In the business-to-business magazine business, the reader is the boss when it comes to content. If the reader does not like your content and chooses not to read it, there is no need for your magazine.
Those magazines that have articles and news that readers want and need will continue to be successful. Who decides if that content is good and needed? The reader.
If a magazine's readers renew their subscriptions year after year, they like and need the content. If your readers tell you in surveys that the like and need your content, it is true. The most important job for any magazine, is to provide the reader with the content they want and need. Magazine publishers and editors need to understand what the reader wants and deliver it.
This is an ongoing assignment. Just because your readers consumed your content last year and the year before that does not mean they still like it. It is up to the magazine staff to continually strive to understand the needs of the reader.
Whether it is online content or print content, if it teaches, educates, informs, and entertains, it will be read. If it is easy to obtain and graphically easy to read, readers will find it and request a subscription.
This is a tall order for magazines but we have done it successfully for over a century. I suspect that we will continue to be successful if we deliver what the boss wants and that boss is the reader.
