Conde Nast Portfolio's turnaround plan

David Kaplan of PaidContent.org talks to Conde Nast Portfolio publisher William Li about how the two-year-old business magazine can turn its performance around.

Kaplan writes, “But the latest blow came with Q1 ad page results showing that Portfolio‘s p plunged 60 percent (the mag’s reps say the adjusted number would be 46 percent if it took the reduced publishing into account). And on the internet side, Portfolio.com has been struggling when it comes to traffic, as comScore says uniques dropped 20 percent year-over-year in March to 579,000 visitors. The drop in traffic is likely related to Portfolio’s decision to cut fresh editorial content on the site.

“The turnaround plan: With all that baggage, Portfolio has a lot of work ahead to turn things around. But Portfolio publisher William Li, who was brought over from CN’s Men’s Vogue in January after a management shakeup, has been working on sharpening the magazine’s strengths and trying to expand its coverage to draw in more readers and advertisers. For instance, the magazine opening up sections on tech, travel and health. Also, Portfolio has been looking to expand its coverage and marketing appeal to more tech and telco advertisers, with advertisers like Adobe and AT&T recently having signed up.

“Earlier this month, the site was hit with one of its biggest losses when popular blogger Felix Salmon left to start a blog at Reuters covering global finance. He’ll be replaced by The Economist‘s Ryan Avent.”

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