How one magazine is successfully making the transition across the globe
Unless they have been living in a cave or are an extreme anomaly, most print publishers in the US have been making the transition to the Internet. That transition into the unknown has baffled many publishers, but those who were willing to work through trial and error eventually found an effective strategy. The others are still floundering.
Computerworld has been bringing its 63 international publications online for several years—and succeeding. According to IDG Founder and Chairman Pat McGovern, Computerworld’s online branches are generating
- About 35 percent of its total revenue in the US,
- About 25 percent in China,
- About 18 percent in European countries, and
- 100 percent of its total revenue in South Korea, where Computerworld has ended its print magazine.
So, how are they doing it? How has Computerworld managed to coax its audience from across the globe onto the Internet, where the profit margins are so much wider? The answer: unique and timely content.
Computerworld understands that the Internet is not merely for making magazine content more available, McGovern said.
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“Online, it’s immediate. Every story that we prepare that’s worthy of interest to our audience, we put immediately online so that more and more of the readers come and get anything that’s the latest breaking news online…”
“And then the print is more or less a summary of technology trends, application stories, best practices in management, more [like] case studies tend to be, stories of 1,500 words or more,” McGovern said.
This brilliant strategy is not the only contributor to Computerworld’s success. To learn how Computerworld’s website, marketing and product strategies managed to generate millions of unique visitor counts per month, read the Mequoda Computerworld Case Study.
