Magazine company doubles YoY revenue with Contentful

Last year, roughly 47% of organizations were hacked or experienced a security breach. Targeted companies spent an average of $4 million to recover, underscoring the urgency for heightened security protocols.

Our customer, a well-known, London-based publishing company, had digital content spread across different WordPress websites with less-than-ideal, less-than-secure hosting environments. When they were acquired, updating their technology was a top priority.

Eager to eliminate the vulnerabilities that came from using an outdated monolith and preserve its legacy as a quality company, they decided to replatform to a more reliable, secure, and flexible system.

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Turning the page to a more secure CMS

During the vetting stage, Contentful stood out to the magazine company for its ability to bring content strategy and security together in one scalable system. They were impressed by its comprehensive information security management system, which has been awarded an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, an internationally recognized standard that ensures Contentful protects its platform and users. 

The magazine company was also drawn to Contentful‘s scalability. The digital team wasn’t just migrating one site. They were migrating several, so they needed a tool and processes they could execute on repeat, without delaying content production. 

“One of the great things about Contentful is the shared code base,” said one digital leader with the magazine company. “When we want to create another version of a website, it's very easy to duplicate. And when we want to introduce upgrades, we can roll them out across all the websites simultaneously.”

In addition to security and scalability, Contentful also offered the magazine publisher  the ability to create a consistent visual identity across publication websites. There were 12 websites from the publisher's existing and legacy print magazines. In addition to comprehensive security,  their goal was to improve the overall look, function, and performance of their web properties. 

Publishing the new platform with one developer

When the magazine company began replatforming its sites, they leaned on the support of the wider magazine group. Together, they evaluated which websites to migrate first, landing on their two leading publications. 

“There's a lot more preparation with the first migration: Integrating into our tech stack, our content delivery network, our hosting system, and building the content models,” said the digital leader. “We also hired design support to build the page templates for us and make sure it worked for mobile and tablet.”

Once the first two sites were live, the magazine publisher's core marketing team, which includes 6 writers, one developer, and one SEO analyst, was amazed at how easy it was to manage content, even without technical skills. “It’s quite telling that, with our relatively light technical setup, we’re able to use an enterprise-level solution like Contentful,” noted the digital leader.

“We’ve proven that it doesn’t have to be a massive job with dozens of developers — it can be done with the right small, agile team.” 

The feature article: Faster launches

The first site migration took several months. But today, it takes less than six weeks to set up a new site and move content from WordPress to Contentful. “We’ve got a well-oiled process,” said the digital leader. So far, they’ve moved six of their nine WordPress sites to Contentful.  

Moving from a monolithic tool to a composable platform required some amount of change management and new skills. But the process was straightforward with the free courses and tailored learning pathways available in the Contentful Learning Center. 

Today, and the content team has fully onboarded the new system. They especially love the page templates, which allow them to create new content seamlessly while respecting brand guidelines. 

“Having page templates for buyer’s guides has been really useful,” said the digital leader. “We never had that before, and it allows those articles to stand out from the rest of our content so we get much better click-through rates.”

Working on the next edition of the websites: More apps, more functionalities

Whether it’s for their garden publication or their five other Contentful sites, The magazine company enjoys being able to easily add new functionality through app integrations. “One of the great things about Contentful is its Marketplace. No matter what your needs are, there’s an app for it!” the digital leader said.

They’ve integrated Netlify for hosting, the Merge app for duplicating content across spaces, and have even integrated Apple News.

In instances where they can’t find exactly what they need, they simply build it with the Contentful App Framework. So far, they’ve created apps for embedding social media posts, validating file names, and validating URLs. 

They’ve also integrated Piano software’s registration wall, which requires users to create a free account to access content. This helps them turn anonymous visitors into known users.  

“We’re getting deeper engagement and more returning users through that,” said the digital leader.  

“One of the great things about Contentful: We’ll do a bit of digging and go, ‘Hey, there’s an app for this!’ So we just plug that in.”   

Getting the word out

Since moving to Contentful in 2023, the magazine company has made a strategic effort to put content out that draws more of their audience in.

For example:

• Created buyer’s guides with SEO keyword targeting, which resulted in audience and affiliate revenue growth. 

• Deployed Black Friday promotions on time leading to increased revenue

• Improved the mobile experience, leading to faster page speeds and increased time on site. 

The results have not only shown in their digital performance, but also their bottom line. 

Year-over-year revenue growth doubled. “It’s substantial,” said the digital leader. “The data implies that people are enjoying it and engaging.”  

On the horizon, they plan to leverage Live Preview to see what pages will look like as they build them. They’d also like to make their buyer’s guides more dynamic. Currently, the prices and links in their buyers’ guides are static. Their goal is to show the lowest price, best retailer, and flag when items go out of stock in real time.  

Since their print magazines are delivered to physical homes, the magazine company also sees a world in which they explore digital localization. 

Whatever they decide to do next, they won’t need 20 developers to achieve it.  

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