Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Best Practice Cases
these agencies have been exposed to digital editions, so they were quick to
embrace GradLife as a desirable publication.
o The bad news is that the ad production process for digital editions is
identical to the process for print ads, but digital edition ads are typically
handled out of agencies’ online departments, where processes for Web site
ads are completely different. So there is a learning curve that ad agencies
must still climb.
� In the future, Cartwright would like to see more interactive content in GradLife
– more video, more animations, especially in advertisements. The bottleneck to
growth in rich media is both on the creative side — producing the content — and
in getting ad agencies to sell it to employers. But she believes that more rich
media will come naturally as an outgrowth of the rise in video podcasts and
other user-generated media.
� YUDU’s new self-publishing service will allow GradPlus to consider developing
customized editions for students seeking careers in popular fields such as
accounting, education, or health services.
Gilbane Group Conclusions
� GradPlus’s experience shows the value of thinking about a digital edition’s place
in an overall strategy of reaching a company’s audience. There is a place and
purpose to each of GradPlus’s ways of connecting its advertisers with its
audience, with minimal overlap. GradPlus’s array of offerings to its advertisers
approaches the breadth and synergy that the best B-to-B publishers can offer its
clients through publications, events, market research, etc.
� GradPlus’s decisions about what content to put on its Web site versus the
GradLife digital edition and targeted emails are optimized to increase reach and
reader loyalty for its advertisers. It is clear that GradPlus would not be able to
achieve this same level of reader loyalty with a Web site alone. GradPlus’s canny
mixture of approaches should serve as a model for other publishers that
combine directory-like information with editorial content.
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