print magazines | Blog about business and product management

Small businesses, especially those that are not geographically “challenged”, should not limit themselves to small-scale marketing tools. Coupons, flyers, business cards, comp cards – it all can work for geographical regions of a small scale. Sending out postcards or distribute flyers can get really expensive as your targeted location grows in size. These marketing tools can’t distinguish among prospective clients, regular clients or, so-called, premium clients. Yes, big news, you have to keep promoting yourself to your premium clients too. It’s like dating – guy is supposed to bring flowers to his girlfriend or wife even after they moved in or got married.

Really neat idea was suggested by some of our customers. They give out free magazine subscriptions to their premium clients. Obviously, it’s not just any magazine – it’s the magazine about the industry they engaged it, and the magazine where their advertising shows up quite often. It may sound like a cheap trick. In fact – it’s just indirect marketing to your existing clients. Just a little something to keep them happy.

There’s a confession I would like to make: I love reading paper magazines and books. So much so that I, on occasion, go out and buy those outrageously expensive magazines from UK on web design, computer arts and photography.

Now, I am not sure if there are any decent magazines on web design in USA, but judging by photography magazines, UK publishing wins hands down. Their magazines are just… tastier. Not in a sense of good and bad taste, but in a sense how gourmet food looks and tastes better then your average Brooklyn McDonald’s. Don’t know how they get to do it, but for me it’s a proven fact.

Unless you are one of those “I know everything already” gurus – I would like to suggest a Web Designer magazine by Imagine Publishing. And while you are at it – their Photoshop magazines are quite helpful, too.

In addition to that, last week at Barnes and Noble I picked up an interesting magazine, called hakin9 – hardcore IT security magazine. It is a bi-monthly Polish publication, specifically targeted at security professionals. Some reviews of popular anti-virus software, some hard-core Linux breaching techniques, even some commercial software included with magazine’s CD. However, the most interesting article in the picked issue was one on rootkit deployment techniques. That’s right, not how to protect yourself or how to recover from security breach, but how to break into someone else’s system – in plain English with screenshots and commentary.

So far, I enjoy my reading. Keep ’em coming!