Maeban publisher to move all titles online
THE publisher of Maeban magazine aims to roll out the digitisation of its remaining magazine titles for online audiences and revenue generation, following the successful transformation of Maeban and Nylon early this year.
“We decided to stop selling the physical edition of Nylon fashion magazine in December, as we believed revenue from online advertising would compensate for lost income from the traditional approach,” Pongsiri Hetrakul, a publisher at Maeban Publishing , said yesterday.
Before the decision to stop distributing the physical edition of Nylon, revenue from traditional advertising and sales accounted for 50 per cent, with the remainder coming from digital media and event organising, he said.
Once the publication was fully transformed to the online platform, revenue from digital advertising and sponsoring had already covered traditional income, as advertisers and sponsors believe in quality content and target groups, he explained.
“Our key marketing strategies, that have been satisfied by advertisers and sponsors, include community-building to engage with target audiences, in line with content marketing,” Dujduan Hetrakul, another publisher at the company, said.
Nylon’s digital performance recently hit more than 2.47 million weekly reaches, she said.
In terms of content-marketing strategy, the company’s own original work accounts for about 60 to 70 per cent of its content, sponsored and branded content about 30 per cent, with the remainder being shared content from other sites.
Dujduan said that apart from cost management, another reason to discontinue the physical edition of its titles was that today’s audience needed two-way communication – a requirement that the traditional format could not meet.
Nylon is following the success path of the company’s flagship magazine, Maeban, which has a strong position in the fields of cuisine and women’s lifestyle, she said.
Maeban selects cuisine and cooking tips as its key content for online platforms, she said, adding that Maeban.com has become a food community that welcomes more than 50,000 online visitors a day.
For this year, the company is putting more effort into developing content – particularly video content – for TimeOut Bangkok, a free-copy magazine, Dujduan said.
The online version is expected to provide about three video clips a day to drive audience engagement.
She said the digital-transformation strategy would also apply to other publications under Maeban Publishing’s umbrella – Pradid Pradoy, Weekend and Agriculture Mag – as those magazines each had their own strong audience base and would therefore also be able to create online communities.
The company expects its digital strategy will result in an increase of at least 30 per cent in revenue this year, mainly driven by online income and event-organising related to content in each publication.
