Design/Publishing/Trends
Well-crafted Member Stories Add Value
In association publishing, two of the most important things are reaching members on a level that helps them see value (and renew their membership!) and inspiring them to continue interacting with the association. Just think if every member read every issue, renewed year after year and shared their positive experiences with a colleague, membership and readership would climb exponentially. And a growing readership, as we all know, garners more advertisers to support and enhance the association’s communications. Oftentimes though, we get caught up in the association news (data, conferences, etc.) and we forget how valuable the members are to each other. Their common...
Read MoreAssociation Outsourcing Study
Monarch Media is made of 100-percent, association-experienced staff. Yep, we worked the long hours, wore more hats than we could count, and delivered a range of member services and benefits from trade shows and conferences to publications. And it was with this knowledge that Monarch Media was born. We looked at associations from the inside and decided that specialized and dedicated third-party vendors were needed — those who would help association staff to deliver superior member services. According to the recent article published by Associations Now, roughly 80 percent of associations are looking to outside vendors to help accomplish their missions. This data...
Read MoreCover-worthy Association Milestones
If your association has a magazine, how do you choose what goes on the most-viewed piece of your media outreach–your cover? Oftentimes it’s determined by the culture of your organization, your membership, your leadership, and publisher. Some organizations put smiling member faces on the cover each issue. Some choose a concept cover. Many choose a mix, but how often do you celebrate and commemorate your organization’s milestones on the cover? Joe Rominiecki explores associations’ cover decisions regarding membership in his recent article, “What Your Magazine Cover Says About Membership” for Associations Now. He writes,...
Read MoreFlipBoard: Celebrating a Custom, Niche Experience
How do you get your news? Well, I like to read about business, lifestyle, performance art, photography, parenting, and politics (not always in that order!) Though I still receive and read the newspaper, I find joy in the custom experience that is FlipBoard. Celebrating five years and tremendous growth, I am not the only one. BGR.com calls it a content revolution. And it is. BGR’s article, “Inside a Content Revolution Five Years in the Making,” looks back with FlipBoard creators to see how far the idea has come. In the article, Founder Mike McCue says, “It was this notion of a social or personal magazine you could customize. We still believe, at...
Read MoreClip Happy with Issuu Clip
Issuu, a top online publishing software company, released a new feature today that has us clipping with joy! Check out this short video to see the new clipping tool in action. Issuu Clip lets you share and comment on any part of a publication that inspires you. Readers can select and share any piece of content from within a publication, dramatically extending its reach as readers distribute the content they love across their individual social networks. This means audiences will grow as new readers discover publication clips on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more. I tried it using The Modern Jewish Wedding’s 2013 e-magazine and I have to say it’s...
Read MorePrint Versus Digital – Can you have one without the other?
Do I need a digital offering for my publication? We get this question when talking with our association clients, and I happened upon a good pros and cons list on OmniPress. Daniel de la Cruz sums it up nicely. The most basic explanation to this question is this: Readers consume information differently, so having multiple options will reach across preferences, demographics and generations. Some information is better suited for print and other for digital, but have a nice mix of both. How do you determine which data is better received in print versus digital? Survey! As de la Cruz says, “Use surveys to gain understanding of how your membership prefers to consume content.”...
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