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!

The impact advertising has on consumer behavior, even in this age of track-ability, is still difficult to define. The old saying, "Half of my advertising doesn't work. I just don't which half," remains in play for anyone with an advertising budget.

But we can all agree that not advertising is not the answer. 

I was reminded of that basic rule today when I saw a study published at heatst.com. That website highlighted a recent study done by the Wesleyan Media Project that suggested that Hillary Clinton ran one of the worst-run political operations in years.

This is not a political post or commentary, I can assure you. It is the marketing data that they identify that I find interesting, and something that media outlets can use in the next election cycle.

For all the talk of social media and fake news's impact on the election, the report points out it was a lack of advertising that might have cost Clinton the presidency. 

The story points out that "the directors of the study dispute the argument that 'advertising doesn’t matter' in elections. Clinton’s failure to advertise in certain key states, they argue, was the biggest reason for her defeat by Donald Trump." Clinton's losses in Wisconsin and Michigan are specifically pointed out. She did not advertise until the final days, when Trump advertised for weeks prior to the election. He eventually won those key states and thus the presidency. 

This study focuses on broadcast television, since that is the outlet that receives the vast majority of major political revenue. There are also some very persuasive stats on the impact of newspaper advertising for political campaigns too.  

NMA (News Media Alliance) offered research that every newspaper should be leveraging for political advertising. Of those who always vote in local elections:

--27% are more likely to read the daily newspaper than the typical adult.

--7 in 10 read newspaper media in print, online or on mobile devices in an average week.

nearly 8 in 10 also contribute money to political organizations. 

Politicians need to tell their story in advertising to win at the polls. And media outlets, especially newspapers need to tell their story well in advance to their politicians on how their message in print equals success at the polls.