Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

Working today on a slightly overdue pre-conference presentation for the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference in early July, "Student Recruitment in an Online World: Creating a Marketing Communications Plan in a World Without Paper."

In searching for relevant material, I returned again to the Noel-Levitz website at www.noellevitz.com to review a 2008 survey report on online recruiting practices and a 2007 report on what students would like to do on college websites if colleges gave them the chance to do it.

More than 50% prefer online information over print

For this presentation, the answer to one question in the 2007 report was most important: 57% of high school students headed for college would prefer to receive information about the college online rather than in print.

That can easily be a glass half-empty or glass half-full result, depending on your point of view.

From my perspective, and in keeping with an overall migration away from traditional print information sources, it means that the resources spent on print communications vs. those spent to build a stronger online effort are seriously out of wack.

Recruitment budgets don't support strong online efforts

Match that 57% answer with another from the 2008 survey: 67% of private colleges and universities reported spending less than $25,000 of their student recruitment budgets for online activities, as did almost 47% of 4-year public institutions.

Recommendation: read through the Noel-Levitz reports with your online budget and your online capability sheet close at hand. How well does your resource allocation match what future students want to do online?

That 57% figure reported above isn't going down anytime soon.

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Colgate has sent two more postcards in August... both of them focused on the opportunities to make a campus visit this fall. I'm not quite sure which arrived first, but logic tells me it might have been like this:

• A "Saturdays@Colgate" card showing that the Colgate admissions people truly do value campus visits as a key recruitment step... no less than 13 fall Saturdays are listed as available: 5 in September, 4 in October, 3 in November and a final day on December 3.

There's also a glitch here... the postcard invites registrations by phone or website visit. But the URL for the web registration leads to the front page of the university and there isn't an obvious campus visit link from that page. The search feature, however, worked well... "Saturdays at Colgate" brought up http://offices.colgate.edu/admission/Saturdays@Colgate/Saturdays@Colgate.htm 

Visit this link and you'll see the front side of the postcard and an easy to complete registration form. In an ideal world, the postcard itself would lead visitors directly to this page.

• The second postcard urges readers to "Make new friends" and lists 8 ways to do that, all involving a campus visit. Again, the website link is to the front page when it might have been to a page created especially to repeat and reinforce the message of the card.

The email newsletters also continue. The last one arrived on Saturday, September 1. An image of the "Saturdays@Colgate" postcard is included in the left hand column and when you click on it you go direct to the special "Saturdays" page above. Nicely done. With the postcard arriving before the email, the image in the newsletter reinforces the original message and likely prompts a few who haven't yet acted to plan a visit.

I'm not sure if Colgate holds a record for the number of fall weekend visit opportunities available, but it sure seems as if at 13 that might be the case. As critical as campus visits are to the recruitment process, this is a standard that everyone should try to match. Convenience for the customer. A nice thing to see.

Curiosity question: are you seeing an increase in the number of campus visitors making a first visit after sending you an application for admission?

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In blog postings and presentations, I've noted that the "traditional" viewbook (the big, beautiful, expensive publication often planned as a first inquiry response piece) is much less effective today than just a few years ago. Lots of reasons for that, but one of the most important is the reluctance of colleges to send that piece to early sophomore inquiries. In most cases, the response to people who inquire early in the recruitment cycle is still pretty weak.

Does that mean that print publications don't have a role in recruitment? Not at all.

Colgate University continues to impress me with their adaptation of print in an extended recruitment cycle. One of the things waiting for me this week when I returned from my Customer Carewords meetings in Ireland was yet another large and impressive publication from Colgate. And that made me recap what's come along from Colgate since my inquiry in May of 2006 as a high school sophomore.

Here the sequence since then:

• A 32-page photo book highligting life at Colgate over a single week, sent soon after the inquiry as the first response piece. Almost entirely photos, almost no facts.
• Early in June of 2006, the first of 14 monthly email newsletters that arrive in the first few days of each month.
• At least 12 email invitations to chat sessions have been included between early summer of 2006 and August of 2007.
• No later than September of 2006, the first of at least 9 large postcards. I suspect two or three more have escaped from my folder. The most recent was just a couple of weeks ago.
• A 64-page "viewbook" sent in September of 2006. Yes, it walks like a duck and looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. This is a viewbook, although obviously larger than most.
• A 32-page book on "Multicultural Life at Colgate" arrived early in November.
• And in early August, 2007, Colgate sent a clever twinned publication: a 40-page "This is Colgate" publication featuring the connecting "webs" that students build and the available activities with a 20-page reverse attachment at the rear featuring "Just the Facts" about the school.

