How to create a digital magazine

A complete guide

Over the past few years, digital magazines have emerged as an effective content marketing tool, with organizations of all sizes creating digital magazines to reach consumers. Why? There are many sound reasons to add magazines to your content marketing strategy, including: 1) Digital magazines have minimal distribution costs; and 2) they give publishers direct control of the content, allowing for brand messages to be conveyed consistently and clearly. However, even more importantly, digital magazines are taking off because they are an excellent way to emotionally connect with consumers. The lush and immersive nature of the medium inherently draws readers in, providing opportunities to build trust and affinity. This, of course, is the ultimate goal of content marketing. That said, not all digital magazines are successful, just as not all print magazines are successful. The reasons digital magazines fail are varied, but often they come down to a common set of content and distribution issues. To help avoid these pitfalls, here are some of our best practices to follow:

Yes, digital magazines often feature products, but they are fundamentally different from brochures. Sounds obvious, but this is one is more difficult to do well than we would like. The best digital magazines devote serious effort to producing quality content, not just boosting sales, and provide content that engages their audiences. A great example of this is Red Bull, a content marketing magazine pioneer (both in print and digital). When you read it, you can clearly see that the company’s is not all about the energy drink. Rather, it is focused on the things that interest Red Bull’s demographic—including high-quality coverage of sports, music, movies, and technology. As one writer for the magazine told : “I’ve never been asked to crowbar Red Bull into any story I’ve done with them. The promotion of the brand comes through the activities I cover.” Need inspiration? You can get great content ideas by studying the editorial strategy of news- and lifestyle publications that are already addressing your audience.

Henry Luce, the legendary magazine editor and publisher, initially wanted to call LIFE Magazine “” The name didn’t stick, but the sentiment captures something fundamental about magazines: The best ones usually excel at showing as well as telling. Put another way, magazines are often emotionally engaging because they are image-heavy and visually appealing. For content marketers, this means that looks are not superficial in this case—they are fundamentally part of the offering. Therefore, make sure to devote plenty of resources to the design of your digital magazine. An example of a brand that does this well is the jewelry maker . The company’s digital magazine takes its look seriously, with clear attention to the color palette, graphics, cover photo, and background image.

The increased readership of digital magazines (both content marketing ones and non) is very much linked to the rise in tablet ownership. This, of course, makes sense. In many ways, magazines on tablets are even better than “real” magazines—they provide the same big, bright feel, but with additional interactivity (and without the need for paper). Given this, it is absolutely essential that your digital offering be mobile friendly. The problem, of course, is that different consumers use different devices. Some may access your magazine on their phone, some on a tablet, and some on a computer. Moreover, even the same individual may read across multiple devices. Therefore, your magazine must not only be mobile-friendly but also responsive, i.e. it must be able to quickly adjust how it is displayed depending on the device that is being used.

As mentioned earlier, it is essential that digital magazines be visually appealing. However, it’s also important that they include readable text. Too often, content marketers force consumers to zoom, tilt, or squint in order to clearly see the text of their digital magazine. This is not good (to put it mildly). It is essential to focus on readability so that the consumer can engage with the content rather than struggle to merely see it. One example of these readability woes can be see in the from the wine and liquor distributor of the same name. The offering itself is great, chock-full of information about wine and presented well. However, the inside pages cannot be read without clicking and zooming—again, far from the ideal experience.

Another usability issue that is often forgotten is speed. Because digital magazines are so visual, they often result in large files. While this may not seem like a huge deal on a fast connection, on a slow one (especially a mobile one) it can be a serious issue. Readers (and search engines!) often have a very low tolerance for long downloads, whether in the context of an app store, digital newsstand, or direct file transfer. Therefore, do everything possible to reduce load time, otherwise you will face a steadily dwindling audience.

The term “above the fold” originated back in the print-only days. It referred to content that was above the halfway fold in the paper that readers could easily scan as they paged through the issue. This place was reserved for big headlines, important stories, and eye-catching content, and it should still be used that way. In your digital customer magazine, “above the fold” (can be called “above the scroll”) is the area at the top of the webpage that can be read immediately upon landing on it before you scroll down to see what else is there. This area catches your readers’ eyes and lets them know what other content can be found on the page. Especially if you have fewer pages and more content per page, this area needs to be used judiciously.

While GIFs are the darlings of the internet these days, due to their wow-factor and versatility, they can also be very heavy and lead to long load times. Full-screen video backgrounds are quite similar in appearance but they have the advantage of being streaming and therefore won’t weigh down a publication.

Moving images are unique to digital publications. By incorporating them into your digital magazine, you can add a visual pop to your content that captures readers’ attention. When creating your digital magazine, consider the principles of formatting, layout, flow, and content organizing to be the foundation of your creation. Build upon them by increasing reader interaction through non-linear navigation and guided linking of content. And lastly, keep in mind that alternative file-types such as GIFs and videos are a great way of leveraging the interactive power of digital mediums. They add depth to your content in a way that will make your digital customer magazines “pop!”