An airline magazine has lessons for anyone publishing a magazine on how to engage an audience and grow revenue

 My iPad is fully charged, my favorite tunes on my headphones and headed back home from a great weekend on the west coast, courtesy of Southwest Airlines. I have plenty of things to keep my attention for the next several hours, including their in-flight magazine Southwest: The Magazine.

Normally, the magazine doesn’t get my attention but this is a long flight. Picking up the March issue, featuring Valerie June on the cover I was impressed with how good the product is. Other airlines have excellent magazines too, but I’m partial to Southwest as an airline and thus I see their magazine more than most.

The forecast for magazine advertising revenue like all non digital products is tough. In the case of in-flight magazines, they have a somewhat guaranteed distribution number. Though they also suffer from digital disruption like computers, iPads and video games that keep us occupied. But they are also doing some good stuff, including four things that others producing magazines on the ground can learn from and profit.

1) Group pages abound in my publication on this flight. Who has the best steakhouse in the US? They have a great list of paying restaurants who made that list including St. Elmo’s in Indianapolis, one of my favorites. Not surprising, the steakhouses are virtually all in markets served by Southwest. They obviously know their audience and have done a great job of selling that benefit to these businesses. The same is true for the best plastic surgeons, and lasik and cataract surgeons in the US.

2) There is an obvious connection between the sales department and editorial. I’m not suggesting that the wall is down between the two, but common sense cooperation is a must for a successful magazine, and that is on display here. Editorial has developed an editorial calendar, and the sales department is working with that information in advance. There are features on Greenville, South Carolina, Baltimore, Maryland and other places. Advertising has done a great job of adding to the content for the reader by providing appropriate advertising to enhance the feature story.

3) While not identified as such, the magazine definitely is using native advertising to drive content and revenue. Well done native content is hard to distinguish because it does all the things normal editorial content does. A feature story on how your dog can be featured in a picture at Chuy’s Restaurant is a fun quick read, and yet a commercial at the same time.

4) The layout and content for the magazine is well done and FUN! The content has a positive attitude about it, and I appreciate it. Magazines can sometimes take themselves too seriously, and that is not the case here. Maybe that is a by-product of the airlines itself, which tends to be a little anti-establishment. Either way, I like it and believe others can learn from them.

Magazines need to learn from these types of examples. Serve your purpose and niche, but still make the reader smile with great content. That great content is both editorial and advertising!