What we’re up to with Webmag

First things first: What is Webmag, anyway?

Webmag is a platform for digital corporate publishing. As this sounds very technical we like to say that businesses can use Webmag to quickly and easily create digital publications themselves - that almost sounds unimportant. So why Webmag?

We started Webmag because content marketing is becoming more and more important for businesses, but there is no suitable way for digital corporate publishing. Your own channels are the decisive factor for successful content marketing. Next to your website and blog, these are mostly company publications such as customer magazines, product catalogs, brochures, white papers, etc.

Content is becoming more and more important for business. This is simply because customers, who nowadays thanks to digitization, play a totally different role, prefer a content-based discussion instead of plain adverts. Companies need to act at eye level with their potential customers. The must provide real content and contributions, and stop spreading one-sided slogans.

That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to end up on social media platforms. It's way more opening up communication and talking to customers, users - prosumers - and get into dialogues. The same applies to applicants, possible cooperation partners or even investors.

We got used to evaluating companies and their products based on the information and content available online. Delivering your own content and offering stories is becoming more and more important for businesses. This is why your own channels - owned media - are also become more important. Businesses get the opportunity to create topics themselves, share opinions, convey their values - and give a debates direction.

Many businesses still work very analogue and completely forget about digitization. Sure, also print products remain important, e.g. for display in stores or at exhibition fairs. But you will probably meet your target groups much better by adapting to the changed habits of people who now read much more often online.

What we are observing is that costly and time-consuming studies, white papers or customer magazines are if at all available for download as PDF files on a website. Anyone who has ever tried to read a PDF file on their smartphone probably knows that this is no fun.

It also is not really digital either, because the provided content in PDFs cannot be found by search engines and who clicks through the publication archive on company websites? On social media PDF´s are not the great to share, and again, who PDFs don't share well on social media, and again: who downloads PDF files on social media anymore?

By using PDF´s the elaborately developed and expensively created content makes no contribution to marketing; they remain hidden in the background.

What businesses need is a digital-first approach, which means that company publications must be thought digital in the first place.

This is where Webmag comes into play. We don't convert PDFs, we turn over the whole process. In the beginning there is not a print publication, but there is a  digital magazine.

In addition to indexing by search engines and sharing on social media, digital publications come with a whole range of possibilities. For example, articles can be edited at any time and after being published, like in a blog. Data can be evaluated: who reads my magazine, from which device, which content is popular, which content not so much?

And even more important: digital means also interactive. Through forms and call-to-action buttons users can be directed and forwarded the way you want it.

In combination with data analysis, this end up being a real marketing tool. Product catalogs suddenly deliver conversion rates and whitepapers not only generate leads per download, but also lead the reader to your offers via the content directly.

„But that's all old stuff?!“ is what the Munich Startups portal challenged us in an interview. True, editors for magazines do exist, even with Wordpress you are able build digital magazines.

But what we aim for is to make the creation of publications as simple ad possible. So that marketing departments can create them themselves. Without a specialist graphic designer for the layout, without an agency, without any IT specialists, who first needs to integrate a software into the system.

This is what we kept in mind while tailoring our platform: Webmag is preconfigured in a way, that even allows someone with no technical or design knowledge to create a high-quality magazine. And at the same time there is enough freedom, which allows it remains individual, regarding your own CI, including your logo & the look and feel of your own individual brand.

Because everything is cloud-based, starting with Webmag doesn't turn into a large IT project- just click and go. This makes the magazine creators independent and ensures that not a disproportionate amount of people spends a lot of time on fast-paced magazines, catalogs and white papers.

Those who want to share their content simply create their own publications with only a few means. Set content by using drag &drop, publish, share, evaluate, then repeat. Welcome to the digital age.

This is interesting because it makes communication between companies much more practicable, faster and more flexible. But also more useful, more target-oriented. It promotes the content and the form becomes an automated side issue.

Also exciting because new digital concepts are the result: In the near future, it will be just as easy for businesses to become a provider of digital publishing solutions themselves. But that is an upcoming step in our vision.