Women's Magazines - Tom

 

Women's Magazines

 

Women's Cookery and Kitchen

 

Easy Cook

Easy Food

Food and Wine

Fresh

Olive

 

Women's Hair

 

Hair

Hairstyles Only

Hairflair and Beauty

Toni and Guy Magazine

Your Hair

 

Women's Home Interests

 

Country Living

Grand Designs

House and Home

Image Interiors

Ideal Home

 

Women's Needlecraft

 

Cross Stitch Crazy

Cross Stitcher

Quick and Easy Cross Stitch

The World of Cross Stitching

 

Women's Parenthood

 

Practical Parenting

Your Family

Pregnancy and Birth

Junior

Mother and Baby

 

Women's Wedding and Brides

 

Wedding and Home

Wedding Ideas

Confetti

Cosmopolitan Bride

You and Your Wedding

 

Women's Health and Beauty

 

Zest

Healthy

Health and Fitness

Easy Health

Top Sante Health and Beauty

 

Women's Slimming

 

Slimming World Magazine

Weightwatchers Magazine

 

Woman's Weeklies

 

Woman

Woman's Own

Woman's Day (www.womansday.com)

Women's Health (www.womanshealthmag.com) 

Woman's World

 

Women's General Interest

 

Bitch (www.bitchmagazine.co.uk)

BUST (www.bust.com)

Closer

Cosmopolitan (www.cosmpolitan.co.uk)

Elle (www.elle.com)

Flare (Canada) (www.flare.com)

Harper's Bazaar (www.harpersbazaar.com)

Hello! (www.hellomagazine.com)

In Style (www.instyle.com) 

Marie Claire (www.marieclaire.co.uk)

PINK Magazine (www.pinkmagazine.com)

Redbook (www.redbookmag.com)

Vogue (www.vogue.co.uk)

 

 

Circulations (Total Average Net Circulation Per Issue)

 

Bella - 247,390

Chat - 511,510

Closer - 561,869

Cosmopolitan - 379,401

Elle - 168,803

Glamour - 544,653

Harper's Bazaar - 84,597

Hello! - 352,076

In Style - 178,699

Marie Claire - 332,705

Vogue - 220,084

Woman - 369,982

Woman's Own - 344,765

Woman's Day - 26,448

Yours - 344,438

 

Common Website Features

 

Polls

Magazine Subscription

Blogs

Chatrooms

Picture Galleries

News Articles

Multimedia (Videos)

Advertising for predominatly female commodities

Competitions

Web Search

Contact us features

 

A New Era of Women's Magazines??

 

Surveys show that 73% of women are bored by women's magazines with "dumb, trashy magazine content"; and a "never ending stream of celebrity news". Therefore a niche has opened up for the introduction of a form of magazine aimed at women.

 

In 2003, a nationwide survey of 250 professional women was undertaken to understand reader's attitudes to monthly glossy magazines and establish what else women wanted to read. The findings were as follows:

 

• 75% of respondents said they wanted more "intelligent and stimulating features".
• 51% of respondents wanted "personal development", "motivational features" and "lifestyle management advice".
• 82% of respondents said achieving a work/life balance was their top priority.
• 60% said family life and interesting travel experiences were more important than amassing wealth.
• When asked about their feelings towards the current range of women's magazines, 55% said they "lacked interesting features", contained "unstimulating content" and "too much celebrity news".
• 73% of respondents said they were bored by the existing range of women's magazines because of "dumb, trashy magazine content"; and a "never ending stream of celebrity news".
• 85% of the target audience had at least a Bachelors degree or higher.

 

This led to the introduction of magazines such as Be Unlimited, Work at Home Moms, Women's Work, Ladies First Magazine and Working Mother Magazine for example. However, despite the introduction of these new styles of women magazines there circulation remains well below the more popular celebrity based, fashion obsessed content.

 

Why do we have Online Magazines??

Newspapers are losing classified advertising to websites because they are targetted by interest rather than geography. More people view the website because of it's low cost and efficiency and so they are more likely to view the advertising than if they paid for the physical magazine. Online magazines allow participation than just journalists. Blogs, chatrooms, e-mails and forums allow members of the public to voice their opinions, this medium is easier and more efficient than writing a letter which may not be included in the magazine anyway. Online magazines will receive far more feedback with online magazine versions than through the physical issue of the magazine. The introduction of globalisation has led to the rise of online magazines. Companies strive to appeal to a world market and so online magazines allow publications access to people throughout the world.

 

How do on-line Women's Magazines make money??

 

I looked at ten online women's websites in order to understand further how they generate money through the online versions of their magazines. I took a magazine from each of the ten above areas within women's magazines. The sites i looked at were as follows:-

 

* Food and Wine (www.foodandwine.com)

* Style Hair (www.style-hair-magazine.com)

* Country Living (www.countryliving.co.uk)

* Cross Stitcher (www.crossstitchermagazine.co.uk)

* Mother and Baby (www.motherandbabymagazine.com)

* You and Your Wedding (www.youandyourwedding.co.uk)

* Zest (www.zest.co.uk)

* Weight Watchers Magazine (www.weightwatchers.co.uk/shop/mag)

* Woman's Day (www.womansday.com)

* Marie Claire (www.marieclaire.co.uk)

 

Food and Wine - The first feature of this website that viewers are immediately drawn too is an advertisement for a subscription to the physical edition of the magazine. Subscribers are offered gimmicks such as free editions and gifts to draw in the reader. The other main feature that this website uses to generate revenue is advertising. On the website's homepage there are three large advertisements for various products, including a Travel Agents as well as food and wine to coincide with the websites topics.

