How Could M2 Magazine Improve Their Marketing & What Do They Do Well?

Tom Fishburne, founder and CEO of Marketoonist, once said: “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” I love this quote because it encapsulates a very important facet of communication that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

It will be interesting to see if M2 reads this column before it gets published, because I thought I would examine some of their marketing activities, highlight the great aspects, and suggest a few ways they might reach a wider audience.

Current Activities

M2 AI Summit – This is brilliant. Whoever came up with the concept deserves serious recognition.

Magazine printing and distribution is a very expensive business, and providing advertisers with clear value and a definitive ROI is nearly impossible. However, with the M2 Summits, they engage with their target market in a way that provides real value, while also giving their advertisers a value-add—a different platform to connect with customers beyond the printed pages.

Every single person I’ve spoken to who has attended one of these events has been absolutely buzzing about the experience. In fact, once they start talking about it, it’s hard to stop them!

A core marketing concept is social currency — meaning people want to tell others about their experience. I don’t know the commercial details of the summits, but from an outsider’s perspective, the concept is genius.

Physical Magazine & A-Listers on the Cover – I own a bunch of magazines myself, so I understand how uneconomical it is to create and distribute printed versions. The postage alone makes it unviable for many publications.

M2, on the other hand, seems to have found a way to make this viable, all while featuring interviews and content with genuinely world-class talent.

For me, the feel, print quality, and the celebrities on the cover scream high-end. I’m sure this contributes to the plethora of luxury brands that seem to advertise with them in every issue.

Other Ideas

Podcast – I may be off the mark here because I don’t know how their commercial arrangements work with the cover personalities. However, if they could secure interviews with even a fraction of the people who grace their magazine covers, they could create one of—if not the most—popular New Zealand-based podcasts.

User Engagement – While scrolling through the website, I noticed a lack of dynamic content. The vast majority of the pieces are text and image-based.

To me, there’s an opportunity to engage more online with their audience. Finding their social channels or ways to engage with them wasn’t immediately obvious on the website. I couldn’t find any way to engage with the content (through article comments, videos, etc.), nor did I see any links to their social channels.

Engaging with their audience in a more authentic manner, beyond their current activities, would create a win-win-win. Their audience would receive additional value, their advertisers would benefit from increased engagement, and the value of the M2 publications would grow as a result.

I don’t know the full marketing strategy of M2, nor many of the finer details that I would typically have when analyzing a robust marketing plan. The main purpose of writing this is to spark ideas for marketing to customers in ways that don’t feel like traditional marketing. And, of course, to see if M2 reads these pieces before they’re published!