Going All-Digital Spawns a New Business Approach

By Jane E. Zarem
04/02/2008

In its new digital-only format, Physicians’ Travel & Meeting Guide is moving from a traditional 12-times print magazine to an undetermined number of single-sponsored digital editions targeted to single therapeutic categories.

All the content in a particular issue will relate to a single medical specialty. The editorial will be about travel destinations where meetings relevant to that specialty will be held in, say, the next quarter. The advertising will all be from a single sponsor interested in reaching that particular group of physicians. “And we’ll produce whatever number of issues the advertiser wants,” says Tom Cooney, director, multimedia strategy, for Physicians’ Travel & Meeting Network. “That could be four issues a year or more or less.”

Each issue will be circulated only to those subscribers who have identified themselves as practicing in the particular medical specialty on which the issue focuses. That means each subscriber may get only a few issues a year. But all the meeting locations, all the listings from the publisher’s comprehensive database of medical meetings, and, of course, all the advertising will be of specific interest to the reader.

“We focus on 40 therapeutic categories and hope to have sponsors for each major medical specialty,” says Cooney. “So we could have a lot more than 12 issues a year. In fact, we could be very busy.”