After finding out Swimmer takes 30% of our budget,I was thinking how to make it better.I think it is perhaps fine as it is now for what it does now,but if it is to help us grow...
What do you think?
Rodale had a magazine called "Fitness Swimmer' a few years ago and I thought it was excellent and I think implied that such a mag could be(almost) profitable.The current 4 in one format of "Swimming World" now seems excellent.Perhaps Swimmer should have sections:Competitive Swimmer,fitness swimmer,tri,noodlers(to be totally inclusive.)This might help with the problem of technique articles in Swimmer.The articles seem aimed for the middle and are too simple for elite swimmers and too advanced for beginners.
If you want to sell issues how about more pictures of good looking Masters swimmers in swim suits(it worked for Sports Illustrated.)
I don't find the "new product"section very helpful as it just gives what the company says.How about product testing? I expect a company would be glad to say"our goggles were the top rated by USMS-publicity for us.)If you really want to sell how about product testing on LZR vsTracer Rise,vs Nero Comp.I bet most swimmers,coaches,and parents would be interested in that.
Parents
Former Member
I'd like to know what other chapters are doing, and what Masters Swimming Canada is doing as well.
Masters Swimming Canada phased out the printed magazine in favor of an online magazine, and then the online magazine was phased out in favor of just posting the articles on the web site. And then we lost our editor and primary writer, so we're currently in the process of rebuilding our content creation capacity, hoping to have things going again in the next month or two.
We were spending more than a third of our budget just on printing and postage of the printed magazine, which was ok when we weren't doing much else. When we started becoming more active we found projects that had much higher value to the members that we redirected the funds to. Two examples are the Million Metre Challenge which is a program that lets members track the distance they swim and provides recognition at various milestone distances, and the mymsc.ca web site which in addition to news and resources gives members an integrated view of their results, rankings and records and their involvement in programs like the million metre challenge, check off challenge, the pentathlon program, 1km challenge, etc. We really need to do more on the news and communications front, but we are also attempting to put more financial and time resources into producing permanent resources in addition to newsy articles.
Although the timing might not be right to use this analogy, I think consideration of the magazine is somewhat akin to handling investments, the right time to sell an investment is when you have an alternative investment that you expect to have a better return. Does USMS have something more important than the magazine that it could accomplish if it had the $300k+/year to invest?
In the way of a radical change suggestion, maybe you could team up with floswimmer (or set up something along those lines) where you get someone to travel around the country with a video camera interviewing swimmers and coaches, and going to meets, and maybe go one step further and work with masters coaches and swimmers to produce video technique segments. Video is a way better tool than printed paper to convey drills and technique points and the technology, including underwater video, is dirt cheap these days. It would also give exposure to different programs, and coaches and swimmers. I think you could do a good job of it well within the budget for the magazine and still have money to put the best parts of the magazine online.
I'd like to know what other chapters are doing, and what Masters Swimming Canada is doing as well.
Masters Swimming Canada phased out the printed magazine in favor of an online magazine, and then the online magazine was phased out in favor of just posting the articles on the web site. And then we lost our editor and primary writer, so we're currently in the process of rebuilding our content creation capacity, hoping to have things going again in the next month or two.
We were spending more than a third of our budget just on printing and postage of the printed magazine, which was ok when we weren't doing much else. When we started becoming more active we found projects that had much higher value to the members that we redirected the funds to. Two examples are the Million Metre Challenge which is a program that lets members track the distance they swim and provides recognition at various milestone distances, and the mymsc.ca web site which in addition to news and resources gives members an integrated view of their results, rankings and records and their involvement in programs like the million metre challenge, check off challenge, the pentathlon program, 1km challenge, etc. We really need to do more on the news and communications front, but we are also attempting to put more financial and time resources into producing permanent resources in addition to newsy articles.
Although the timing might not be right to use this analogy, I think consideration of the magazine is somewhat akin to handling investments, the right time to sell an investment is when you have an alternative investment that you expect to have a better return. Does USMS have something more important than the magazine that it could accomplish if it had the $300k+/year to invest?
In the way of a radical change suggestion, maybe you could team up with floswimmer (or set up something along those lines) where you get someone to travel around the country with a video camera interviewing swimmers and coaches, and going to meets, and maybe go one step further and work with masters coaches and swimmers to produce video technique segments. Video is a way better tool than printed paper to convey drills and technique points and the technology, including underwater video, is dirt cheap these days. It would also give exposure to different programs, and coaches and swimmers. I think you could do a good job of it well within the budget for the magazine and still have money to put the best parts of the magazine online.
