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"We weren't going to play the ad game the same way that all the other magazines do," said Smith. "We're going to charge a decent amount for these subs and we're going to make the money on high renewals and a very loyal reader base, and the ads will come on top of that."
So how did The Week go about building this ever-so-loyal reader base? Smith says it began by going to the elite opinion and thought leaders across the country, getting them to read The Week and offering their own testimonials on the new publication. These testimonials would become the magazine's strongest promotional asset, as each were plastered on marketing materials, direct mail pieces and covers as well. What resulted was a sort of elite club of readers and people who subscribed to the thoughts and musings of The Week.
From a content standpoint, The Week has matched their marketing strategy with an editorial approach certainly fit for the thoughtful, opinionated readers of America. Just consider it your very own personal "presidential briefing."
"We refer to The Week as the 'presidential briefing,' because that was the original inspiration - the presidential briefing that the U.S. president gets everyday," said Smith. "And that's really been hugely successful for us, because it trickled down and I think a lot of people looked to this audience of opinion leaders and, essentially, are taking guidance from them in terms of their choice of magazines."
Not only did The Week target the thought/opinion leader audience, they micro-analyzed it, segmenting it into different categories of age, job description and locale.
"We identified D.C. as one area, political leader and national opinion leaders as one area, corporate leadership as one area and a young-up-and-comer segment as well," said Smith. "It's basically allowed us to infiltrate various segments of the opinion leader market to become, we think, one of the leading magazines in that space."
One thing readers will notice when reading The Week is that the magazine itself isn't that long, yet contains just as much, if not more, worthwhile content than its newsweekly contemporaries. It's a true testament to the importance of reader engagement, something Smith says is crucial to a magazine's success.
"We've learned that people are spending the same amount of time with The Week as they are with magazines that have three, four, five, six times the editorial content. If you broke it down into a per page attention span, people are spending two or three times as much time per page. So, if people are reading this magazine cover to cover because we're limiting the content, then we'll go with that. It's a very simple thing. We're the only magazine company that has said 'less content will mean more engagement. Less advertising will mean more engagement.'"
Years ago it used to be said that The New Republic was the in-flight magazine for Air Force One. Today, I contend that The Week should be the in-flight magazine for Air Force One and Air Force Two…after all, The Week contains "All you need to know about everything that matters."
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