Content & Commerce

As I write this, I am up to my ass in alligators trying to balance my two worlds: Content and Commerce. Allow me to explain.

I wear a second hat, which is Publisher. That’s the commerce part of the equation. The publisher of a magazine runs the enterprise, including media sales, marketing, business development, relationships with clients and managing a P&L. It’s not as overtly fun, but when you’re doing it right, it’s awesome.

Right now, both the Content and Commerce parts of my world are hopping. We’re producing content like crazy, including issues, e-newsletters, social media content and getting ready for our huge Turfheads Take Over Issue next month. I’m also doing events including the Carolinas GCSA Conference & Show in Myrtle Beach and the Ohio Turf Foundation show in Columbus.

It’s the commerce part that’s really crazy right now. This is the time of year that we work with suppliers to develop their advertising programs for next year. My sales team and I spend most days talking with clients and trying to figure out the best program for them. Fortunately, we don’t have to spend a lot of time convincing them that we’re a good partner for them on the advertising side. You already did that for us. How?

We arranged an independent, blind study of the various magazines in the market to help advertisers sort out the best ways to reach superintendents. We know you love us, but we needed to prove it to those marketing managers and advertising agencies who make those decisions.

We were pretty happy with the results. You chose GCI (by a nose over GCM) as the overall best publishing group in the market for both print and digital.

You also seem to like us a lot for digital and social media

There were a couple of other great results, including a question about editorial leadership. Apparently we don’t suck too much in that respect either.

If you want to see the full results and all our marketing stuff and media kit, you can simply enter the following link into your web browser: http://bit.ly/2eXqBfU.

So, if you’re a supplier who wants to tell your story to superintendents, we hope you’ll give us a call. We can help.

And, if you’re a turfhead, both the Editorial Director and Publisher have one simple message for you: Thanks for reading!