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In support of our unyielding obsession with magazines, we’re delighted to point out publishing master, Steve Blacker’s 8 Pieces of Advice on creating magazine covers that work. You could follow most of this wisdom for any visually-driven campaign. Two tips that we would underscore and bold: take the time – last minute changes in terms of visuals are often doomed. And secondly…your intuition AND research are a winning formula.

What You Don’t Know About Covers (That You Think You Do)

by Steve Blacker

The cover is the most important and only promotional tool a magazine has to sell itself at the newsstand. Yet, how many covers look alike? Or seem like last week’s or last month’s issue? To garner attention at any newsstand, covers need to stand out. Yet, too few editors and art directors do it right.

In my career as a magazine executive and consultant, here are eight pieces of advice that I have given and received to increase newsstand sales:

1. The more time spent working, planning, and strategizing on a cover, the better it will be. Too many editors put their covers together at the last moment. Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Kate White, who will celebrate her 10th anniversary in August, plans her covers a year in advance.
2. A cover-line strategy. First you must test cover lines on-line against a newsstand buyer reader panel on a constant basis. Remember that research supports a creative process; it should never replace it. Consumer research is directional not dictatorial. You need a mix of topics, so don’t always go with the lines that score best. The goal is to pull in more occasional buyers and new buyers.
3. Go with your “gut,” but. Yes, instinct matters most, but use the consumer-research feedback as a reference point.
4. The cover image. You should be constantly testing “out of the box”: think the Esquire legend George Lois; think cover images. To test the “same old” will just replicate the “same old” in sales. If something seems too “out there,” then do an “in market” test in 30% of the country.
5. The nano second purchase. Research has shown that newsstand buyers spend less than five seconds deciding on whether to purchase a magazine. Do you have page numbers next to your cover lines? It just makes it easier/quicker for a potential buyer to check out a story that caught his or her interest.
6. Are you overwhelming the buyer with too many cover lines? Research has shown that crowded covers are often stated as the reason an impulse buyer did not purchase a current issue.
7. Do you know why people are buying and not buying an issue? Without knowing the answer, it will be next to impossible to improve newsstand sales. This is achieved by asking the right verbatims and having the expertise to analyze them. For example: “What do you like most about this cover?” “What do you like least?” And…
8. Is your editor-in-chief the best person to be orchestrating the creation of your cover? Many top editors are not top cover creators, nor cover-line writers. Why not bring in a George Lois, Milton Glaser, or Steve Frankfurt? Have them produce some alternate covers and test them in market.

When business gets tough, often the tendency is not to try new things. That’s wrong. During the Easter/Passover season in 1966 when I was at Time, it ran this daring cover line, Is God Dead?, and became Time’s best-seller for that year. More recently, the December 2000 Esquire featured a smiling Bill Clinton seated on a chair with his legs spread apart with no cover lines. This still ranks as Esquire’s best sell-through ever, because editor-in-chief (since June 1997) David Granger went with his gut.

Summing up: Covers need to be thought of as promotional ads. They need to be in good taste but still shock and surprise the newsstand buyer. That is the challenge.

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Steve Blacker, chairman of Stephen M. Blacker & Associates, LLC, has been a publishing executive at Time Inc., Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines, Playboy Enterprises, and News Corp. He has consulted for American Express Publishing, American Lawyer, Reader’s Digest, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., and Rodale. His forthcoming book is You Can’t Fall Off the Floor: How to Reinvent Yourself…All the Way to the Top.

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