My industry
is magazine publishing. The NAICS code is 51112.
According
to IBISWorld the definition is:
This
industry produces and distributes magazines and periodicals in print and
online. However, publishers that exclusively sell online magazines or
periodicals are excluded from this industry.
Just like you said in your description, your business model is pretty straight forward. Your selection of NAICS code supports this. You discuss your plan to create a print publication, but I wanted to see if you also have a plan to provide this magazine as an online magazine as well, and to develop your email marketing and social media presence.
ReplyDeleteI also work for Charleston's Oblique Magazine (www.obliquemagazine.com) as a regular contributor and have also sold advertising for them. I would be happy to talk with you about what I have learned over the years.
A few insights I have are that you have to focus on the advertisers. They are your real customers since they are the ones who are paying you. It doesn't matter how great the content in the magazine is if you don't have advertisers willing to pay for advertising.
Advertisers also like to see numbers. This is tough with a physical magazine other than circulation rates. Adding a highly trackable source for statistics such as an online version of your print mag and/or email marketing will boost those numbers advertisers want to see. Potential advertisers will also ask you about social media.
I highly recommend sitting down with a few sales people who sell advertising for a living and listen to their sales pitches. You may want to choose the same niche but different city, and/or your potential competitors. While there may not be anyone directly advertising to your particular niche, they are still your future competition. For example, Oblique is a fitness publication, but our competition is Skirt Magazine, Charleston City Paper, and Mount Pleasant Magazine. If you google those other publications and compare them, they seem to be worlds apart, but we lose and gain advertisers to/with those publications all the time.
Sit down with the sales people from the local news stations too. This will give you a REALLY good insight into exactly what I mean about selling "eyeball statistics" to your potential customers (advertisers). It will also shift your perspective on just how much the news in general exaggerates... they have a lot of motivation to sensationalize stories because the "crazier" the story, the more "eyeballs". The more eyeballs, the more $$$ they can sell their ads for.
I know this is a lot of info, but I've learned a lot during my time working with the publisher. Speaking working with a publisher, one of the best pieces of advice someone from SCORE gave me was to work in the industry I am looking at starting a business in. The idea of intentionally sitting down with my competitor's sales force gives me an icky feeling, but for this particular industry I can't see any better way of truly assessing not only the competition, but also the potential advertisers.
Margaret, sounds like your NAICS code is right on target.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting about your idea is that you might have an opportunity to appeal to a very unique set of advertisers - people interested in selling to minority groups in a specific regional geographic area. While there are likely national publications that fit this profile, there likely are few, if any, that have a state or regional focus.
There may be an opportunity to replicate this model in multiple regions once you've sort of established this first one. The more tuned in and connected you are to your audience, the better.
Of course, as with any publication, the name of the game is eyeballs. You need subscribers to attract advertisers, and advertisers don't want to pay, unless you have the eyeballs.
Best of luck!
Todd
Marget,
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't your concept also fit into the 519130 NAIC code?
Because the 519130 code is for Internet publishing, which is only a subset of my venture which I will explore later. My main interest is in the print publication, which falls under the 51112 NAIC code. Thanks for the question. That does remind me that I am dealing with two codes.
Delete