Special Interest Publications (SIPs) were the topic of discussion at the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) mixer held Wednesday in Toronto.

Maryam Sanati, editorial director, special projects at Toronto Life and Ryan Kennedy, associate senior writer at the The Hockey News, gave presentations on how their publications utilize SIPs for brand development and generating revenue.


Sanati stressed the importance of a magazine knowing and reflecting its core competencies. "The really important thing in thinking about your SIP business is how it satisfies consumer interest," Sanati said. "Not to create them solely as a vehicle for advertising but to also know that you're putting out topics that appeal to your consumer."

Specificity is key, said Sanati. She noted that a magazine may fail at generating reader interest with a general cooking issue but find success by focusing on holiday cooking or slow cooker recipes.

Big news items present business opportunities, said Kennedy. He cited elections, the Olympics and the Royal Wedding as examples of possible SIP topics. "If you have something like that in your field, capitalize on it, because you know there's going to be that window where people will want to feast on that information," he said.

Kennedy said the tight focus of SIPs doesn't just provide opportunities to rope in new audiences but also to generate content ideas for regular editions. "You're going to get a bunch of stories and a bunch of leads just from working on these projects that you can use in the future," he said.

The CSME mixer was held at Bar Italia on College. Scheduled speaker Cathrin Bradbury, GM of the specials division at Rogers Publishing, was unable to attend.