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MEMORANDUM TO: PAUL TRAPP EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT OF MARKETING

FROM: DANNY MOSCO MARKETING ASSOCIATESUBJECT: MARKETING DIMENSIONS OF RELEVANT MEDIA GROUP AND REC-OMMENDATIONS

Relevant Media Group is a multi-media group that targets twenty and thirty year old

Christians, founded by Cameron Strang on June 1, 2000 when he was 24 years old. The brand

reaches more than 5 million readers every month through their portfolio of products, including:

print and iPad magazines, relevantmagazine.com, relevant.tv, and the weekly relevant podcast..

For Relevant, faith and culture are woven together in an inseparable fabric, setting up the brand’s

values of the pursuit of Truth and intentional dialogue with contemporary culture. Relevant does

not champion themselves with answers to all of the questions we ask along life’s journey, but

rather seeks to create authentic content which asks questions other people will not, in order to en-

courage readers’ growth. Thus, the unifying vision of Relevant, or the Schwerpunkt (Richards

76), of God, Faith, and Culture is made abundantly clear

(http://www.relevantmediagroup.com/our-story/).

Market Positioning

Relevant occupies a niche in the market for young adult media, perhaps having created

that niche itself. Founder and CEO Cameron Strang started the company as a response to what he

saw as a lack of media for younger generations that addressed questions of life, faith, and culture

in one place. Using the typical segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP) reveals the types of

customers Relevant is working to reach (Kumar 27). Relevant generally works with millennials

in their 20s and 30s, and more specifically targets those who live in and near cities and generally

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like to stay current with cultural trends. Finally, the positioning of the company is unique be-

cause they offer compelling stories with leading cultural icons, through the lens of a faith-based

worldview. Relevant’s early days had a strong ch’i effect because this sort of combination had

not been done before. However, ch’i eventually becomes cheng (Richards 142) and Relevant has

worked to create deep differentiation to keep this from happening (Kumar 28).

This deep differentiation comes from using the entire value network (Kumar 38) rather

than being limited to the traditional four p’s marketing mix. Relevant delivers content to its sub-

scribers at prices which are lower than other magazines in the industry, while still making a

profit. For example, Relevant charges $12 for a one year subscription, compared to $29.95 for

Rolling Stone Magazine, another magazine covering contemporary culture. Furthermore, Rele-

vant also delivers loads of free content through a weekly podcast on iTunes, countless articles on

relevantmagazine.com, free streaming music on a section of the website called “the drop,” and

more (relevantmagazine.com/subscribe).

The differentiation gets deeper with some innovation in the value proposition. Rele-

vant’s value network is set up differently than others’; for example, typically media companies

necessitate keeping a larger staff of writers, editors, designers, marketing personnel, etc. but Rel-

evant significantly reduces this by keeping a small staff of 14 people. Moreover they rely a great

deal on outside contributions from other websites and blogs for articles posted on their magazine

website, and some in the magazine as well. Distribution costs are brought down as physical print

issues and digital editions are combined. Finally, Relevant offers far more than just a subscrip-

tion to a bi-monthly magazine publication; subscribers are given access to all of

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Relevant’s products and exclusive content not available to others, such as music compilation al-

bums (Kumar 36).

Customer Experience

Relevant’s success ultimately stems from the unique customer value proposition they

offer, and how they manage all of the clues throughout the customer’s experience to create syn-

ergistic total experiences. It always begins with a particular end frame in mind for the cus-

tomer, and then working backwards to systematically manage the experience to lead the cus-

tomer to this end frame. The importance of creating emotional connection also cannot be over-

emphasized, as the experience motif, links directly with the entire end frame. Some of examples

of what Relevant’s customers would like to feel on an emotional level would include things such

as: feeling connected, encouraged, motivated, inspired, and creative. The Experience Prefer-

ence Model is an excellent tool for discerning how all of the clues in the customer’s experience

are lining up. If the end frame is then a customer who feels connected with contemporary culture,

then let us look at how the different clues look on the continuum of the experience model (Car-

bone 3, 69, 49, 62).

