Forbes redesign produces results

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer of Forbes, writes Monday about how the magazine’s redesign has been integrated with other changes and what the results have been so far.

Dvorkin writes, “The Forbes 400 issue (the first to be re-architected and redesigned) sold 34% more copies on the newsstand, compared with the same issue a year ago. Soon after, our Best Small Companies issue sold 13% more copies than a year earlier. Newsstand results take time to roll in, but all indications point to continued higher newsstand sell-through rates at a time when the magazine industry as a whole has adopted the position that ‘flat is the new up.’

“Perhaps more significant, Forbes magazine renewal rates (a key barometer of how subscribers feel about our work) are up 2 points, compared with a year ago. That rise may not seem big, but it’s very difficult to achieve that kind of overall lift. And, a recent new marketing campaign to acquire new Forbes subscribers performed 84% better than a comparable campaign last year at this time.”

Later, he wrote, “Increasingly, Web-first content finds a home in the magazine. When it does, it’s always updated and repackaged with additional reporting or print-only elements. In recent issues, nearly 15% of the magazine pages originated online.”

Read more here.