Publishers: How to get involved

Editors, writers, designers and publishers are being urged to shout about the nation's love of magazines during Magazine Week via the most impactful communication channel available to them – in your magazine pages, in print and online. Individual titles are asked to display the Magazine Week logo prominently to promote the Week and to show all magazines working together as an industry to promote the category.

The Magazine Week strap line is "Indulge your passion... try another magazine today"

The key messages are:

• A magazine provides a chance to escape, be informed, be inspired or simply to relax
• Magazine Week is a great opportunity to "kick back" and indulge your passion.
• From camping to cooking, fly-fishing to fashion, music to mountain biking there is a magazine for every passion, hobby or pastime.
• There will be all kinds of activities and organised events throughout Magazine Week 2008, including the UK's first ever in-store promotion across all magazines by national retail chain Borders, special offers, and on-line polls, all designed to encourage you to take time out and really explore the UK's enormous range of magazines.
• Taking place during the National Year of Reading, Magazine Week also aims to help raise awareness of the value of reading, particularly for children and teenagers.

Here are just a few examples of how magazines achieved this last year:

Branding – on the front cover, in-mag & on websites

Editors are urged to shout about the Week in their one-on-one time with the reader, a great way to explain what the Week is all about and to remind readers why magazines are that perfect, affordable luxury!

Editors Letters

Editorial

Websites are a great way to promote Magazine Week. Publishers are urged to explain Magazine Week to their readers and encourage them to visit the Magazine Week site to vote on their favourite cover of all time. E-mail newsletters with a link to the voting page are a great way of reaching consumers.

The Great Cover Debate, a search to find the nation's favourite ever UK magazine cover is a key part of the Magazine Week PR strategy.

Drive your readers to the Magazine Week consumer website to vote in the Great Covers Debate using a link from your own site.

All magazine brands are encouraged to create excitement among their readership to vote for the cover that best associates with their genre.

We would like to drive traffic to the website from the beginning of August right up to Magazine Week and encourage brand communities to debate and blog on their favourite covers.

Borders, the magazine, book and music retailer, will support Magazine Week with a fully funded Buy One Get One Half Price (BOGOHP) offer during the Week. This will be backed up by a series of in-store events in all 41 UK stores, on each of the seven days of Magazine Week – totalling 287 events!

Members of the public will come into closer contact with their favourite magazines in activities ranging from meet-the-editor question & answer sessions and practical workshops related to specific interest categories, through to children's activity days and magazine-related quiz nights.

Magazine publishers are urged to get creative and to host their own event in a Borders store. Please contact Kate McElroy with your proposals (kate.mcelroy@ppa.co.uk / 020 7400 7529). Importantly, tell your readers about these Borders events!

'Me Time' is a poll to find out where consumers read their magazines.

A poll on the Magazine Week website will ask the question: "Where do you kick back and read your favourite magazine?"

Consumers will be encouraged to say where they read their favourite magazine. It would be great if publishers could ask their readers this same question (either in-mag or online) and then feed back any quirky or interesting responses into the central Magazine Week PR collective which will help create some excitement and PR. Please contact Kate McElroy with any activity you are planning (kate.mcelroy@ppa.co.uk / 020 7400 7529).

The consumer side of the Magazine Week website will contain a full directory of UK consumer magazines. A key part of this directory is the ability for consumers to try each magazine through a digital sample before deciding to go out and buy it. Converting your titles is completely free! Please visit the trade home page to see how easy it is to create your digital edition!

Activity is taking place in most major retailers and this will start becoming available to book from the beginning of July. Circulation teams are urged to work with their distributors to make the most of the special in-store promotions which will be supported by the heavyweight Magazine Week PR. Keep checking this site for more information!

Magazine Week's major aim is to promote the sheer range of magazines available in the UK today. Use the industry branded shop save initiative 'Just Ask' online and in-mag to remind customers that they can order their magazine from any local newsagent, if it is not already on the shelves.

Visit http://www.ppa.co.uk/cgi-bin/wms.pl/810 for more information and downloadable artwork for 'Just Ask'.

This is a real opportunity for publishers to co-ordinate their own subs activity to make the most of the 'magazine noise':

• Use the Magazine Week logo in all communications.
• Create targeted offers to run in and around the Week
• Use the Magazine Week hook in all communications - INDULGE YOUR PASSION: TRY ANOTHER MAGAZINE TODAY. This could also be adapted for use used in gift subscription activity – SHARE YOUR PASSION: BUY A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION TODAY .
• Promote the whole idea of the gift subscription for family and friends.
• Make some of your most creative offers on your websites and carrier sheets during Magazine Week. Some ideas publishers are looking at include:
  • Incentives for multiple purchasing – BOGOFs / Buy One Get One Half Price / etc
  • Focus on gift subscriptions - Buy One Get a Gift Sub Free / Buy One Get a Gift Sub at Half Price / etc
  • Entry into a prize draw for gifts, holidays, events, special reader days, special reader visits to the magazine office, etc.
  • Use shorter term offers to stimulate trial and sampling
  • Talk to online subscription shops such as 3PM and iSubscribe to tie in with any promotions they may be running
• Whenever possible, refer to Magazine Week activity which is summarised on the Magazine Week website, but especially THE GREAT COVERS DEBATE.

Publishers can use carrier sheets, emails, e-newsletters and in-magazine ads to drive traffic to their own websites for these special subscription offers.

PPA is asking all industry members to really throw their weight behind Magazine Week to make it a strong impactful awareness campaign. PPA is specifically urging all publishers' PR and Communications teams to promote Magazine Week within their businesses and to generate excitement and support internally. Download a presentation to brief your team about Magazine Week: www.magazineweek.net/downloads.

An e-newsletter will be sent centrally from PPA to keep all areas of the industry up to date on activity plans and to give some ideas for involvement. Internal communications teams are asked to tailor this newsletter to their business and to push it out internally to a full list of contacts.

Email sign-offs are another great way to communicate the initiative – download a signature from www.magazineweek.net/downloads.

Additionally, all industry members are asked to spread the word within their teams so that everyone working in this industry can channel their passion for magazines into something tangible for readers.

PPA is asking all member companies to nominate a named contact to champion Magazine Week within their business. Please email names to Kate McElroy on 020 7400 7529 or on kate.mcelroy@ppa.co.uk.

Stunts are a fabulous, quirky, impactful way to grab the media's attention and to raise awareness of your magazine brands. Use your imagination to really go to town. The editors' photo shoot last year was just one way to have some fun and make a statement about our industry. Future Publishing handed out magazines in the centre of Bath to raise awareness for their magazine brands and remind residents that there are some great magazines being published right on their doorstep! Be as original as you can – the sky's the limit!

The Magazine Week team are really keen to keep a central tracker of all activity being created in support of the Week. Please keep us informed of your plans. Email kate.mcelroy@ppa.co.uk, your support really is appreciated!