Digital Plus Print Make Cal Broker Top Choice for California Life and Health Brokers
Many of you may not know that as the owner of California Broker Media, I come from 25 years on the agency side. Since June of last year, my editorial focus has been to view the content of articles submitted by industry experts using a filter that ensures we offer the most valuable and relevant information to California brokers of life and health insurance.
Our team at California Broker thanks our readers, authors and advertisers who have helped California Broker Media Group grow into an industry leadership role. We look forward to your support in 2023 and beyond as we face challenges to our industry. As the year rolls out we all lean on our industry leaders and colleagues to develop products and services for our clients and at California Broker we commit to providing news and information to help our readers be successful.
Our goal is to provide unique, useful and entertaining information associated with health and life insurance themes to enable readers to do the work necessary to be client advocates.
To pursue this goal, our team collects the most valuable information provided by expert authors, coupled with researched and curated content we develop, so that each magazine and newsletter we send out is filled with relevant content. This effort is an ongoing challenge and we are confident we will continue to meet this goal with your help.
Help Shape California Broker Content: Feedback Tools for You
Your help is needed to create a vibrant feedback process.
We encourage your suggestions for improvements to enhance our ongoing mission to provide insightful, relevant, informative content. To make that possible, we’re introducing interactive media tools to our platform. Through our digital offerings, you now have the opportunity to respond and be heard using on the spot feedback mechanisms.
It is through the support of our advertisers that we are able to bring our content to you. With our new interactive digital media tools, both our advertisers and authors can experience a more direct response from you.
Tools you can use
In the online digital version of our monthly magazine articles, as you read through the magazine we will be able to learn more about what is of interest to you when readers use the article links. Many of our advertisements will also have links that will go directly to the sponsor. In print, we will also provide contact information so you reach out directly to our advertisers.
Please take our surveys as your comments and suggestions will be reviewed, considered, acted upon and shared when appropriate. Your feedback will guide us to make adjustments in what we offer. With direct feedback, even our advertisers can make adjustments to enhance their offers to you.
ADDITIONALLY – When you come across valuable and enjoyable articles and news, we invite you to actively share with our editor at linda@calbrokermag.com so all of our readers can learn from and enjoy current, relevant information. You can remain anonymous, or ask to be credited for the information provided if it is used.
Perspective on California Broker
You can help us do a better job by reviewing our current
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis.
Strengths
- We have a robust brand and track record over 42 years, earning us the top position for all media focused on and directed to life and health insurance professionals in California.
- We have strong working relationships with many professional associations in the industry. We are committed to strengthening these vital connections, and we look to build new relationships with Group Health, Medicare, HR, Life and Annuity organizations. Please suggest possible contacts.
- Our target market reach positions us as the leader in California. Our solid base includes 25,000 print subscribers and 9,000 eNewsletter subscribers. We are building this base going into 2023.
- Our website is vibrant and we plan to build on the 10,000 unique visitors monthly while seeking to streamline the content currently displayed.
Weaknesses
- We continue to work to gain more feedback from you, our readers. The move to digital interaction will help.
- Costs of print and postage remain a major challenge. Many print media companies are moving to digital to save on the significant fixed costs of a print magazine. These costs remain a concern and we are looking for ways to offset these expenses.
- There is a risk to California Broker’s leadership position if we are not constantly looking to provide valuable content to you our readers. Building connections with authors and influencers in our industry is a must do to continuously provide our weekly and monthly offerings.
Opportunities
- Use digital feedback tools to check in with readers and get feedback on articles and advertising.
- The use of general surveys will help us cover the categories you value.
- With your feedback, we can do the work to reach out for new sources of content and build more useful content.
- Digital media will help us reduce costs of print media so we will look for our reader preferences for the type of media they prefer.
Threats
- Printing and postage costs continue to rise, and more print media is moving to digital as a result. We have a three-step process to learn more about our print readers and make plans to address this threat.
a.) Track where we send both print and digital magazines and measure reader experiences.
b.) Gather reader feedback over time to determine preferences on receiving our information. To date, our tracking of feedback has been spread between print and online reader preferences. We see wide ranges of responses and it looks like readers have many ideas to share about the topic of print and digital media. At this time, we ask that readers opt in to receive both and also let us know your preference.
c.) We expect that by later this year our move to more digital options will prove positive. We still expect to have print subscribers, so this option will continue through 2023.
- We need our print reader emails. Beginning with the March issue, we will email the print issue in digital form to our current email list. We need to continue to collect more emails so we reach all of our print readers.
To be part of the process of SHAPING THE FUTURE OF CALBROKER,
please use this link to provide us with your email. LINK
Once again, please give the print and eMagazine a try and let us know your thoughts.
2023 Focus
- Circulation Consistency: As mentioned above, California Broker Magazine will also come to our email subscribers as an eMagazine. We will make the eMagazine available on our website as usual AND we will also email it our monthly subscribers as well. Please give both formats a chance. If you want to unsubscribe to the eMagazine, you may do so. Please know the print magazine will continue to be sent to subscribers.
- Digital and Print: Note that the digital magazine has the same content as the print. The new digital version will be accessible on all media forms: mobile phone, laptop and desktop.
- Essential Feedback: All readers will have the chance to respond to simple surveys to provide us feedback on articles and advertisements. We need your content ideas and your feedback on our published articles and advertising. This support will help us provide a stronger product for you.
- Common Goals: Collectively, we need your input to continue to bring our industry the valued information needed to be able to perform as professionals, increase revenues and client impact through the work we perform, and build successful agencies that our families and employees can count on into the future.
- Future Focused: When we focus on the tasks in front of us and keep in mind our goal, we can lead the way forward for many more years. For your clients, we strive to give you the resources needed to make an impact on their lives. And for you and your employees we hope to open new opportunities for you to grow, protect and sell your business.
Phil Calhoun, owner and publisher,
California Broker Media Group