At the beginning of 2015, Newstyle Media wanted to undergo a transformation. An award-winning press agency devoted to delivering the highest-quality local lifestyle and business articles, they needed to bring their content to where their audience was – online. Bringing six magazines and their content onto a digital platform was no small task. They were struggling with their web developer and finding a way to host their backlog of articles.
At the same time, The Kingdom was undergoing its own transformation. After spending six years as a full-service advertising agency, we made the decision to switch exclusively to digital marketing. We embraced the change fully, becoming one of only three HubSpot Platinum partners in Australia.
When we partnered with Newstyle Media in July, we knew it was going to be a challenge. Fortunately, Newstyle Media had a wealth of attractive content ready-to-go – it just needed to be shared digitally with the world. Today, Newstyle Media’s monthly website hits averages 22,000 visitors, with 8.4 clicks per social message, and a conversion rate on their landing pages of 35%. They've increased their contacts database by 25% and their organic traffic by 216%.
You could say we’re both pretty pleased about that.
The Vision
Newstyle Media had two goals: the first was to bring their library of content over to an organized, user-friendly content-management system; the second was to reach out to their audience across every channel available. Newstyle’s six magazines – Adelaide Hills Magazine, Aspire, Barossa Living, Parade, Your Kids, and Wine Business Magazine (WBM) – were already widely available in local newsstands and shops. The magazines are published on different schedules, from bi-monthly to bi-annually.Newstyle Media wanted to grow their audience, and reach them in a way they weren’t able to before. Their vision was to create a reader-friendly website that would enable them to grow their readership and post on a more regular basis. By partnering with The Kingdom and using HubSpot, they’ve not only been able to double their readership, but grow their fan base as well.
The Design
The goal in redesigning the websites for Newstyle Media and its magazines was first and foremost to create a visually pleasing, easy-to-navigate user experience. We started by making sure that the readers would get a clean reading experience, ensuring that the featured Newstyle Media partner ads were prominent but not interruptive. We pared down the visual distractions – especially on mobile – so that each and every article was easy-to-read.
From the editorial end, HubSpot offered an unparalleled user experience. With some of the magazines published once every two months, and others published twice a year, Newstyle Media was facing the challenge of staying relevant in the digital age. The Kingdom structured each website with parallel designs, so that readers and employees didn’t have to deal with learning new navigation on every page. Each magazine's site is built as a custom blog with the HubSpot Blog App, so it became infinitely easier for the Newstyle editors to publish articles on a weekly basis. Newstyle Media quickly embraced HubSpot’s Social Media Publishing tool to grow their audience, and keeps about a thousand messages on the publishing schedule at any time.
The old Wine Business Magazine site against the new.
The Results
Newstyle Media has been able to revolutionise their business. Instead of restricting their articles to their publishing schedule, they’re able to publish new and relevant content on a weekly basis. Their updated content offerings get pushed out through a weekly newsletter and social media. The Social Media Publishing tool has transformed the way they share their content and helped them attract over 5,158 new followers!
Newstyle Media has had astounding success since implementing their digital strategy. Their EDMs are very popular, with an increase of 147% in clicks back to the website and 25% more contacts in their database. From going to zero online presence, Newstyle has also garnered over 389 referrals back to their website.
Social media is hugely powerful, bringing in 40% of their traffic and increasing their reach by 16%.
The reading experience has been dramatically altered, too. Previously, the magazines all had different templates that were difficult to navigate, and included only desktop options. The new mobile-responsive websites allow readers to easily scan the content regardless of the device he or she is using. Simple, clear navigation helps readers to easily browse and explore Newstyle Media’s library of articles.
Reading an article on the old site was a busy experience on mobile, but the clean design and large text make it a breeze on the new.
Next Steps
Now that Newstyle Media has been transformed into an inbound marketing powerhouse, we’re looking to take their business to the next phase. After all, inbound isn’t just about website design or social media – it’s about lead generation and conversion.Newstyle Media has embraced us, HubSpot, and inbound marketing in the past six months. It’s a huge shift in perspective – from publishing glossy magazines every two months to publishing new content every day – that they’ve adapted to impressively. We’re excited to keep working with them in the new year.
