Discover What Magazines Can Teach Us?

Posted On: 2015-11-05

So here we are almost at the end of the week and I have to say that, unless there is some major change about to happen, this week is going to be among my least productive weeks ever. Yep, not just this week but ever.

Every time I sit down to do something there's a distraction ... and then another one and another one. Even when there are no distractions coming in from outside I manage to find some of my own. It's enough to really piss me off because I've never had this little productivity in a week.

Sure, I've gone through all the rituals that usually work for me and help me get my focus back. I've made a cup of coffee, I've made notes, I've sat down with a clear idea in mind of where I want to go and as soon as I look at the screen my great idea disappears and all the impact of all those rituals just fade away.

In desperation I've even cleaned up my office and almost got to the point where I'll tidy my desk up too because lots of experts suggest that a cluttered office and desk tend to clutter up your mind and stop you from being focused.

Unfortunately none of that has worked so today I've started with some small jobs and hope that will give me some momentum to carry on into some of the bigger jobs that I should have been doing at the start of the week. I certainly hope that will work.

So how is your productivity going this week? Are you focused or is your head all over the place like mine is? Are you hoping to get some of your concentration back?

If you are then I have to tell you that hope is not a strategy for success. Sure, you need to live in hope but if you don't have a plan and strategies in place to help you succeed then you can have all the hope in the world and you won't succeed.

So what are your plans and what are your strategies? Are you just winging it and hoping you will succeed? If that's what best describes you then it's time to replace that hope with plans and strategies that will make your future success more of a sure thing and less of a total gamble.

It's all about the cover
One of the tasks I have managed to complete this week was some artwork for a major project that I'm working on. It's the front page for something quite different and it's something that is rarely seen in mainstream and almost never seen in the adult online world.

For inspiration I looked at some magazine covers ... not the high-end covers like Vanity Fair or any of the exclusive home décor magazines. Instead I looked at the covers of the magazines you will find on the racks near the checkouts at supermarkets.

Those magazines succeed or fail on just how attractive their covers are and how they combine text and images to attract buyers. You want to stop and look at a few of them sometime because they have a lot to teach us about tantalising and titillating in a very small space.

In many ways that's the challenge we face because we basically have one or two screens at the most to engage potential buyers and get them in the mood to buy what we're selling. We need to find the right designs and the right combination of text and images to bring them to the point where their desire to see more is stronger than their natural reluctance to spend money.

Trust me, it's a real challenge to produce something like that and those designers and copywriters who produce those magazine covers you see in the supermarket are among the most talented on the planet. People don't like spending money and yet those guys convince thousands of people to part with their hard-earned cash every day.

If you can learn how to do that with your marketing tools then you will succeed here ... but it takes time and you have to experiment. Those people who have been doing it for magazines for years can do it in their sleep but you and I have to work at it and we don't have years and years to learn the tricks of the trade.

But of course, we can learn from those people so maybe it's time to head down to the mall and see what magazines catch your eye and get you interested. Buy them and take them home and study them to see what colors were used, what images were used and what text was used.

When you understand how all those elements came together to attract you then you can start experimenting with the marketing tools that you use online. When you find what works best with your surfers then you're on your way to success.