Is this expensive? Of course. Is it effective marketing? Only Colgate knows the conversion rates, but I suspect that in this competitive arena it is. Colgate certainly has solved the dilemma of how to stay in touch with possible students over a three year or longer recruitment cycle and it obviously took a major investment in time and money to do that.

Not everyone needs or can afford something as elaborate as this. But everyone receiving inquries two or three years before the intended enrollment date needs to invest in an integrated print and online communication plan that says "We're glad you're interested in us" and "We really do want you to enroll here."

Note the relatively inexpensive elements here... the postcards, email newsletters, and chat invitations. Use your "traditional" viewbook money to create a strong first response piece and use that whenever a student first makes an inquiry. After that, postcards and email on a regular basis, IM for individual contact with the most serious prospects, and a really strong campus visit experience will go far to win competitive advantage for residential students in a challenging recruitment environment.

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Late on Friday afternoon and I've just finished answering 38 questions from the Writing Right for the Web conference hosted by Academic Impressions last Monday.

This question exercise is one of the benefits of a web presentation over a live one... you end up with a list of more questions than time would permit at a live session. And the questions do lead to revisions and updates for the next conference. I've done 4 web conferences now and learned from the questions from each one.

One of my favorites this time was from someone who equated the ability to reproduce print publications posted to a website as a PDF as a form of "print-on-demand." That was a new one and an interesting twist on how that term is usually used.

In the "trade," print-on-demand refers to the ability of marketers to order up professional publications from a printer as they are requested by customers or prospects. Great idea, but the key element here is that professional printers are producing the pieces. Print-on-demand was not always superior quality years ago, but today the quality can be quite high.

For me, the term just doesn't fit for what would come off a website. First of all, you won't get a bound publication when you print your PDF version of an alumni magazine. And you for sure are not going to get high quality color reproduction unless you are using photo-quality inks and papers in your printer when you demand your copy.

No, the term just doesn't fit.

To see how to put your alumni magazine on your website, visit my favorite Carleton University example at http://magazine.carleton.ca/

To learn more about what print-on-demand can do today in higher education, visit the Print on Demand Institute at http://www.podi.org/ and search for the examples listed under "Vertical Market" for "Education & Government."

The bottom line... if you want someone to have a copy of a print publication, mail it to them.

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The January 7 edition of the quarterly Education Life supplment to the NY Times seemed a good place to find out if colleges and universities are creating special landing pages to use with their advertising when they include URLs in the print ads.

Landing Pages Increase Conversion

Special landing pages can significantly increase conversion activities from people who come from an ad to your website. The landing page should repeat and reinforce the main theme of the ad. When you see a good landing page you should have a very good idea of what the original ad was all about.

The issue had 43 ads, including multiple ads by different units of several large NYC universities.

If you used an especially prominent word or phrase in your ad, what happens when somebody reading the ad comes to the front page of your website in search of more information and types the word or phrase into your search engine? Will that lead them to more information about the ad? In the "Google era" that we live in today, many people are likely to do just that.  

Can Your Search Engine Find the Content in Your Ads?

For instance, one university paid for a full page ad on the back cover of the supplement, not an inexpensive thing to do. The ad highlights high profile academic students as "shooting stars" at the school. The URL takes readers to the university's front page, where there is nothing about "shooting stars" is obvious. And typing those words into the search engine doesn't bring up any content related to the ad.

How about some good examples? I didn't check everyone of the 43 ads, but wandered from front to back and didn't find very many examples of real landing pages. The ones included ranged from good to great. All avoided the cardinal sin of abandoning visitors at a front page with no content related to the ad that brought them there.

New York University

www.nyu.edu/gsas/ma/winter07 (The best example found. The ad is what you see here, a list of available programs, with links to more information about each program and an inquiry form.)

Columbia University

www.emph.columbia.edu/t1

www.gs.columbia.edu/nyt

Metropolitan College of New York

www.mcny.edu/nyt

Iona College

www.iona.edu (Actually, the front page of the website but photos used in two ads flanking the centerfold are among those rotating on the page and the "Earn a degree that matters" is prominent on the page.)

St. John's University

www.stjohns.edu/learnmore/00683.sju

The overall impression is that there are miles to go before most people are paying careful attention to integrating advertising with website content. In other words, an element of marketing integration that isn't yet being well executed at most colleges.

