One of the biggest battles that we have fought over the past 10 years – is fighting the misperception that “Print is Dead” and that print media has no value. Every time I hear that said by a marketing director or potential sponsor, I laugh – because there is NOBODY that wishes that were true more than me. We have more than 3x as many digital readers as we do print – and yet it costs us more than 20x as much to produce the print editions as it does the digital.
The reality, though, is that there is something tangible and REAL about picking up a magazine and actually reading that the internet just doesn’t offer. The experience of reading articles or seeing an ad for a location or event that you might never otherwise consider – and discovering something new and unexpected – is something that you’ll never really get online.
The fact that riders – many of which, don’t spend too much time on social media or exploring random websites online – can simply pick up a magazine at their favorite shop, tavern, or even barber shop and begin reading… makes it all worthwhile. For that reason, we will ALWAYS maintain a print version of our magazine.
However, the reality is that our world has changed – and clearly our costs have changed dramatically as many of you can relate to. For that reason, and many more, we will be shifting a lot of our focus in 2022 to our digital efforts. We will be focusing more on our digital blogs and content that will only be found online – through our website and Facebook pages.
We will continue to print the magazine and distribute it as we have, however, we will be using it more as a gateway to our digital editions. Rest assured that we will STILL produce a print magazine that has events and great content – but there will be far more for you to discover online.
To make this easier – we are updating our websites to a new version to start the year. The new format will be even more mobile friendly and offer even more options in a cleaner easier to operate design. We will also continue to add more QR CODES to the magazine and our promotional materials. These codes allow you to easily access our pages by simply focusing the camera of your phone on them. It’s amazing.
For those of you challenging our use of Facebook, I can certainly understand your concerns. Regardless of their clear bias and ever-changing guidelines, we believe that this is a platform that we cannot ignore. It is clearly the best way to reach millions of people that we couldn’t otherwise. So, we have chosen to accept the challenges it presents and do our best to operate within the confines of their rules. We also believe that they will eventually have to become more respectful of everyone’s voice.
So, I’d like to encourage you to take the time to discover and explore our digital platforms, if you haven’t already. Please check out our Facebook page and like it – possibly even share it or some of our posts as well. Subscribe to our website and discover the resources that we have there.
We have the most complete motorcycle event listings for Ohio – more advanced and complete than anything else online.
And as we move forward, we remain committed to offering FREE basic listings for all charitable events and non-profit organizations. Have something planned for 2022 – try entering it online! Our printed event listings are powered by the ReasonsToRide.com system – and it’s even easier in the new format.
Finally, I’d like to wish each and everyone of you and your families – a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year in 2022!
As always, we appreciate your support.
Sincerely,
D. A. Smith
Publisher
