15 secrets of the best covers ever

2 hour in-company training course

Can we ever REALLY know what makes a cover fly off the shelves? It is one of the most mystical arts in magazines but, while there are obviously no easy answers, we can learn so much from where others have succeeded - and perhaps even more from where they have failed. We reveal the secrets of the covers that succeeded beyond their editors' wildest dreams, the covers that they hope to never see again and perhaps most intriguingly of all, the covers they still believe should have worked, but didn't!

  Cover culture: the techniques and formats that mags are using today to grab eyeballs

Half day in-company training course

Ideal for senior editorial, marketing and publishing teams who want to maximise the impact their cover has on newsagents' shelves.  The newsstand battle for sales has never been fiercer and subsequently grabbing the reader's attention has never been harder.  In this session we look at what the most successful mags - in a range of markets - are doing today to create an impact and make their mags fly off the shelves.

We also revisit the widely held rules of great cover execution to see if they are still as relevant today.

Delegates analyse their own last five covers and create a list of things their publication should try and avoid along with 10 suggested improvements.

  Front cover evaluator: is your magazine cover as good as it could be?

One day in-company training course

This collaborative evaluation process is a highly developed way to “grade” the effectiveness of your cover on the newsstand.

During this one-day team workshop we will work side-by-side with you to look at your magazine cover — element by element — based on what we have learned through research, focus groups, eye-tracking studies, and plain old experience.

We will pay special attention to how it looks, how it reads, how it keeps the readers’ attention.

Who is it for?  The senior team on a magazine brand who want to refresh their approach to covers in order to maximize sales.

What will it do?

• Allow the senior team of a magazine to step-back and take a fresh look at their cover execution
• Benchmark your front covers against the competition and industry best practice
• Learn from other magazines in comparable markets and how they create compelling covers
• Create a list of findings with specific actions on how to improve and gain more readers.

  9 things to always keep front of mind when creating a magazine cover

2 hour in-company training course

Creating really compelling covers isn't easy, that's for sure.  Trying to convey on a single page the inherent value that is locked inside your mag, to readers who have a dazzling array of competitors to choose from and a lot less money in their pockets than they used to, makes this one of the most difficult times ever to shift copies off the shelves.  

In this interactive seminar we will share with you some truly effective tips that you can use back in the office to give your cover added bite.  We will show you examples and case studies of magazines that have used these nine things – and explain why they have enjoyed success.

You will also learn from the ones that ignored them (and, in some cases, they fell spectacularly flat on their faces). 

At the end of the session there will be a time for you to analyse your own magazine’s cover execution against our benchmarks and to identify areas for improvement.

These things have made our life much easier - and brought the publishers we have worked for hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional sales.

For more information on how we can help you organise your Covers course, please contact us.