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In the last few days, my secret shoppers have been receiving a plethora of online email holiday greetings and a continuing stream of postcards and brochures in the regular mail.

And yesterday, on December 20, arrived the Winter 2007 edition of "etc" magazine from Seattle Pacific University. As you might imagine, it stood out well from most of the other items received in the last couple of weeks.

Emphasis on location and jobs... and the Christian environment

Counting the covers, this is 36 pages of (mostly) stories from and about students and alumni and their experiences at Seattle Pacific. The theme for this issue is "Cool City, Cool Jobs" and the content delivers strong examples of both. Seattle, it turns out, has less rain per year than Miami, Boston, New York, and Chicago. But that probably won't change my mental image of the city.

A couple of things to note. Toward the end of the magazine, there's a listing of academic majors available and there is complete coverage of scholarship and financial aid opportunities. The scholarship information presents a clear picture of the academic achievement I'll need for various award levels. I'd like to see a URL that will get me right to a website page with another list of the majors that leads easily to more information about them.

Seattle Pacific is a Christian university and the magazine includes three articles (one about an alumni, one about a current student, one about a faculty author) that explore the impact of the faith experience. Since Christian universities vary, that's a nice mix to introduce the Christian environment at this school.

Asking for reader feedback in an email survey

Just before I checked the mail and found the magazine, an email from Seattle Pacific arrived on the same day asking me to complete a survey to help improve future issues. Sending the survey a week or so after the magazine arrived isn't a good idea for maximum response and so the timing in my case was about as close to perfect as it gets. Tricky to time it right, but this one worked.

As you think about your own contact and cultivation program for traditional student prospects, I recommend you add the Seattle Pacific magazine to your list of things to review. Do your own secret shopping when you visit http://www.spu.edu/depts/ugadm/ and take the link to the subscription form.

Seattle Pacific is friendly to high school freshmen

When you complete the form, note that the "when do you expect to start college" options extend to Autumn of 2010. That's a nice way to tell freshmen in high school that Seattle Pacific will treat their early interest seriously. While there may not be a huge number of high school freshmen getting started quite that soon, this magazine format is an strong way to include those who are asking for information at relative little extra cost. Are you doing something similar?

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No doubt about it, Colgate University continues to invest heavily in print publications in the student recruitment cycle.

So far, 3 "viewbooks" in the recruitment cycle 

The latest example was waiting for me when I returned from two weeks of pretty continuous travel, so let's set the arrival date as early to mid-November. This third major publication sent is a 32-page full color "viewbook" on "Multicultural Life" at the university. I'm using the "viewbook" term here because it approximates in size the viewbooks used my many other colleges and is far more extensive than the usual "multicultural" brochure I've seen.

Also note that this was sent to someone who did not identify himself as a "multicultural" student, just a white kid from the Midwest. And the cover letter appears to recognize that, speaking to the advantages of "diversity" at Colgate in a way that will appeal to many Millennials looking for a college that reflects a significant mix of ethnicities.

Five topics are highlighted:

• Community
• Challenge
• Involvement
• Self-discovery
• Achievement

No integration with website content

One thing about this piece struck me as strange: I didn't see a single URL in the book until the general Colgate addrsss at the end. So this one won't serve as an example of integrating print and Internet content. A website search for "multicultural" and "multicultural life" brought up references to speakers and student activity events but doesn't lead to a website content section that speaks to the same subjects as this print piece.

On another note, the monthly email newsletters that started in May continue to arrive promptly. And the postcard series continues to unfold. All in all, Colgate is maintaining a "constant contact" system that keeps the university visible without seeming intrusive.

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From time to time here, I'll write about especially interesting aspects of the viewbooks arriving in my mail as the result of competitive web reviews. Those reviews always include completing the website inquiry form and that soon bring along the print response. The proverbial "full flavor" of these isn't possible without actually having a copy. I'm recommending you add a copy of

Flying down to San Antonio for the CASE Publications Professionals meeting on Monday was a good chance to read the 52-page Worcester Polytechnic Institute viewbook that arrived in the mail a few days earlier. And to find several features worth noting that set it apart from many of the "usual" items like this.

