Vogue aims to celebrate “the ceremonial side of life”.
Why Vogue?
Are you fond of fashion and lifestyle content? If yes, then, you are likely to be aware of Vogue. Vogue is one of the notable online fashion magazines with a cult following and stable and distributed revenue streams.
Why we picked Vogue? The publisher that started as a social gazette in the late 19th century, has now become a top lifestyle magazine today. We aren’t charmed by the sight of fashion on the website, but by the unique growth strategies.
Here are a few facts that surprised us and made us curious at the same time:
- Vogue magazine made its first appearance on December 17, 1892, and priced at 10 cents. Arthur Baldwin Turnure introduced the weekly magazine in New York. Now you can get an idea of how long they have been in the publishing industry, surviving several economic downturns and the Great Depression. And as of today, Vogue has 20+ international editions.
- At present, the Vogue brand receives more than 95M+ unique visitors every month. Want to know their social media reach? The publisher has 118.7M+ social media followers according to Conde Nast, the parent company (Src). Besides, check the graph below to know about social media contribution to their traffic.
So, here’s a little peek at what you can expect from this case study:
- Traits of Vogue – what they did to acquire traffic and how they turned the traffic into daily users,
- How Vogue differentiated itself from other successful digital publishers, and
- Successful marketing and advertising strategies.
How It All Started?
It was 1995 when Conde Nast launched the digital version of Vogue (vogue.co.uk) (Src). Just a handful of people worked to leverage the then-nascent web to gain readers. Although the dot com version of American Vogue was also available, it existed in Style.com, a fashion website of Conde Nast launched in 2000.
As you could imagine, there was not much traffic and revenue in the early days. Vogue.co.uk was just another new site on the Internet trying to get readers and reach new subscribers.
It is Anna Wintour who has given an innovative look to Vogue, reshaped the era of stylistic ideals and helped the brand to expand their portfolios into several regions.
Where Are They Today?
Since its launch, Vogue has been a favorite fashion brand among millennials. The publisher covers fashion from all angles and has immensely grown its fanbase in the last decade. Many of the competitors questioned whether Vogue will be able to stand the test of time. And undoubtedly, the publisher has crushed such doubts. Look at their numbers:
“Vogue is a synonym for fashion consciousness – for style, joie de vivre, and indulgence.”
So, what are the strategies that worked well for Vogue? Let’s dive deep into Vogue’s journey and see how they handled problems and expanded their reach.
Becoming Vogue
Vogue’s Internet Foray
Till 2002
In the late 1990s, the demand for digital content started growing increasingly as the readers started turning to the internet. And, 2.2M+ users were consuming online content in 1994, and the number was expected to double the following year (Src).
So, looking at the trend of the time and to capitalize on online consumers looking for fashion and beauty information about the celebrities, Conde Nast went online with British Vogue in 1995 with vogue.co.uk.
Right from the start, Vogue clearly understood the market it’s going after and knows what sort of content will resonate with the ideal audience. That’s how Vogue managed to bring advertising revenue from luxury brands, even in the early days.
Content Strategy
The publisher wanted to overhaul the digital strategy to better connect with the readers. It had to be authentic and closely align with the brand. The editorial team of Vogue noticed that most readers wanted content that incorporated videos, photos, infographics, etc. So, the team ensured that the site delivers what readers expect – text-rich long-form articles, videos, and photo galleries.
But, the debate that was going on in the team was about monetizing the online content. To adapt to such a challenge, the publisher invested in affiliate marketing – that is pioneered by publishers like BuzzFeed today. But why affiliate?
Affiliate Marketing
In the early 2000s, affiliate marketing was growing rapidly and one of the most popular ways to monetize the content. So, many publishers considered it as an attempt to avoid the revenue pitfalls. This monetization strategy allows publishers to add as many affiliate links as possible to an article and get a percentage of the sale as commission when someone clicks on the click and buys the product.
Since the audience of Vogue was fashion-savvy, they were naturally looking for luxury, beauty, or lifestyle content that can add utility to their lives, the team of Vogue surfaced some of the best-suited products and created a seamless path to purchase.
In fact, it dedicated an entire page “Shop” for marketers. Soon after the marketing became the mainstream for the publisher, Vogue partnered with key advertisers and leveraged the data and audience reach to monetize the content and make the most out of the affiliate marketing.
Source: Web Archive
Brand Diversification
From 2003 – 2008
Teen Vogue
As a sister publication of Vogue, Conde Nast launched Teen Vogue at the behest of Anna Wintour at the beginning of 2003. Although the volume of the magazine was nearly one-third of the average magazine of competitors including Teen People, Elle Girl, and Seventeen, the publisher bet the website, as well as magazine, would be trendy and competitive.
