At Scala Crossmedia, they don't like manual work.
Scala Crossmedia is a publisher specialized in publications for niche markets. It has been around for over 31 years now, employs twenty people and around 350 freelancers also work with it. Together, they reach 1.2 million readers across countries across thirteen brands and platforms. Many of these readers still love print magazines, but they also often use social media and read newsletters and magazines online.
Ashja Bosboom, CEO of Scala Crossmedia: “It's not for nothing that we renamed the company to Scala Crossmedia. We use a lot of media to reach our readers. However, paper is still very important. Our readers love to browse quietly and be inspired. At the same time, visits by laptop and smartphone are growing steadily. We create content that very nice to know is, for our readers, often almost need to know. After all, it is their passion. It's a shame to only publish content once. By spreading it cross-media, we use it more often and we are also doing more people a favor with it.” The goal is to grow sales by 70% in the coming years. This should mainly be achieved through acquisitions and by selling the content more often and to more people, and that is best done cross-media.
Use of all media
At Scala, cross-media does not mean that a magazine is cut up and distributed online in parts after publication; the order is determined for each contribution: first in the magazine and then in the webshop or online, or vice versa. This workflow is then largely automated. “We want to spend as little time as possible on tedious, repetitive work, so we can spend more time doing what our passion is: inspiring people to get the most out of their hobby or profession.”
“When we have a crochet pattern with a description ready for a scarf, it will appear in the magazine, for example. On the hook, explains Ashja Bosboom. “It is also placed in the webshop where people can buy it separately. The same content also appears on Haakflix, our all you can hook platform where members have access to all 620 patterns. In addition, the text is also automatically translated using AI (and then checked by an employee). After that, it is automatically placed on the international sales platform Etsy. In England and America, we publish the content of Fun Crochet Magazine on magazine platforms such as Readly, Pressreader, and Zinio. We mainly use Instagram and Pinterest to generate attention.”
“If you do a lot online, you should think carefully about what you're giving away, what's accessible after leaving name and address details and what you always have to pay for, and how that's possible: via a one-off payment, a subscription or platform membership. Then you have to properly arrange all of that in the various systems. In addition, we want to prevent manual work as much as possible. We have stored all our subscriber data in Zeno. From there, with the help of specialized other packages, we arrange access, shipping and billing. Without a solid database as a basis, it would be impossible to properly manage all copy and subscription flows.”
Critical readers
Ashja Bosboom: “The readers of our consumer content are very knowledgeable, after all, it's about their passion. So we need to deliver high-quality content. Online, we see what interests our readers the most and what's less. We can then adjust our editorial formulas. But we have to stay ahead and keep inspiring, so we don't let the visitor figures determine everything. At the moment, for example, granny squares (see below, ed.) a huge trend among crocheters. ”
By the way, Scala Crossmedia's consumer brands are not all about crocheting and knitting. There are also titles about being creative on the sewing machine (Stitch & Quilt) and with paper (My hobby card). For the broad hobbyist, there is HobbyHandy and for rail enthusiasts (on scale and in bulk) Rail hobby.
“For readers of Rail hobby it is important that we first place some content online and only then in the magazine. These readers are very interested in current events in the field of trains. So we'll post current content online first: it won't be news by the magazine's release date. Then we add in-depth background information to the magazine, for example, so that it also provides interesting content there.”
Also (again) trade magazines
In addition to the titles for the consumer market, Scala also publishes (again) trade magazines after two recent acquisitions. That started with TxP (Textile Plus) a magazine for professional textile artists. Bosboom: “There is an overlap with our handicraft titles in the sense that they are also about textiles, but the readers of TxP are not working on fabrics and art from their hobby but professionally. This means that it is much more of a trade magazine than a consumer magazine. In the past, Scala has published many trade magazines, so in that regard, the circle is complete again.
Recently, we have taken over two more professional magazines: Textiles and Shoe vision. These are mainly aimed at the retailer. Textiles has been around for 102 years and has an enormous base. Subscribers include large retail chains and small specialty stores, as well as fashion brands that want to discover market developments before they become commonplace. In addition to a lot of content about trends in clothing and shoes, these titles also contain a lot of information about developments in the retail world, such as the operation of web shops. Sustainability is also an important topic.”
Integration
The takeover itself went very quickly: Ashja Bosboom and her colleagues had only a few days to analyse the magazines, explore the market, make a huge amount of calculations and make a decision. Now they are at the stage where the new titles are being carefully incorporated into the existing ecosystem. “We are now integrating the subscriber data for these titles into our systems. Socho has extensively analyzed the existing databases and will convert them into the format that we use for all our contacts. Where we want to go is known, now we have analyzed how the link can be made.
“The question whether we can't organize certain processes better therefore usually comes from the team. The ability to link content to online via QR codes, for example, comes from them. Placing QR codes on invoices so that customers can easily pay via iDEAL also comes from the team. Socho has achieved that within Zeno. Now we see that payments are more often made on time. ”
Not only the employees provide input for new developments, suppliers such as Socho also provide advice. “We like to make use of the knowledge of our partners, such as Socho. They know what is possible when it comes to automation and they now know our company well. We therefore consult regularly, where we are not only the asking parties, but they also make proposals: this is how we come to the best solutions together.”
At Socho, they know exactly how to best support us: growing together for more than 15 years, that's what we call a partnership! - Ashja Bosboom, CEO of Scala Crossmedia