All clues large and small matter since the total experience is the sum of those clues. The

most common clue people encounter is the website. The aspects of the website include the logo

displayed in the top corner, the way the menu is laid at the top of the page, and the main part of

the page which features one article after another. Part of the website is the aesthetics involved,

which are simple and subdued with neutral colors and sans serif type face. All of those clues add

up to suggest a modern, sleek, and in with the trends website; this is important for a magazine

that proclaims itself in touch with the modern culture. Placed along the spectrum between the

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reject zone, commodity zone, and the preference/ch’i zone, I would say it lands in the upper part

of the commodity zone. It does indeed look nice, but it looks as you would expect a creative,

artistic media company should look like (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/).

Many similar things could be said about the magazine itself in terms of its aesthetics and

layout, though the content itself is a different clue. Before Relevant Magazine, it was simply un-

heard of for any kind of faith-based media outlet to be landing interviews with cultural pop stars,

movie actors, and famous musical acts. That in and of itself sends the message that the magazine

is in fact practicing engaging the culture, rather than just talking about it. For this reason, this

clue lands in the preference zone (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/relevant-magazine).

Furthermore, the weekly podcast Relevant releases every Friday through iTunes shows a

completely different side of the organization. Here the creators of the magazine engage in a one

and a half to two hour show which features things such as: heavy doses of silly humor; weekly

entertainment releases in music and film; “slices” of current happenings in culture; a portion of

an interview or two from a leading author, musician, pastor, or actor; and an editorial question of

the week. Hearing the creators engaging with each other every week helps foster a deeper con-

nection to Relevant’s audience. This dimension lands in the ch’i zone for how each episode

brings consistently fresh new ideas and humor (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/podcast).

Recommendations

To summarize the dimensions of Relevant Media Group’s organization, we start at the

beginning, which is their Schwerpunkt. The intent of the organization is to weave faith and cul-

ture into one, and employees have bought in. Relevant targets a segment of millennials who

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are mostly urban and trendy and in touch with contemporary culture. They achieve deep differ-

entiation by value innovating - subscribers are offered more value for a lower price because Rel-

evant keeps a small staff and outsources many contributions from other websites and blogs. All

of Relevant’s clues are strategically managed in order to orchestrate the emotional end frame for

their customers, namely feeling in-touch with culture, challenged to live differently, and inspired

to live that way.

The weekly podcast provides another strong clue to the customer about the relationship

between faith and culture Relevant positions itself with, and gives another touchpoint through

which the customer can connect with the brand. According to these dimensions, Relevant’s over-

all position would fall in the preference zone. Among all faith-based media outlets, and even

among those not, they uniquely combine star interviews with thought provoking reads, continu-

ally challenging the status quo.

I would recommend for Relevant to continue to emphasize their experience as their value

proposition with new ways. Currently Relevant’s audience connects to the brand through an on-

line presence, an audio podcast, and a print/digital magazine. These things are all good, but it

could be taken a step further by conducting live events in select cities across the country. It can

take the form of a panel who discusses contemporary issues, while weaving in their distinct sense

of humor along with it. I think this would take the brand a step further and really catapult their

customers into the preference zone.

Appendix

Certain to Win:

Schwerpunkt - Chapter 4, page 76

Ch’i/Cheng - Chapter 6, page 142

Marketing as Strategy:

STP - Chapter 2, page 27

Deep Differentiation - Chapter 2, page 28

Value Network - Chapter 2, Page 38

Value Proposition - Chapter 2, Page 36

Clued In:

Customer Value Proposition, Clues, Total Experience - Chapter 1, page 3

End Frame - Chapter 4, Page 69

Experience Motif - Chapter 3, Page 49

Experience Preference Model - Chapter 4, Page 62

Diagrams

OverallX

Interviews X

References

Carbone, Lewis P. Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.

PodcastX

Reject Commodity/Cheng Preference/Ch’i

Website X

MagazineX

Low Sense of Style High Sense of Style

High Subscription Fee

Low Subscription Fee

Kumar, Nirmalya. Marketing as Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Driving Growth

and Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2004. Print.

"RELEVANT Magazine." RELEVANT Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

Richards, Chester W. Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business.

Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2004. Print.