“We’re going to do what we do well, which is fashion, beauty, and style. A lot of other teen magazines are focussed on relationships, boys, and embarrassing moments. That is not our equity.”
– Amy Astley, Editor-in-Chief, Teen Vogue (Src)
So, how did Teen Vogue, focused on teen fashion helped the brand? In the initial days after launch, the publisher ran various contests on teenvogue.com.
During the initial days after launch, the publisher ran various contests/sweepstakes across the site. While some of them were related to refer-a-friend contests, others were somehow unique and interesting. Such as contests that asked teenagers to write and submit 15 dreams or just an original essay or fiction work (Src).
Not just to lure the teenagers, but also to outcast the competition from other publishers including Teen People.
Besides, the sales team reduced the price of print Teen Vogue magazine and made it at $1.50, half of the price of Seventeen (Src). Now, look at the numbers to understand if the strategy worked out or not. According to a report published by the Alliance for Audited Media, more than 2,70,901 copies of the Teen Vogue magazine were sold in August 2005 (Src).
From Print to Plate: Vogue Cafe
Perhaps, opening up a Cafe will be the most surprising move of the Vogue and it would be for any other publisher. In July 2003, the publisher introduced one of the biggest brand extensions into the food and beverage industry with the inauguration of Vogue Cafe in Moscow under the guidance of Elisaveta Yurusheva, a Ukrainian hotelier (Src). But, just the launch doesn’t mean this restaurant concept was successful for the publisher.
However, we aren’t saying that the strategy failed for Vogue. Because if it had failed, we wouldn’t have seen a series of new Vogue cafes in Bangkok, Portugal, and Dubai in recent years. So, that made us find the answers to how come a fashion and beauty publisher maintained a restaurant.
The success of Vogue couldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t partnered with local hoteliers and restaurant owners. The publisher gave extensive brand guidelines to the partners before starting the relationship and drew several conclusions (such as what does Vogue reader in Moscow would like to eat?) to offer relevant food or beverage to people.
This relevancy and a good and healthy presence of restaurants contributed to the success of Vogue cafes. Besides this, the publisher measured the success of this strategy in terms of staff retention, fully-booked restaurants, a constant stream of returning guests, great reviews, etc.
Vogue Fashion Fund/CFDA
The publisher partnered with CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) in 2003 and launched the Vogue Fashion Fund. The motive of launching this competitive program was to provide a platform for fashion designers to show their talent and get financial help and exposure.
By the end of 2015, the program had granted $4.3 million to more than 30 designers and companies. And, in the same year, the publisher partnered with Amazon and launched the “Fashion Fund” on Amazon. A half-hour season with 10 episodes that is still accessible via Prime Video.
You might be wondering how it is relevant to someone who’s running a media business? To run a media site, you need to source the content from influencers, upcoming fashion designers, and industry veterans. With the Fashion Fund, Vogue circled all of them under its roof.
Vogue Video Channel
Over the past few years, many publishers revamped their video content and monetization strategies. Instead of depending on third-party video platform providers, Vogue started publishing the video content through its owned and operated site, video.vogue.com
Vogue knew the significance of ‘Platform Independence’ back then. The publisher tried many different content formats that aimed at various demographics – from teenagers to millennials. As said, Vogue video channel isn’t dedicated to a particular type of content, it presented the content in several types such as music videos, interviews, tips and tricks, how-to, and many more.
Due to the relevance and accessibility of videos, the publisher garnered 900K+ uniques in one year since the launch. And still attracts 82.17K+ visitors every month .
Cross-Platform Digital Strategy
From 2008 – 2013
Going OTT (Over-the-Top)
2008 was a rough year for print as well as digital publishers. For Vogue, the print magazine saw a decline in ad pages by 9.6%. Side by side, the company was struggling to outpace competitors like Elle and Harper’s Bazaar (Src).
So, to push the audience reach of the magazine and website, the publisher began to expand into new video territory, OTT services for its readers. Since the time period, video-on-demand services have been growing rapidly. Hence, to take advantage of the OTT audience, the publisher introduced a 12-episode web series, Model.Live that gets displayed on EXPRESS.com, Hulu, Veoh, and Tidal TV . The publisher made an impressive 396 million in advertising revenue (total) in 2008 (Src) and attracted over a million unique users (Src).
Vogue U.S. Launch
In 2010, the publisher rolled out the new U.S version of Vogue which existed with Style.com till then. It had a clean and user-friendly design and the number of daily posts was increased to 12 as well. The editors and designers aimed to be more nimble while creating content. The newly redesigned website was much faster than the previous one. A team of not less than 22 people was dedicated to the task
