ne media sector that appears well placed to ride out the recession is customer magazine publishing. A report published by Mintel in January 2009, predicted that the industry across the UK will grow by 15% to £1.1bn by 2012. Much of this success is down to the compelling evidence that magazines can make far more cost-effective marketing tools than advertising or direct mail.
However, the predominance of public sector organisations in Scotland means that most publishing contracts here are awarded via open tenders organised by procurement departments.
But do these procurement methods really ensure that the client secures best value? And if not, how could the process be improved? Alan Ramsay and John Innes discuss, whilst Fraser Allen explores the power of magazines as marketing tools.
Always challenge the process
Quite simply, Connect Communications wouldn't have enjoyed the growth it has in 10 years without winning contracts from the public sector - the backbone of our business. So, we're gluttons for tenders.
Well, maybe that's taking it to the extreme, but we view public sector tenders not only as a great opportunity to grow our business and take our award-winning publications to wider audiences, but to keep us on our toes creatively. After all, contracts tend to come around every two to three years and, where we're the incumbent, it's the opportunity to evolve the products and develop the relationship even further.
For example, we've now worked with the City of Edinburgh Council for nine years, most recently winning a third tender in 2008. Even in the public sector you cannot underestimate the power of a strong client/agency relationship.
But for every contract we are awarded there are plenty more opportunities out there that:
- We are not aware of
- We're occasionally precluded from on the basis of not satisfying a particular term or condition
- Have errors in them or are not aimed at our sector.
Let me tackle each point
Firstly, awareness. I commend the Scottish Government's move to market all opportunities via one portal (www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk). While it's early days, it does seem to be doing its job well. A number of opportunities have already been aimed at our industry, especially contract publishing. Let's have more where that came from please.
Secondly - preclusion. We fully support any initiative that protects the environment. But being precluded because your business doesn't have a formal EMS (Environment Management Standard), even somewhere in the supply chain, doesn't stack up.
We have our own specific environment policy that not only outlines what we do day to day to reduce our carbon footprint, but also promotes the work we do with our clients to lessen their footprints too.
It appears that this may not be good enough. Many SMEs, especially those in our industry, don't invest in such initiatives. We cannot legislate for this and nor should we be punished for it.
Finally - errors. The bureaucratic process of tendering can sometimes frustrate, especially when invitation to tender documents (ITTs) contain clauses that have no real relevance to our industry. Because of the wider move to standardise ITTs, we also come across errors from time to time. On both fronts, we took heart from a recent procurement event where a speaker from the public sector told the audience to "always challenge the tender documents you get as we recognise that not all are appropriate to your specific sector".
An honest and fair point and one we as an industry should heed!
Intelligent Design
In ten years, Think has grown from a small publishing operation with one magazine, to become one of the 15 largest agencies in the UK, with offices in London and Glasgow. Over that time we have participated in tenders on pretty much a weekly basis. We've seen them work well, broadening our clients' pool of suppliers and improving value for money, but we've also seen instances where they fail spectacularly, resulting in poor work and needlessly high price tags.
Last year we were invited to participate in a tender by a London-based governmental organisation. The project was designed to appoint a supplier to produce a monthly publication for the civil servants working within an industrial sector. The tender process was run through an online system, which called for potential applicants to answer questions on a range of financial and organisational topics. However, with a system designed for the purchase of widgets and sprockets it was almost completely unsuited to describing the job in hand or allowing participants to demonstrate a creative approach to the project. Unable to describe either our costs or creative ideas satisfactorily, we took the decision to withdraw from participation.
Without a doubt, the tenders that work best in the private sector are the ones that start with the purchaser choosing a selection of companies they like the look of, and then embarking on a process of questions, costings and presentations. The purchaser is able to mould the process to their specific requirements and the agencies can respond in a thoughtful, tailored manner to the task in hand. Ultimately the purchaser is then able to choose not only the company that they think can produce the best work, but also the one that has demonstrated an understanding and affinity with the target audience.
Of course, we understand the considerations that influence governmental organisations in their tendering requirements, and appreciate that all supplier contracts must start with a level playing field. But too often, a one-size-fits-all approach leads to poor value for money, and the appointment of companies who look good on paper but are incapable of producing paper that looks good. Tenders that receive over 500 entries are in no one's interest. Potential suppliers are wasting time developing ideas, and purchasing departments are devoting precious resources to assessing an avalanche of responses.
While subjectivity is a thorny issue in any tender process, in an industry where we are experts in motivating readers, grabbing the attention of the public, and communicating clearly, a little subjectivity can go a long way and in the end might just produce the best results.
Why is customer magazine publishing such a growth area?
Fraser Allen reports
on't you just love magazines? You know you do. You're reading this for a start. Magazines make great companions. They entertain, they tell you stuff you're interested in - and they fit in your bag. Bingo!
But could you say the same for advertising? For instance, do people look forward to and enjoy reading poster ads? No - of course not. Not unless they're mad, or work in advertising. Ads work, but on a different level. And the same applies to other marketing media. Do people rush home to spend an evening reading eagerly anticipated direct mail? Unlikely.
It is this compelling attraction that people have towards magazines that has enabled them to develop into hugely popular and effective marketing tools. Organisations of all shapes and sizes, in the private, public and voluntary sectors, have realised that they can capture the attention of their target audience much better if they provide them with a genuinely interesting magazine.
Need evidence? Outside the internet, customer magazine publishing is the only major form of marketing that is continuing to grow. Despite the recession, ABC figures released in February 2009 show that circulation figures for customer magazines rose by 16% in the previous six months. Research from Mintel now values the UK customer magazine publishing industry at £904m, and predicts it will grow to £1.1bn by 2012. In a difficult economy, this represents an area in which the Scottish publishing sector can achieve genuine growth. The biggest magazine publishing agencies are based in London, but within PPA Scotland we have highly capable agencies such as CMYK, Connect Communications and Think Publishing Scotland. My own company,
White Light Media, was ranked the second fastest-growing magazine publishing agency anywhere in the UK in last year's Marketing magazine.
So what do customer magazines achieve? Well, typical objectives might include:
- Winning new customers
- Promoting products
- Up-selling and cross-selling
- Building a brand
- Capturing data
- Catering for customers with
- special needs
- Keeping customers informed
Similar outcomes can be achieved for other target audiences, such as staff, alumni or stakeholders. And the magazine can be integrated very effectively with other marketing activity - particularly websites.
When these magazines are done well, everybody is a winner. The recipient receives something free that they enjoy and find useful. The publishing agency makes a living. And
the client benefits significantly from the positive response that the magazine generates.
But to gain maximum value from customer magazines, clients do need a basic understanding of how they work and how they differ from other forms of design services.
As Alan and John have pointed out, that means developing more intelligent public sector procurement processes that have less of an emphasis on blindly minimising cost and risk, and more of an emphasis on securing return on investment.
Similarly, the fact that there is not one magazine publishing agency on the Scottish Government's current design roster says more about the inherent shortcomings of that initiative than it does about the publishing expertise available.
People love magazines. And true marketing professionals understand how to take advantage of that.
For more information, see the Association of Publishing Agencies website at www.apa.co.uk
