Florida Home Improve, a free magazine launching in October, has tapped TransMedia Group to publicize its debut.
The magazine will cover home improvement ideas, tools and craftsmen, with a focus on the high-end consumer. It will initially cater to the Palm Beach area, but executives hope to grow its readership and coverage to all of southern Florida.
Florida Home Improve has enlisted TransMedia, Boca Raton, FL, for a contract of six months, with a chance to renew. TransMedia will throw publicity parties, build a Web presence and cross-promote with other clients to build the Florida Home Improve brand.
“Many magazines recognize the importance of publicity and promotion,” Thomas Madden, CEO of TransMedia Group, said. “The maiden issue is definitely the most powerful first step and everybody kind of takes notice of the first issue. So when it’s new, it’s newsworthy, and it’s very appropriate to hire a PR firm to capitalize on that.”
Madden went on to explain that TransMedia specializes in event production and new product launches. For Florida Home Improve, the agency is planning a kick-off party at a high-end for-sale home in Palm Beach. The publicity team is also booking FHI publisher Fern Conn on talk shows to tout the product and show off her home improvement expertise.
“Why would a publisher hire a PR firm? If you take a firm like TransMedia, we have an extensive and eclectic client base, including many companies in the home improvement area û and that didn’t go unnoticed by the publisher,” asserted Madden.
As an example, Madden explained that another client of TransMedia, Kerzen Candles, is opening a store in Palm Beach at the same time that the magazine is launching. “So there’s a lot of things we can keep feeding the magazine with interesting corollary assets, and a book like this is going to help us because we’re going to editorially educate the consumer about such subjects.”
Copies of Florida Home Improve will be mailed to commercial trade members. They will also be available for free in showrooms, country clubs, salons and other areas targeted to reach affluent audiences.
“This magazine is going to have a very unique format in that information will be presented editorially, so leading craftsmen will be in the context of editorial separate from advertisements,” said Madden. “It serves a niche in that Florida Design magazine is a very fine publication but is also very expensive, and for roughly a tenth of the price, the supplier can be a prominent advertiser in FHI. It opens up more channels and more opportunities.”
With an initial print run of 45,000, Madden predicts that the first issue of Florida Home Improve will be read by at least 150,000 people. The magazine will be published every six weeks.