Student stories and profiles... 34 percent of the page space

The most unique content? Three "Transformation" reports from students reporting how they changed during the WPI years from freshmen to senior. Brief, easy to read copy under three transformation headings: Global, Social Transformation, and Academic. Just a few lines for each year but the 2-page spreads make this a can't miss feature that is an unusual way to demonstrate on aspect of the "outcomes" of a WPI education. Well written. Nicely presented.

The book also includes four 2-page student profiles with large, up close portraits of each student and a modest amount of copy. Those are supplemented with three other single page profiles.

Subtracting for the front and rear covers, that's letting students tell stories in 34 percent of the book.

Direct content links from print to web

The viewbook also makes good use of direct links from key content to more of the same on the website. Did you like what you read about the Humanities and Arts project in the freshman and sophomore years? You can read about more projects at http://www.admissions.wpi.edu/Academics/projects.html

Easy to find alumni outcomes information

And most readers won't miss the four pages on "Alumni Outcomes" near the rear of the book. An unusual touch? WPI average starting salaries in six areas from Biomedical Engineering to Management Information Systems that are all above the national average for college graduates.

Quite a stack of viewbooks to read in the next 10 days. More here soon. Meantime, add WPI to your viewbook collection.

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Years ago, way back in the 1990s, I once thought that personalized printing was going to revolutionize student recruitment publications. Admissions offices would collect personal information about their inquiries early in the recruitment cycle and create specialized print contacts based on that information. That's a revolution that never happaned.

Despite the promise of higher yields from inquiry pools, the higher per person contact cost was an obstacle that very few colleges and universities were willing to undertake. It wouldn't have been as much of a challenge, of course, if the idea of smaller inquiry pools had ever caught on, but that was a concept that almost nobody would consider. Smaller inquiry pools? If you put in less at the top, wasn't it guaranteed that less would come out the bottom of the proverbial funnel?

Print on Demand Institute Best Practice Reviews

Are attitudes to "print on demand" or "personalized printing" changing in the Internet era? Time didn't permit an exploration of that topic in my presentation tomorrow on "The Evolution of Print Publications in the Internet Era" for TargetX, but a review of the Print on Demand Institute website at http://www.podi.org indicates some renewed interest.

PODI is the umbrella organization to promote digital printing. They've been working at that for many years now. One of the results is a series of "Best Practice" case studies on the use of digital printing.

PODI offers a series of best practice reports on users of digital printing services. A visit this morning shows 11 college and university examples are available. Non-members have to pay for these, but if you see one of your competitors listed that might be a wise investment.

College and University Best Practice Reports

These are the colleges and universities included for either student recuitment or fund-raising:

• Bob Jones University
• D'Youville College
• Franklin University
• Huntington University
• Kennesaw State University
• Manchester College
• Montreat College
• Northern Arizona University
• Slippery Rock University
• University of Richmond
• University of Toronto

If you want to stay up to date with the latest print-on-demand news, sign up for the PODI email newsletter when you visit the site.

Your website is a great place to ask for information to allow print personalization as people use your inquiry form. And if you're at all concerned about the impending decline in traditional-age students, it might not be too soon to start thinking this as a way to increase inquiry to applicant conversion.

Perhaps the print-on-demand revolution in student recruitment was only postponed.

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Last week I was writing about Colgate and other universities that were breaking new ground in first response communications sent to new inquiries. These revolutionary schols were abandoning the traditional viewbook as the first response piecel. Imagine my surprise this week when along came a traditional 72-page viewbook from Colgate.

In May, the 52-page photo collection

What's special about this? First, consider the investment that Colgate has made since May. First, a 52-page "24/7" photo book to introduce life at the University with photos taken by the same student photograher that signed the cover letter. Then several postcards, including the skeleton skull that Sam Jackson hated and wrote about at his blog at http://www.samjackson.org/college

Along with the photo story book and the postcards have some four monthly email newsletters that arrive right about the start of each month.

So what we have so far is an admirable and continuing contact program that clearly sends the message that Colgate is interested. Colgate's version of The Courting Game is being played with unusual intensity.

In September, the 72-page viewbook

And then arrives the viewbook. More great photogaphy, for sure, but lots of substantive information as well, including a strong "Graduation and Beyond" section.

The viewbook's existence doesn't change any of the comments in last week's posting. Colgate is  not using it as a first response piece. In this case, it is being sent to a person who made an initial inqiury in May of the sophomore year and is now starting the junior year. I haven't asked Sam Jackson what he thinks about the Colgate program. Since Sam doesn't list Colgate as one of the places he's thinking about applying to, he isn't in the target audience.

