“A simple facsimile of a print edition misses the point…”

Penmaen Media’s Carolyn Morgan advises media owners on profiting from digital media and marketing. You might also know her as the brains behind the Specialist Media Show. Focused on helping media brands grow in the digital space, Carolyn recently posted some good practical advice on making digital magazines effective. I asked if she would share her top-10 digital magazine tips on Flipping Pages and she has graciously agreed.

Carolyn Morgan: 10 tips for effective digital magazines

Digital magazines are beginning to move up the priority list of many publishers.  This is partly a backlash against free-content model of the web, but largely driven by the growth of mobile devices, not least the iPad – most suppliers are soon going to find a cost-effective solution to the flash vs html5 apple device issues. Traditional print publishers are also exploring digital editions as options for international subscribers or simply readers who want instant access.

There a special quality to a carefully designed and packaged magazine, a curated, guided experience rather than the random meandering on a typical web-site. However, a simple facsimile of a print edition misses the point – they are hard to read on screen, and impossible on mobile devices.  I’ve been working with a niche b2b publisher and researching some examples of best practice in digital magazines on a limited budget. Here are my top 10 tips for an effective digital edition:

1. Create compelling covers
The lost art of great covers can be rediscovered in digital magazines – creating a package custom-designed for the audience, and teasing them with great cover lines.  Covers can be designed as an opening spread rather than a lonely portrait page (see point #2).  See this Pharmaceutical digital mag for a great example of a cover spread.

2. Design for landscape
Computer screens are landscape and readers will view a spread at a time.  Don’t organise your content in single vertical pages.  Run headlines or graphics across the spread, and even consider columns that run across the (now defunct) centrefold.

3. Make navigation easy
Let readers click through from teasers to stories, or even have a permanent contents page that sits outside the main editorial content, as in this chromatography mag.  Design buttons to take readers through to related stories in the same edition.

4. Reading should be easy

Break up stories and include bold subheads so readers can quickly scan to understand the topics.  Stick to shorter articles, at a type size that means readers don’t need to zoom.  Some publishers, such as K9 Media create internal scrolling bars to display longer stories.

5. Link to your website
If a story needs 1000 words, put a summary in your digital magazine and add a link back to your website for the full version.  You can also provide background on related articles from your online archive.

6. Differentiate with video
Video sets digital magazines apart from print, and can be invaluable for interviews, demonstrations or to communicate the flavour of a place or event.  K9 Media uses video in its digital magazines to show dog behaviour.  Just take care that videos don’t autostart with sound in case your reader is browsing in a public place or office at lunchtime.

7. Add value with audio
World music magazine Songlines includes snippets of tracks from its featured artists in its free sampler edition.  You can even buy them via Amazon (see #8 bel0w).

8. Enable ecommerce
Include links on product reviews that take the reader directly to a special offer to buy or to find out more.

9. Provide opportunities for interaction
Ask for feedback, run surveys, polls and competitions to get instant information on your readers.

10. Keep file sizes manageable
Don’t get carried away with techno-trickery.  Some readers may be viewing on old machines with slow internet access.  If your pages take ages to load, they are likely to lose patience.  Wired mag gets lots of praise for its iPad edition in techie circles, but it’s 500MB and can take an hour to download.

I’m in the throes of planning my own digital magazine for the Specialist Media Show, so I’m going to adopt these tips myself.  This article on the Zmags blog by Russell Clark also includes some useful design hints and watch out also for the winners of the Digital Magazine Awards this autumn for some more inspiration.

If you have any feedback on digital magazine best practice,  why not join the debate on the Specialist Media Network at LinkedIn? There are over 350 specialist media people there already swapping ideas and contacts.

Disclosure: Peter Houston is Editorial Director for the examples used in points 1 & 3