1. Ian Reeves
Customer magazines

2. Customer publishing becomes ‘content marketing’
Customer magazines are used by large corporate organisations as part of their marketing strategy
They encourage the ‘brand values’ of their organisations by using professional editorial teams to create content that reflects their customers’ aspirations
They often provide in-depth information on products, deals and services.

3. Examples
Airlines, retailers, car manufacturers, travel companies, membership clubs, financial institutions and property companies all produce customer magazines

4. Top 12 Customer magazines 2015 by circulation
National Trust Magazine 2,100,485
Asda Magazine 1,973,282
Tesco Magazine 1,948,250
Morrisons Magazine 1,373,539
Waitrose Kitchen 673,100
Pet People 569,175
John Lewis Edition 501,630
Asos 486,168
Emma’s Diary (RCGPs) 388,675
The Garden (RHS) 385,655
BMW Magazine 372,588
Caravan Club Magazine 355,220

5. Customer publishing market
Average customer magazine circulation: 321,257
Combined total circulation: 137 million
5% of titles reach more than 1 million readers
14% have circulation greater than 250,000

6. Distribution Magazines are circulated in several ways: Direct mail
Free at point of contact
Distributed with newspapers
Door drops
Digital distribution

7. Customer publishing sector value (£m)
The market was worth £496m in 2011

8. Customer publishing sector value forecast (£m)
Industry estimated to be worth £630m by 2016

9. Readers’ views
39.4% agreed they were as well produced and interesting to read as other magazines
68.2% said they didn’t bother to read customer magazines
23.3% said they would read in-flight magazine
22.2% said they would read free magazines from retail outlets such as Boots or M&S.

10. Does it work?
“In 2013 more than 60,000 car sales were directly attributable to behaviour prompted by the magazine” – claim from publishers of Audi magazine.

11. Customer publishing formats

12. Customer publishing companies
Cedar Communications
clients include BA and Tesco
Condé Nast clients include Ferrari and Maybourne hotels
Ink clients include RyanAir and Thomas Cook
Redwood clients include Barclays, Boots and Fiat
John Brown clients include Waitrose and John Lewis
Publicis Blueprint clients include Asda and Cath Kidson
River Publishing clients include Superdrug and Honda

13. Further reading
MediaWeek’s sector analysis: /sector-analysis-customer-publishing
The Content Marketing Association
Content Cloud – connecting freelances and publishers