What's the target audience? Anyone with a genuine initial interest in Colgate. I'll be amazed if Colgate's visit and application yield from that group isn't higher than rivals who are not making a similar effort that starts as soon as the inquiry is received. And that should pay dividends for a university that's already in a very strong recruitment position.

Now, I'm looking forward to more monthly emails as th recruitment season unfolds.

TargetX and the Recruitment Revolution

The Colgate effort is featured in my new presentation on the evolution of print publications done for the TargetX "Recruitment Revolution" workshop that's now less than two weeks away. For details about the other sessions offered that day, visit http://www.targetx.com/workshops/index.html Still time to register and join us in Philadelphia.

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Ray Ulmer at TargetX interviewed me this week for today's "Email Minute"... and while we touched on email, most of the conversation was related to my September presentation for TargetX on the future of print publications in a world increasingly shaped by electronic recruitment steps.

Universities leading the print revolution

I'll be speaking about why the traditional viewbook designed to introduce people to a college or university late in their junior year or just before their senior year is increasingly irrelevant. Using material sent by friends at Furman University, LeTourneau University, and Seattle Pacific University who have dared to break with the traditional viewbook, we'll review the future of print in the Internet era.

It all started with sophomore just a few years ago when many of them started becoming inquiries at colleges and universities a year or so earlier than they were supposed to do that. Send them a viewbook? Then what do we do with them after that? And so most places sent little or nothing at all and that's still a common pattern. Along came the viewbook about a year after the inquiry.

How often do people tell me the yield from sophomore inquiries is poor? Do they know the value of a good first impression? Or the consequences of a bad one?

The communication challenge increased as more and more people starting sending applications for admission without ever identifying themselves as an inquiry. Websites provide all the information needed to select a list of applicant schools. Send these people a viewbook designed to introduce them to your school after you already have the application? Does that really make sense?

Magazines are hot. Viewbooks are not.

A few smart marketers have invented a new solution. For some, like Furman and Seattle Pacific, the answer is a new magazine format publication that focuses on life at the shool rather than facts and figures that are better left for the website. Done several times a year, the magazine "subscription" can begin whenever a prospect is identified. And then you have something to continue sending right through to the end of the recruitment cycle. The magazine isn't the same print quality as a view book, but it sure trumps the letter or postcard that most sophomores are likely to receive today. If they receive anything at all.

Colgate University's Photo Book

Colgate University has taken a different approach. Inquire as a sophomore and you'll receive a very high production quality photo book that takes you through life over several days at the Colgate campus. Almost no text, almost no facts and figures. Just the one thing you can do better in print than you can do on the web... use the power of great photography to engage an audience. What's the ongoing follow-up for Colgate? Since May, a well-done monthly email newsletter and a plethora of postcards.

First impressions created by first response to an inquiry are critical. How strong is yours?

More on the Recruiting Revolution

To explore more on the "new" print in student recruitment and other elements of the "Recruiting Revolution," come along to the TargetX event on September 21. Details and registraton are at http://www.targetx.com/workshops/index.html

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Man Bites Dog? 

OK, we know that Elle and Teen People earlier this year both cancelled their print magazines due to declining ad pages and thus declining profit. But online versions of both will continue.

Now comes early word in today's AdvertisingAge article that the company that last year paid more than half a billion dollars to own MySpace.com, presumably to take advantage of online advertising opportunities, is exploring the idea of creating a MySpace magazine.

The explorers, needless to say, are not quite sure the brand will transfer from web to print. No word in the article of how long it will be before a decision is made. The financial risk is said to be small.

By the way, will your college or university be a MySpace.com advertiser anytime soon?

You can read the article at http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=111469 

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"What role does the website play within the context of the entire communication strategy, e.g. magazine, broadcast?" was the big picture question from Michele during the Academic Impressions web seminar last week...

The right strategy for university websites...

"That's truly a large question. And the answer depends in part on the audience and the nature of the engagement with you at a particular time. That said, it is best to assume that the website is the core of your communication strategy in more cases than not. It is very often the first place that people will come to learn things about you. Because of this, that's why websites need to (1) profide the information you know your most important visitors want, (2) enable asking questions about that information, and (3) provide a way to engage for ongoing contact (RSS feeds, newsletters, blogs, podcasts and such).

