total 180! Case Study

Launch Date: November, 2005 – Quarterly Publication

Conception: November, 2004

Three professional women turned stay-at-home moms want to launch a national reality-based magazine to target their growing and overlooked demographic. All other women’s magazines (that they could find) in the market are predominantly advice driven, with panels of experts telling women what they need to do to be “happy.”Instead, they will create a magazine that will validate and reassure women, in a voice and style that emulates sitting down to talk with your best girlfriend. Their magazine will talk with women, not to women. They are forging new ground in the world of women’s magazines with this concept. They have very little capital, outstanding backgrounds and experience, and an overwhelming and powerful passion to make it all happen.

Gestation:

We knew we were on to something big. We could just feel it in our gut, and you know what they say about women’s intuition. We made the difficult decision to publish the magazine ourselves so we could be certain it remained true to its groundbreaking voice and style. Although we had our fair share of ups and downs as we planned, prepared and organized, there were definitely more ups, and the confirmation and validation we were getting from the marketplace encouraged us and kept us moving forward. We met with lawyers, industry professionals, and held informal focus groups to gather all of our data. When we hit roadblocks, we proceeded over, around or through them. We started to formulate the essential components of our product and planned a strategy for our launch.

Target Audience

We knew that we could not focus on all moms, and not even all stay-at-home moms. We had to decide who our target audience was and we had to stick with it. This was an important decision to make as it enabled us to hone in on both our demographic and our resulting editorial content.

A key component that propelled us forward in this area was that we were former career women turned stay at home moms. We understood the needs of our audience, we knew the content that would appeal to them, and we knew what was missing from the current marketplace.

The founders of Girlfriend Media Group, pictured above during a total 180! coffee break: Debbie Klett, President and Publisher; Kristie Zamboanga, VP of Finance and Creative Content; and Andrea Bandle VP of Marcom.

Magazine Name

The initial name we chose was “Girlfriend!” as it described the connection we feel with our best female friends.Based on the advice from magazinelaunch.com, we took all of the appropriate legal steps to ensure that this name was available to us. This included trademark searches with the government under all sorts of categories that could potentially be intertwined with our publication. Our initial searches returned information that could have led to some potential hurdles. Although we had bonded with our initial title, we needed to experience detachment and find another name that rang true for our voice and our vision.

They say everything happens for a reason and we believe this more than ever. Our new title, “total 180!,” truly resonates with us, our audience, and our editorial style and voice.

Editorial Voice

We had an editorial vision. We knew what type of content we wanted within pages of total 180! and we knew what we wanted it to sound like. Translating this vision into actual verbiage and a table of contents was one of our most challenging tasks.

In February, 2005, we met in one of our living rooms, for an entire day, with a plethora of other magazine titles spread out in front of us. Our goal was to put together our initial table of contents and to start to flesh out our departments and feature stories.

After coming up with mediocre content that was far from unique, we had a revelation. Just as our title called out, we needed to do a total 180 with our editorial style and voice, so we removed all the women’s magazines from the room, and from our minds. Once this happened, we really got into our groove. We created a one-of-a-kind magazine with a well thought out and organized table of contents.We presented the information to a couple of industry veterans, EICs and Art Directors from other publications, who gave us strong thumbs up for our hard work. With the right EIC at the helm, this would be a truly outstanding product.

Circulation Strategy

With a limited budget, our circulation strategy was a difficult mountain to climb. But, again, we were flexible, open-minded, and filled with the passion and desire to support and validate women, like us, across the country. That combination leads to all kinds of creativity.

Most magazines spend a large portion of their start-up costs on their print budget for their newsstand copies. We decided to eliminate this costly part of our launch for two reasons: 1) We did not have the capital to print the number of copies we needed to ensure that we made our rate base and 2) We wanted our circulation strategy to match our demographic. Most stay-at-home moms do not have the time or the luxury to peruse the newsstand for a new magazine to read.

Our circulation strategy is based on partnerships, public relations, and exposure to the thousands of mom’s clubs across the country.

According to the 2003 census, over 6 million women have left the workplace to stay home to care for home and family. Our launch rate base is conservatively set at 25,000.

Advertising

Through one of the founder’s previous publishing connections, we partnered with a woman who has the experience, knowledge, and skill set to sell advertising in total 180! across the nation. Our CPM is $100.

Production

Creating a professionally, polished publication has been our goal from the beginning. Therefore, total 180! will be printed by one of the major printing houses in the country. We plan on a 96 page, perfect bound book with 100 lb. matte cover stock and 50 lb. matte for the body.

Our 20 week ultrasound:

Our web site went live in June, a short four months after our editorial brainstorming session, and subscriptions are now coming in from the Web site. We are proud of the fact that women just like us are willing to put down $15.95 for four issues of our magazine based on our idea and some sample editorial content.

The fact is, an enormous number of women across the country crave the camaraderie and validation they will find in the pages of total 180!. Our main challenge is how to let them know we are here, make them aware of what we are doing, and get them to subscribe.

Overall:

Staying true to our original vision, teaming up with the right people, careful budgeting and essential planning have been the keys to our success to date.

It is our hope and dream that total 180! will fill a niche in a world of women’s magazines that make most women feel as if they are coming up short. We will support and validate women for who they are right now, rather than attempting to make them skinnier, more organized, and better in bed.