Digital publishing

A packed train from Manchester to London and no room to type, an iPad stowed in my bag (carefully sneaked out of the house before the children awoke) and an email alerting me to the arrival of a new edition of a business magazine meant I spent over an hour last week (once I’d cleaned off the sticky fingerprints) browsing the latest thinking at McKinsey Quarterly. The magazine is published through the mainstream app Zinio – an app that is well regarded and which inspired one professional reviewer to say, “If you’re a magazine devourer, this is your app.” And I wasn’t disappointed – the magazine was easy to read, pages turned beautifully, I could zoom in and out with ease and access relevant links, and even bookmark pages if required.  Obviously McKinsey has taken to heart the strategy maxim of sticking to your core competencies and, unlike Deloitte Review for example which has its own app, is leveraging a well-developed and successful app and focusing its efforts where it adds value – producing good content.

But, in an age when readers are ever more ready to search websites themselves and to curate their own reading, is the digital magazine even worthwhile? Well we think so: there are times when the reader is searching for something very specific when the website approach comes into its own but there are also times, such as on the train, when it’s a pleasure to read a publication that is well thought through and where pages glide from one to the next. Did I want to hunt around a website looking for interesting content? No. Did I want the pleasure of reading a magazine? Yes. And compared to accessing material through websites, I stayed with McKinsey Quarterly for a longer time, read a lot more articles, and digested materials I would never have considered searching for. And on a train line with intermittent mobile coverage, I didn’t have to worry about suddenly being locked out.

‘Yes but,’ you’re possibly saying to yourself, ‘this is all very well for the big guys, but what if we don’t have the budget for a glossy magazine, digital or otherwise.’ Well, even so, we think there are some lessons to be learnt about producing thought leadership in a digital format:

• Consider ways in which you can create a curated reading experience that brings together new material e.g. a monthly email highlighting (and linking to) a small number of reports.
• Make sure your reports are attractively presented and well written – there’s a lot of competition out there for your client’s attention and limited reading time.
• And finally, ensure that every article is easy to read on a screen no bigger than that of a tablet. You’d be amazed by the number of articles we open that are a challenge to read and navigate even on a large screen in the office; it’s only our devotion to the art and science of thought leadership that makes us read on!