BEATROUTE MAGAZINE AND THE STATE OF ALTERNATIVE WEEKLIES: FOLLOW UP

I wasn't able to confirm the YOY readership numbers for Fast Forward, See Magazine, and Vue Weekly because they're not measured by PMB. Instead, I had a chance to talk with Rob at Vue Weekly to get his opinion on alternative weeklies vs free transit dailies as well as Toronto/Montreal vs the West.

Rob cautioned that the alt weekly readership declines in Toronto and Montreal cannot be simply extrapolated for Calgary and Edmonton. The success of the free transit dailies back East is--not surprisingly--because of the high transit ridership in the larger cities. Its editorial is updated daily and can be picked up for free; arguably compelling alternatives against picking up an alt weekly or a paid daily.

Out West, however, the transit system is less developed and ridership much lower. Alt weekly distribution is more balanced and less dependent on heavy presence on the transit platforms. Unlike the East, the free transit dailies here are only taking away something the alt weeklies never had great success with.

BEATROUTE MAGAZINE AND THE STATE OF ALTERNATIVE WEEKLIES

I had lunch last week with Glenn from BeatRoute Magazine, a free alternative weekly/monthly which launched in 2004, to discuss publishing in the Calgary market. An independent publication is a tough business especially against all that is conglomerated and digitalized. Now with the addition of 3 free transit dailies, it'll be interesting to see how BeatRoute continues to hold up against Calgary's long-standing Fast Forward Magazine and Canada's other alt weeklies.

This year's Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) numbers show Toronto's alt weeklies undergoing double digit percentage readership declines. Eye Weekly has lost 117,000 readers since 2004 and NOW has lost 66,000 in the same period. Montreal's VOIR is down 27,000. I'll have to confirm Fast Forward and Edmonton's See Magazine and Vue Weekly numbers but regardless, readership has become more difficult to maintain.

BeatRoute, on the other hand, has aggressive plans to increase distribution. The main difference between BeatRoute and the established alt weeklies is the target demo. BeatRoute focuses on the younger 16-24 year olds while Fast Forward's editorial has grown with its readers who are now 25-44. With the introduction and wide adoption of free transit dailies targeting the 18-54, Fast Forward and most other alt weeklies have been hit the hardest.

In Calgary, Fast Forward will continue to have the more affluent audience but I think BeatRoute has something better to offer against a harder-to-reach youth audience. We'll see.

MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN CONVERSATIONAL MEDIA

With experience from past projects and points taken from Joseph Jaffe's new book, Join the Conversation, I've broken down the marketing opportunities within conversational media into the following:

1. Low Engagement: Advertise in the Conversation (Banner Ads)
2. Medium Engagement: Catalyze the Conversation (Sponsorships, Product Pages, Contests)
3. High Engagement: Start the Conversation (Community-Extended Content, Community-Created Content)

Conversations are brilliantly more complex than this. This breakdown, however, should make a good starting point for new marketers who have just begun to experiment with social media as well as to encourage current marketers to see the engagement benefits of thinking outside-the-banner.

For campaigns with the right resources and timing, an integrated plan might include low engagement banners advertising a medium engagement point-of-influence which prompts a high engagement response.

COMSCORE INTRODUCES CONVERSATIONAL MEDIA REPORTS

Last September, comScore added Conversational Media as a new category in its digital measurement suite. This category focuses specifically on blogs and social networking sites (but unfortunately, leaves out video sharing sites). Casey Jones, VP Marketing at Dell is quoted in comScore's press release:

"The most insightful marketers in the world have always recognized that building a great brand starts with a conversation and succeeds based on the quality of that conversation -- conversations with customers, potential customers, influencers, the press, and the supply and demand chain. Everyone. It’s only now, in this time, that technology has enabled our marketing ears to become finely tuned. We hear things that were never audible to us. Our customers hear us, even our whispers, in high-fidelity surround sound. It is time for new tools that allow all of us to measure and understand the value and the impact of those conversations."

As the familiarity of online social networks and interactions begin to hit critical mass, even the most conservative marketers are asking the right questions -- but are they ready to practice the best answers?