Business media whitepaper from Magazines Canada looks at good operations and practice

Magazines Canada has released its second business media whitepaper, Planning for Growth Across a Turbulent Horizon. The whitepaper (authored by John Milne and me) is the outcome of a recent Business Media Leadership Summit held north of Toronto a couple of months ago. The document intends to capture the essence of presentations made, questions asked and the informal discussions which resulted.

Last year's summit resulted in a white paper which looked at how business media reflected economic health and the pace of change.  This second one places its emphasis on what constitutes good business media operations and practice. It shares the participants "life learnings" and discusses such topics as dealing with agencies, the efficacy of paywalls, multi-platform sales challenges, resourcing online teams and preparing magazines for sale and evaluating acquisition opportunities. 

A sample of the white paper's observations:

"In the good old days, multi‐platform sales consisted of a couple of pages and a few online ads. Today they can include contests; events; sponsorships; e‐newsletters; social media; specialty tools; analytics; corporate journalism; native advertising – the list is an evolving and constantly expanding one. Respecting this and instilling this respect in your sales and entire publishing team is the first and most important step toward success."