Everything that's important to advertise in any format and everything that is highlighted in publications should have a corresponding location on your website for people who want to follow up and learn more about what they have heard in your ad or read in your publication. Consider this rule of thumb: if it is important enough to advertise about or to feature in a publication, isn't it important enough to include in a substantive way on your website? The answer should pretty much always be 'Yes.' "

A new role for print publications...

I'll be talking more about this in my presentation at the TargetX "Recruiting Revolution" workshop in September in my session on "The Evolution of Publications in an Electronic World."

Print isn't going away anytime soon, but more and more today needs it needs to be developed as part of an overall communications strategy with your website at the center. Many universities already go through an elaborate and valuable process of determining what content to highlight in print to gain audience interest. Relatively few do the same to decide what content to highlight on their websites. Universities with a true marketing orientation will lead the way in changing that and others will follow.

Join me in Philadelphia to explore why magazines are hot and view books are not.

Register for "The Recruiting Revolution"

To see the entire program and to register for the "Recruiting Revolution" visit http://www.targetx.com/workshops/index.html

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Here is another question from last week's web writing seminar for Academic Impressions.

If you've ever been to one of my web writing sessions, you know that I'm on a crusade to eliminate the practice of posting view books, alumni magazines, and annual reports on websites as PDFs if you have any expectation that a sane person is goint to read them in that format.

Take the test for yourself. If you want to see a full page, you have to view the image at about 50 percent of the full PDF size. If you want to read the text, you have to increase the size to 100 percent or more. And you have to keep doing this as you move through the view book or magazine. That's just nuts.

To top it all off, you probably paid good $$$ for the photography in the publication. In a PDF file, you usually can't see the full photograph as you are trying to read the text, or if you view the page small enough to show the full photo, you most likely can't see the detail in it.

The bottom line: just don't do it. If you are creating archives for posterity, OK. But don't post them in public where they become frustration points for someone who might be interested. Instead, repurpose the publication in a web-friendly format.

"Q: Is there merit in making pdf viewbooks available for those who want to print them and read later?"

Not in my mind. That's an incredible use of ink and only on the very best printers will the quality, especially of the photos, even be close to the quaiity in the original print version. If you want the view book to make the impression it was designed to make, send one in the mail. I just can't imagine that very many people, for instance, would want to print the Boston University view book from a website rather than have one in the mail."

For a good example of a publication done right for the web, see the Carleton University magazine at http://magazine.carleton.ca

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You'll find more than a hint of the future in "Imagining the Day when the WSJ Print Edition Folds" at adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=110685

A definite lesson for the traditional role of viewbooks is in this speculation.

There isn't a need for detailed news reports (read: detailed factual information) when that is easily available in a more up-to-date form on websites. If you think this is really silly speculation, note that WSJ now has 768,000 paying website customers.

What role for college "viewbooks" as we know them? The writer, Scott Donaton, notes a continued role for "glossy lifestyle monthlies because there's no better delivery system (yet) for their photos and stories." Yes, photos and stories. Plan now to turn your viewbooks into the equivalent of a "glossy lifestyle" publication that tells interesting and real stories about your students with the best photography possible. Do that well and your "viewbook" will have impact no matter how long the recipient has been prowling your website before it arrives.

What do you think? Life for the traditional viewbook? Or on to "lifestyle monthlies"? Add your comment.

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Teen People magazine, plagued by declining revenue from advertisers withdrawing money from the print world, is closing shop with the September 2006 issue. That follows the closing of the print version of ElleGirl earlier in the year. ElleGirl also continued the Internet version of the magazine.

Read more about it in the AdAge article at http://adage.com/article?article_id=110736 and that's open for public reading for a few more days.

Teen People subscribers slipped from 1.6 million in 2003 to 1.5 million in late 2006 and ad pages had dropped by nearly 15 percent this year.

TeenPeople.com will continue because it shows "promise and growth" according to the Time, Inc. owner. That's the same path taken by ElleGirl.

You can visit Teen People at http://www.teenpeople.com/teenpeople/ and ElleGirl at http://www.ellegirl.com/ to see the future of online teen magazines.

The shift from print to web, of course, isn't limited to teen girls. Major newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal continue to review their future in print while they bolster their online versions as more people use websites to stay up to date with news events. WSJ has nearly 800,000 paid subscribers to the online version now. Expect that number to grow.

And that reminds me that my latest Newsweek print issue was very thin indeed. Same news, fewer ads.

No grand predictions here but the marketing message seems clear. The shift of resources from print to website communications will continue. We'll have to wait and see where it stops.

Posted by Bob at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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