PROMOTIONAL METHODS Concerning my magazine.

WHY PROMOTE? Promotion is how a brand makes itself known to its audience- without the audience knowing the brand, how could they build their products? They wouldn’t.

We need to successfully promote this publication in order to ensure that we are successful in the sense that we’ve influenced our audience and made an impact on them.

In order to reach our target audience, we should focus our resources to areas that would reach them specifically

PROMOTIONAL METHODS The promotional methods that I think would be most effective are: Social media Star power Radio advertisements Advertisements in similar publications

PROMOTIONAL METHODSSocial media

This would be particularly effective due to the fact that our target audience frequent social media as they would want to, not only keep updated with their favourite artists, but also to interact with one another and find out more about the current music scene.As well as needing our own social media accounts, the brand would benefit hugely from the exposure of being mentioned/featured in artists’ accounts. To find out more about the influence of social media, see my ‘Social Media’ post

Star powerThe brand would benefit from the use of star power as there are many people who seriously consider artists’ opinions; if one artists mentions something about reading our magazine or that they like it, their fans would make a conscious effort to become fans of the magazine. As a result, not only would our sales soar, but we would gain more fans of the magazine and this would increase our influence. A potential system for this could be that every time we feature an artist, they could mention us in their social media and perhaps release informal images surrounding the issue. This would help their fans get excited about the issue whilst guaranteeing our exposure.

PROMOTIONAL METHODSRadio advertisements

This would be particularly effective due to the fact that our target audience listen to music. As many listen to music on the radio as it constantly plays music of a certain genre, we would be directly appealing to fans of that genre. We could play the ads on radio stations that play just Indie R&B (such as JussRuss Radio) or on more mainstream radio stations (our audience are mainstreamers) such as Capital or Kiss in-between specific R&B songs.Considering our audience are young adults and may be attending college, university, or work, we should place our ads during times when they're sure to hear it. Around 8am and 4-6pm are both good choices as they are likely to be travelling in these times.

Advertisements in similar publications

The audience is already there, for this specific promotional method-we are simply taking advantage of a well established brand and are associating ourselves with them; by doing this, we will appear established simply by association. However, we won't advertise ourselves in competing magazines; although this is a potentially good idea, we may just be wasting both time and money. I feel that a less competitive approach would be to place advertisements in other magazines made by our publishing house- although they will not have our exact target audience, they will be similar or maybe even completely new. This is a way of exp0anding our readership.When doing this, we must consider the genre of magazine that we are placing the ads in, it would be useless to spend money on advertising in a sports magazine, because we are not a part of that genre. A genre probably best suited to us would be something more like lifestyle, or maybe even travel. Our demographic are aspirers, and they aspire to try new things, and improve their lives- both of which these magazine genres relate to.

LAUNCHING THE MAGAZINEThe actual launch of the magazine is a perfect (and necessary) time to promote the brand. In order to present that we are upmarket and a high end magazine, we shall host the launch party of the magazine within Central London. Also, in order to make it more of an experience, we’ll host it on luxury boat; as it travels along the Thames during the evening, there’ll be performances from artists who feature within the magazine. High profile people will be there as their very presence will generate publicity and they’ll be able to tell their followers all about it on social media- thus generating more publicity.The reasoning behind wanting to make it an experience is that this will be the perfect opportunity to network with people from the actual industry, hosting a memorable party will make them more likely to remember you and do business with you in the future.The performances will further enforce the idea of it being a music magazine, and the publicity from performing will give an added incentive to the artists and the audience for showing up.Another way we could promote this is to hold competitions in which fans can win tickets to the launch and see their favourite artists perform in a fun, intimate setting as opposed to seeing them 50m away in a concert venue.