When you think of magazines, what titles come to mind? Vogue? Cosmopolitan? Rolling Stone? Flicking through their pages, you’ll find advertisements from brands of a similar calibre, with multi-million-pound advertising budgets. But beyond the big names, there are thousands of smaller publications, each more unique and niche than the last. And with a niche topic, comes a perfectly curated audience.

For the last four months, I’ve been getting a crash course in the world of magazine publishing as a student intern at the International Magazine Centre. When I started my course I thought, like many, that the world of print magazines was on its way out. Not so. Through my Fridays spent on placement I’ve been introduced to a wealth of people and publications that have proven to me that as long as people are passionate about the magazines they make, there will always be readers for them. All the while this got me thinking, why don’t companies put more money into magazine advertising?

In my experience, I have found that modern advertising focuses heavily on digital marketing. Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook specifically drive a lot of sales for many brands, but more often than not I still see the same few brands recommended over and over on my feed. These tend to be the brands that have the money to invest in influencer promotion and high spread to gain their post engagement, but for the small brands that might not be possible. Most social media sites allow businesses to tailor their audience to who they think they need to reach but this can be hit or miss depending on your market, and when a company doesn’t have the time or money to invest in investigating their audience this can fall flat.

Enter the role of the small publication. Being introduced to so many magazines in the last few months I found that for many the focus of their marketing is building a dedicated community. What more could an advertiser want? An audience that trusts the magazine their reading and cares about the content, and with magazines on almost any topic imaginable any product can find its market. Advertisement cost in the print world is almost entirely based on readership, and so businesses can find publications that suit their product and their budget.

Of course, this isn’t only beneficial to small businesses. Listening to the experiences of people in the magazine industry at the International Magazine Centre has taught me that although the world of print magazines is far from dying out, there are still struggles for every publication. In the UK especially, printing and production costs are still at an all-time high meaning print runs remain limited. Financial issues caused by the current economic climate have generated industry-wide cutbacks for even the largest publishers and so aside from increasing retail prices, advertising is one of the main incomes for many publications.

My time at the International Magazine Centre has grown my appreciation for magazines and the industry massively. Having met so many people with a shared passion for print media, I only want the sector to grow in years to come. Ultimately, the pathway to this could be through small businesses realising the power of the magazine market.