Why Kiplinger’s remains a successful personal finance franchise

Tony Silber of Forbes.com writes about the success of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and its newsletters despite increasing competition.

Silber writes, “There are a variety of reasons for that, Kiplinger says, including a smart expansion into the digital realm that drives both advertising and paid-circulation newsletter subscriptions, and at the core, quality content. It’s true, he says, that personal-finance information and advice is ubiquitous today and free on the internet. But that doesn’t mean it’s of the same quality, and that’s where Kiplinger perceives his company’s advantage. ‘A lot of websites are written by amateur and volunteer contributors,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t compare to the carefully researched and fact-checked journalism that we offer. Maybe that’s why we survived.’

“The company’s advertisers — many of them direct, rather than programmatic buyers, both endemic and non endemic—sign up for custom content, slideshows, videos and more. ‘Why do they come to us?’ Kiplinger says. ‘They trust the quality of our content and they know they’re not going to get in trouble from content that doesn’t live up to the value of their brand.’

“The company publishes four paid newsletters (The Kiplinger Letter; The Kiplinger Tax Letter; Kiplinger’s Retirement Report; and Kiplinger’s Investing for Income) with a combined circulation of more than 300,000. The magazine has more than 600,000 subscribers. The website, Kiplinger.com, averages 24 million views per month. The four paid newsletters have renewal rates above 80%. In recent years, the company has created a series of daily enewsletters to drive both web traffic and subscriptions.”

Read more here.