Customer magazine

With a customer magazine companies speak directly to the end customer. It is thus part of the corporate publishing. Here, customer magazines approaching in form and content becoming more and more popular magazines.

Definition

A customer magazine is periodically an instrument of corporate communication in the magazine or newspaper layout that is transported on paper or digitally stored editorial and / or campaigning illustrated content with or without a corporate reference and used by companies to provide customers with the goal of knowledge construction, information retrieval, of sales promotion to achieve the image formation and / or customer loyalty. Customer magazines serve the customer care. They will be published as a special form of the form of corporate publishing company for private or business customers to provide information and canvassing. The print editions of customer magazines are often very similar in design magazines.

Types and content of customer magazines

Print editions

Customer magazines consist of an editorial component and an advertiser. The editorial part distinguishes a customer magazine of a promotional brochure. They represent the interests of trade and industry. They serve the customer care and advertising from either a single company or an entire distribution business. An example of this is the customer magazines of the book trade, there is the company -wide "Book Journal", published by the registry organization " Association of German Book Trade " and in almost all bookshops soon. Also, now publish all the major bookstore chains own magazines, such as " book people " Hugendubel, the " book scene ," the " Thalia magazine" or "I read " of Buch Habel.

A further distinction can become apparent in the target groups. Customer magazines can have as a target group for private customers and business customers, so business-to -consumer or business-to -business.

In the editorial section of a customer magazine mainly industry-specific topics. They are designed presentation and content of the interest and taste of the target group appropriately. Customer magazines to inform the consumer about products, news and generally about the distribution business. To arouse the interest of the customer and to bind him as possible to the publication, they should also entertain - with contests or crossword puzzles for example. The companies are responsible for the content.

Meanwhile, the "Oscar for corporate magazines " by the Forum Corporate Publishing, based in Munich is awarded annually.

Online Magazine

Recently there is also customer magazines that appear on the Internet as an online magazine, for example, the PSD Bank in Kiel. Often, these online publications, however, remain behind the possibilities of the medium, as they are often only offered as PDF documents to download. Other electronic customer magazines are sent as e- mail newsletters actively by the companies to their customers. Also, the software company SAP publishes a print version of its customer magazine with a circulation of 90,000 copies, which has been supported since 1999 by an online version.

Sales and readers of customer magazines

Most customer magazines are first purchased by the trade, such as pharmacies, which then distribute them with the goal of customer loyalty to the customer.

To keep the sales prices to trade low, the cost must be kept low, often this is evident from the quality of the paper. It is otherwise with the customer magazines, which will serve as corporate brochures and large firms, especially in the business-to -business sector. The trend towards ever more expensive glossy magazines, for example in the automotive industry goes.

Designed, edited and designed they are mostly of editorial offices, advertising or public relations agencies. The customer magazines appear regularly, usually monthly or quarterly.

According to a survey 56 % of customers read the journals of interest, 45 % because of the information, 69 % are aware through them on new products. About one-third reads several times a month customer magazines. The most visited are the customers of the pharmacy journals, such as the Apothekenumschau. Other known examples of customer magazines are mobile DB or the baker flower.

History

The first branch of which it is known that she used customer magazines, was the young electricity industry, had the effort to prevail against competitors gas and petroleum: 1905 appear the " Bulletin of the Berlin Elektricitäts works", 1910 obey the Municipal electricity plant Straubing and the Municipal electric power station of Dortmund, 1912, the Municipal electricity plant in Hanover and the Amper works in Munich. In the same year the company brings Hollerith ( which later became IBM ) their " releases " out. The magazine " My home " of Wüstenrot founder and writer George Kropp were allowed to take home savings 1924 in reception. 1925 was the first magazine of the pharmacist on the counter, but also the Frankfurter gas company now attracts with its own magazine after. The electricity industry is customer magazines now have an almost nationwide. The grocer receive this customer loyalty tool for the first time 1927.

The most famous was probably the " baker flower ", but only in 1954 appeared for the first time, with up to 890,000 copies auslag at thousands of bakers and then blossomed synonymous with the customer magazine.

In the Third Reich Ministry of Propaganda club also imitated - like other leaves - the customer magazines: they had to write on their banners propaganda leader for people and our country. Many but withdrew prefer entertainment articles and recipes from the affair. After the war, once there is paper and other material deficiency, but from 1950 show up again the first leaves for at this time. In West Germany customer magazines experienced with the growth of household budgets a boost. The rapidly growing requirements of the magazines made ​​for increasingly professional design also this medium. 1968 is the "Handbook for Public Relations " from the Luchterhand publisher of around 120 items with a total of 33 million specimens. The rationalization and concentration process ensures that there are seven years later only 61 items, but with about the same total circulation. In the new millennium it goes again steeply.

In recent years, the number of customer magazines have proliferated in terms of titles and circulation. In 2000, there were over 3000 customer magazines, with a total circulation of more than 400 million copies.