Keep An 'Editorial Scorecard' To Rate Content

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept, 2000

When a magazine isn't profitable, the blame can fly in all directions: editorial, circulation and advertising all come in for their share of criticism. But circulation and ad sales have procedures that constantly monitor performance. Shouldn't editorial, too? Don Nicholas of the Blue Dolphin Group thinks so.

The magazine consulting firm, which has worked with clients such as Time Inc., advocates creating an "editorial scorecard" twice a year to judge how well an editor in chief is doing. This audience research helps publishers gauge how well their editorial content is hitting the target. Readers are typically asked to rate topics that a particular magazine offers--sometimes travel, politics or health, for instance--in surveys mailed with an issue. Article scores are also rated by asking three basic questions: (1) Did you read it? (2) Did you find the article useful? (3) Would you like more articles like this? A standard incentive of $1 to $5 is offered, and the goal is to get a 40 to 50 percent return rate. T his research is particularly valuable when done in advance of publication. If a story or topic receives an 80 percent approval rate, it should probably be your cover story. If an article scores below 50, you should consider not publishing it. Surveying can be further broken down to sample the interests of new and old subscribers. Editors may resist these surveys, saying it's their job to lead the reader and not let the reader lead them. Nicholas agrees, but the editor should be only one step ahead. "We've gotten letters from editors saying, 'How dare you screw around with my magazine, how dare you eliminate this topic. Then they turned around after surveying because the article scores went up, the conversion rates (for sales) went up, and the single-copy rates went up," he says. "Obviously, there was a minority of readers who liked those five topics that were eliminated, but the rest of the readers didn't. It comes down to something that is sometimes very hard for an editor to understand--that your goal is to serve the most people most of the time as opposed to trying to serve everybody equally."