Acree: The main principle behind the design of American Lifestyle was quality. The key to the magazine’s lasting success is that recipients perceive it as a gift. The other motivating factor was that the magazine shouldn’t be perceived as a sales gimmick. That’s why it features articles about art, interior design, travel and food, with practically no sales content.

This is great for advisors, because it makes compliance approval easy. But, most importantly, this magazine is about the client and their enjoyment. The design goal was showing clients you didn’t just send something to them, but for them. If you offer things of value to your clients, it will get them to know, like, and trust you. It is designed to make you memorable, thoughtful, and positively reinforce your brand.

Unlike so many other marketing materials, which get thrown away, American Lifestyle has an average shelf-life of four weeks. It was designed so it stays on the coffee table, where it keeps businesses top of mind and triggers what we call the reciprocity effect.

Hortz: How did you decide on the exact topics and stories for your magazine that would be most engaging to advisor client readers?

Acree: What we’ve found is that people engage with lifestyle content. We haven’t met anybody yet who doesn’t enjoy talking about travel or food. We wanted to appeal to a wide audience and connect with a multitude of people and personalities. That approach has really resonated with readers—the magazine has a little bit of something for everybody.

Hortz: What research did you do to further develop your engagement tool and ensure it was providing a strong engagement experience?

Acree: We’ve created surveys, both for our advisor clients and for their recipients which greatly helped us further develop and iterate the magazine to be more engaging. We’ve also hired the marketing research firm, GfK, to conduct audits.

Between the two ongoing feedback efforts we have determined that 81% of recipients appreciate the professional for sending the magazine, 84% of readers save the customized tear-out cards in magazine that highlight the advisor and their business partners, 76% of readers are more likely to contact a professional mentioned, 53% of recipients were influenced to conduct repeat business, and 38% of recipients have referred friends and family to the professional. It was also determined that readers spend an average of 44 minutes reading each edition and the magazine (and advisor) has exposure to at least 3.2 people in and out of the recipient household….for every magazine issue. Designing for these types of outcomes, we feel, helped us create a very sophisticated and effective form of direct mail and relationship marketing strategy.

Hortz: There is another dimension to your engagement tool that can help advisors build community relationships and proactively work with other firms and centers-of-influence in their community. Can you speak to how advisors can use an engagement tool like your magazine to partner with local businesses and organizations?

Acree: To take advantage of the magazine’s customization options, a lot of our advisors will partner with a local business partner, center-of-influence, or community organization and can feature them in three places in your magazine: tear out cards, back inside cover, back cover—so up to three partners per issue. Partnering allows you to cross-pollinate databases, marketing, share referrals and gain new clients.