When it comes to research journals, many professional bodies are very comfortable and adept at identifying markets, capturing audiences and generating revenues outside of their membership. However, the members’ magazine often has a very different position: its business model, brand, culture and strategy tend to be strongly focused on providing members with a benefit.
What if we changed this?
Chemistry World has recently gone through the journey of moving from being a member magazine to a subscriber magazine. Members still receive it – but now everyone else can as well.
In the process of creating a consumer magazine we had to challenge our culture, our technology, our brand, our content and our understanding of our readership. We had to understand how this change would support our delivery against the wider mission and strategy of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
We had to find out if the scale of our ambition matched our abilities, as we moved from controlled-circulation to competitive magazine marketplace. We needed our content to drive a non-member subscription business while still remaining highly regarded and valuable to our member audience.
Chemistry World’s story is about the challenges, innovations and decisions that take place when monetising media within a society publishing environment. It’s a story of what it really takes to bring chemistry to the world.
If you are a content owner sign-up here to meet Adam and learn how the world’s biggest magazine publisher is approaching one of the biggest – and most critical – challenges of the industry.