About Joe
Joe Pulizzi is a leading author, speaker and strategist for content marketing. Joe is founder of the Content Marketing Institute and SocialTract. This blog looks at the trends in content marketing, and how marketers can learn to think and act like publishers.
Connect With Joe
Joe’s Books
Get Content Get Customers… the book that started the Content Marketing revolution. Learn how to develop compelling content and seamlessly deliver it to customers— without interrupting their lives.
Managing Content Marketing… how to put content marketing to work. Managing Content Marketing shows you, in detail, how to manage content marketing within your organization, whether you come from a small company or multi-billion dollar brand.
-
About CMI
CMI teaches marketers how to own their media channels instead of having to rent them through advertising. We do this through events like Content Marketing World, media properties like Chief Content Officer magazine, and strategic consulting and research for some of the best known brands in the world.
Our Benefactors
Toyota Connections Hits and Misses the Mark
Toyota Connections is a custom magazine targeted to Toyota owners in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Professionally executed by Pace Communications in Greensboro, North Carolina, Connections is a beautifully-designed piece with a lot of promise.
Spec Report
Here’s a quick review of the high points, and places where this magazine could take a few steps forward.
Hits
1. Variable/data-driven pages. Page 3 of the magazine includes a personal letter to the car owner offering highlights of the current issue. The personalization gets my attention, and the note is from the dealer who sold the owner their last Toyota. The address of the dealership is on this page as well.
Page 4 includes current events around the reader’s area that are within a one-to-two hour drive. Grabs my attention immediately and is a pleasant surprise.
2. Perforated and attached to the cover is a full-service coupon set. Perfect motivation to get the car back in the shop. Some good deals here as well.
3. Articles on “Portable Fitness” (exercising while on the road), “Natural Beauties” (three national parks I can drive my Toyota to) and R&R (recommended music to listen to in my Toyota) are all engaging articles that make me want to get in my Toyota and head for the road.
4. Book contest. Those who return the owner’s update card or complete it online can randomly win one of the books in this column. Good motivator to fill it out. Wish there were more possible winners though.
Misses
1. Two features on Toyota cars is one too many (Highlander and Scion). One is enough.
2. Not sure the fit with some of the editorial. The “Safe at Home” column is good, but I don’t see the relation with my Toyota. I was also at a loss with the home decorating feature. These two stories just don’t seem to fit in with my Toyota magazine. Would like to see more of a link to my vehicle.
3. Some good call-to-action throughout (contest, links to pertinent Web sites, toyota50th.com commemoration, Sudoku key), but there could be some improvement here. For example, could we go online to get a couple additional travel workouts? How about additional imagery and “can’t misses” from the national parks article?
Connections does a good job overall of pushing the reader to more, but there could be improvement in integrating the print version with online resources (read on for more, etc.).
The online version contains all the articles, plus some more contest information. But, Toyota misses the mark with the online articles by not having links like “forward to a friend” to get the articles out to other Toyota and non-Toyota owners. Also, other than the articles, there isn’t much here. There is an opportunity here to create an online experience for the reader (which may be in the works). Get the reader truly involved in the Toyota lifestyle, don’t just give them an online article.
Overall, the magazine is beautiful and professional, but there are clearly some opportunities to take the reader even further into the Toyota brand and experience.
>>If you liked this article, try Junta42 for more.