Our print strategy: Anthem

Q: What is your print strategy?

A: Print is our past, present and future. There, I said it. No more skulking or pretence. For most consumer publishers, print is our USP. It’s the anchor that makes advertisers trust us and the very thing that readers want from us. Of course, we enrich engagement and reach digitally to provide commercial partners with more touchpoints and influence and to give us our own platform to market to our customers. But the printed publication is what our readers want and are prepared to pay for.

So how does print fit into our publishing strategy? Front and centre. Ask yourself, how much time do you think consumer book publishers spend agonising over where print fits in their business? At 80% of their UK revenue, I’m pretty sure it’s at the very heart of it. And I’ll tell you something most publishers won’t, it’s not dissimilar for Anthem.

As magazine publishers, we have an enviable position, with relatively easy access to thousands of retailers in the UK and yet more worldwide. Thanks to continuous increases in creative efficiencies, we have IP creation costs that would have seemed unimaginably low back in the “heyday” of the 90s. And, while advertisers can bypass us in a thousand cheaper ways, they still value the unique place our brands hold in readers’ hearts and the stimulus we can help them bring to bear.

I see the printed magazine being a cherished part of people’s lives for years to come. Something that helps them make sense of the world, is an antidote to screentime, a tangible memento of experiences, or a regular punctuation in their schedule. It’s up to us to share their love, invest in launches and innovation and support our retail channels to maintain that vital access to market.

Q: How are you ensuring print’s longevity?

A: We’ve reprioritised print over big bets on becoming a digital business, using tech to deal with some of the rote online work, focusing instead on the biggest podcast, social and web wins, and redeploying some staff back to print.

To help understand appropriate strategies, we’ve categorised our publishing into ‘engagement’ and ‘retail’ brands. Engagement being the traditional, regular frequency titles with rich advertising, subscription and digital components, and retail having primarily newsstand and direct sale revenues. A few years ago, we gave ourselves permission to play in the retail space to take advantage of trends and opportunities while still investing in the longevity of the engagement brands. It felt a bit like going back to the past, but we’re good at it and readers and retailers want it. And it’s rewarded us with 35% growth since 2021.

We’ve also worked incredibly closely with our distributor to forge deeper relationships with UK retailers and international distributors and key chains. In 2024 alone, we grew sales at the big four grocers by an average of 52% by furnishing them with bookazine series that fit within their categories, but have enough flex to focus on the flavour of the moment.

Internationally, we’re seeing the retreat of some domestic publishers in the States and Australia open up retail space that we could never access in the past. Judicious promotions in Australian grocers can yield thousands of sales on a single issue; our Canadian distributor provides direct access to their major grocery chains and collaboration in the US has created whole new brands with hundreds of thousands of revenue, such that export now accounts for 47% of our newsstand income.

What are your three top tips?

1. Talk to retailers. We’re on the same side now. They need growth to protect their space and shine with the upper echelons. They can also be a source of inspiration with one UK retailer directly requesting product from us that has led to a new monthly launch; specialist high street and online chains providing invaluable insight into fandom categories; and the leading US retailer sharing a constantly evolving shopping list for content.

2. Publish bumper issues. Across the board with our regular frequency titles, we schedule in an average of two — but as many as six — bumper issues a year. Readers lap them up, happily paying more for an extra 16 pages, while we share the benefit with retailers seeing higher RSV and enhancements to our own bottom line.

3. Reprint. Think back to those book publishers. They don’t put something out for a month and then immediately move on to the next thing. A title can be on the shelves for years, replenished from stock or with reprints. In the bookazine world, we can keep issues on sale for up to three months and then republish the successful ones. A glance at the leading bookazine publishers’ schedules shows the same issues appearing time and again, as often as three times a year. We’ve come late to it but are reaping the benefit of giving shoppers repeated opportunities to buy our lovingly crafted publications.