several publishers have already announced plans to turn out record-setting September issues, and InStyle is joining the party with what it is calling a “mega-issue,” according to Tanya Dua at Digiday.
“The magazine is celebrating with a mega-issue, with six-time cover girl Julia Roberts gracing its front– it’s biggest yet with 708 pages and 485 ad pages,” Dua writes.”
She notes that the publisher is also rolling out a microsite and will be using SnapChat to communicate with its younger and hipper readers.
“In the fashion publishing world, our biggest secret is who’s on the cover of our September issue,” Angela Matusik, the executive digital editor at InStyle, told Digiday, adding that SnapChat was the perfect platform for sharing a special secret with a special audience. While Seventeen was the first magazine on the platform last December, InStyle is the first magazine to be launching an issue cover on it, notes Dua.
It’s a multi-channel approach that seems to be working for the magazine, which tallied a 40% bump last year in online platform visits according to their comScore results.
“Our overarching strategy is to deliver our content to a wider audience by meeting our reader wherever she is,” Matusik said. “On a tactical level, that means always playing to each platform’s strength and delivering our content in a way that gives our audience what they want, when they want it and in the format that is easiest to consume on the given medium.”
The brand has been successful in getting celebrities to help with their social marketing, with Drew Barrymore launching her own Twitter debut via an InStyle chat. Long associated with red carpet coverage, InStyle’s social media presence makes a logical tie-in to support sales of the print magazine.
Even with their intense focus on social media, they haven’t neglected their core business: selling print magazines. And the mega-issue, all 708 pages of it, is proof of print’s enduring and classic style.
We congratulate InStyle on 20 years in this business, and look forward to all those great September issues hitting the newsstands shortly.