What's New in Consumer Lifestyle Publications

There’s no shortage of online publishers claiming access to savvy, influential consumers. Familiarizing yourself with the options requires diligence and patience. Because not only are there hundreds of potential site candidates waiting to work on behalf of your client, there are also new ones cropping up every day.

Over the past year we’ve seen the emergence of several new contenders, each offering its own unique spin on reaching these consumers through both editorial content and advertising options. In this two-part series, we’ll look at four new publications specializing in different aspects of consumer lifestyle content and assess what makes them worthy of your client’s brand.

Pure Lifestyle Content

From the creators of such consumer lifestyle thoroughbreds as DailyCandy, Thrilllist, and Tasting Table comes PureWow, a fledgling daily lifestyle email offering “the very best” in natural pairings like fashion and beauty, food and travel, home and garden, and tech and tools. Like its predecessors, it offers advertisers several site placement options along with dedicated email opportunities in which brands can get complete share of voice along with that most coveted of ad buy offerings: editorial voice. PureWow editors pen each sponsored email to ensure that it jives with the editorial tone of voice that’s already been proven to attract and sustain its readers. The publication sends out just one dedicated email per week so as not to bombard its user base.

What makes this consumer daily unique is its focus on social media integration. Every dedicated email has social networking in mind, including multiple “Forward to a Friend” buttons and links that allow users to share the email as well as invite their friends to sign up for PureWow in earnest. The publication also boasts a Facebook application and the ability to sponsor this in a similar fashion to the emails. The idea behind the app is to generate “likes” for sponsoring brands and exposure to consumers beyond the PureWow audience. In a Facebook app sponsorship to promote the CBS series “The Good Wife,” the advertiser ran a themed sweepstakes in which Facebook users who had opted to “like” its Facebook page could win a product appealing to the “Intellectual Woman.”

In fact, this type of woman is exactly who PureWow has managed to attract since launching late last year. Ninety-seven percent of its audience is comprised of women, with the median age being 43, and 86 percent of these users have a college degree or higher. The median household income is also high – $93,000 – and these women intend to spend it; according to PureWow, 73 percent will make a purchase or take an action based on a PureWow recommendation.

Casting a Net for Digital Enthusiasts

To reach tech-savvy consumers, advertisers could partner with any number of technology and lifestyle sites. Many have comparable content and user profiles. The secret to standing out, therefore, might not lie in what’s offered on this front, but what a publication can provide in terms of relevant advertising.

This is the sweet spot that’s building word of mouth for Netted by the Webbys. This daily email – which really is brought to you by the same folks who run the Webby Awards – takes a similar format to UrbanDaddy but focuses expressly on “the online tools that make life better, easier, and more productive.” Think of Netted as StumbleUpon with editorial vetting – and, of course, without the stumbling – as it delivers information on useful apps and interesting sites. And then consider why this makes a good option for advertisers who happen to offer just that. To date, advertisers have included Internet radio service Pandora and IM web platform Meebo. Talk about relevant advertising partnerships.

Partnering with Netted primarily takes the form of sponsored emails that include two prominent ad units, exposure on the Netted site landing page, and social media exposure through Facebook and Twitter. Since launching in 2009, the publication has gained a following of over 105,000 subscribers, 52 percent of which are male and 70 percent of which have a household income over $100,000. “There are certainly some industry professionals, but the majority of our audience are digital enthusiasts, digital influencers and web savvy people who want to know about the newest and coolest gadgets and things on the web,” says Georgina Lerman, director of business development with Netted. Aligning your brand with a well-known event like the Webby Awards is a promising way to gain clout among discerning digital influencers. And that’s important, especially if you hope to gain traction among their online friends.