 

Style Hair - This website uses advertising throughout in order to generate revenue. On the homepage the website offers salons the chance to advertise their business through the website. As well as this the website has a "shop" page where hair products such as straighteners and curlers are sold. As this online magazine has no physical edition there is no chance to generate revenue through subscriptions therefore advertising is the only way of making money out of this online magazine.

 

Country Living - Country Living again devotes a large section of its homepage to advertising subscriptions to the physical magazine. Again similar to the Food and Wine magazine advertising is used a lot in order to generate further revenue. As well as advertising seperate products from Country and Living the website also has a page to offering goods produced by the magazine, also advertising for events put on by the magazine is frequently promoted throughout the website.

 

Cross Stitcher - Cross Stitching related advertising litters the homepage of this website in order to draw revenue from advertisers. There are also a number of pieces of advertising from non-cross stitching related products such as loan companies and travel agents. Again just like many of the other websites the main piece of advertising is for the physical editions of the magazine, again trying to draw revenue by offering reduced prices for online subscriptions as well as free gimmicks.

 

Mother and Baby Magazine - Online subscriptions are again the main way of generating advertising for this particular magazine. The magazine's producers also uses this website to promote another magazine they publish called Pregnancy and Birth. A number of baby related products are advertised throughout the website as well. Competitions are used to again promote the website and further advertise products as long as the reader registers for the website. Registering for the website allows the online magazine to claim a high circulation which will attract further advertising.

 

You and Your Wedding - There is more space for advertising on this website's homepage than there is content about the magazine which clearly tells me advertising is the main way this magazine generates income. Subscriptions and registrations are again made available throughout the website offering e-mail updates of website changes, competitions and special offers for the magazine. 

 

Zest - This website similar to the Mother and baby magazine uses the online version for a way of promoting other magazines published by the company such as Coast and Company magazine. Subscriptions and an online shop are also available on the website as a way of generating money. Again just like the other websites I have viewed it appears advertising is the main mode of generating money for the online magazine.

 

Weight Watchers Magazine - An online shop is prominent on the homepage of this website suggesting this medium is the main way of generating revenue. As usual the physical magazine is also advertised with offers in order to increase circulation.

 

Woman's Day - Newsletters, email updates, text alerts and subscriptions are available throughout this website to boost circulation and income for this publication. Products such as e-cards are also available and advertised throughout the website. Lastly, advertising for female related products are prominent throughout the site to boost income.

 

Marie Claire - This online magazines devotes a lot of pages to promoting subscriptions to the physical magazine and signing up to register for newsletters and updates as well as making room to allow space for advertising.

 

In conclusion there can be no doubt as to what mediums online magazines use in order to generate money through the online versions of there magazines. All the websites I looked at used the online version of their magazine to promote the physical magazine. Registration for newsletters, e-alerts, text messages and any other information was also frequent on these websites. These features are a way of boosting circulation and attracting the money of advertisers. Therefore advertising was a part of every website. Not only were there advertisements for products related to the magazines but also other companies used these frequently visited websites to advertise there companies.

 

Content of Women's Magazines

 

A study that was recently undertaken showed that the most popular topics in women's magazines are resolving conflict, sex and revitalizing relationships.

 

Polls

Many of the online magazines have included interactive polls issuing various accessories, celebrities and style based questions. Of the ten female magazine websites I researched five allowed access to online polls. This successfully allows the online magazine to interact with the reader through issues that interest them.

 

Magazine Subscription

On all of the female online magazines I researched there was a page devoted to advertising subscriptions to the hardcopies of the magazines. On almost all these websites free issues and subscription deals were prominent on the home page.

 

Blogs

A number of the online magazines had pages dedicated to blogs that dealt with fashion, beauty and celebrity gossip stories. The blogs allowed viewers to access the opinions of people in the know about female issues.

 

Chatrooms

Another source of audience interaction present on many online magazines was the inclusion of chatrooms or forums allowing audiences to interact with blog opinions and chat to other viewers of the online magazine.  

 

Picture Galleries

Another form of multimedia certainly apparent on all online magazines is the use of picture. This breaks up the articles and makes the page layouts more appealing on the eye. A handful of the online magazines have full pages devoted to galleries of pictures.

 

News Articles

Like the hardcopy of these online magazines the focus of them is to provide news articles. However, because of the lack of size restraints on online magazines the number of news articles isn;t restricted as it is with the nardcopies of women's magazines. This allows more variety and diversity in the news articles online magazines make available.

 

Videos

Alongside the news articles available on online magazines videos are made available as well as photographs. Videos allow the the viewer to interact with the magazine and watching and listening to a news article provides an alternative to reading as is the case with hardcopy magazines.

 

Advertisements

The vast number of online pages in the online magazine versions allow a vast number of advertisements. This is an ideal source of revenue for organisations as companies will pay a lot to advertise on a website that is frequently used. Advertising is key to online magazines as little money is generated from subscription sales and the viewing of online magazines is free and so no revenue is generated there.

 

Competitions

Competitions make frequent appearances on online magazines as a way of obtaining viewers contact details. This then allows online magazines the ability to e-mail and contact viewers with information about the website and the hardcopy magazines.

 

Search Engines

The search engine has become an integral part of online magazines. They are used as a form of index in which the contents of the website can be browsed and identified allowing all arras of the online magazine to accessed quickly and efficiently.