What 4WD/Caravan/Travel mags are popular these days?

I rarely read the actual magazines any more, but if I do I prefer 4X4 Australia. I mostly buy them for the dvd's. I like that they aren't yobbo's trashing the tracks having "insane weekends" or similar. The Great Australian Bight trip through Bilbunya Dunes available on Youtube is outstanding.

.Caravan World is now the most read.
Have a look at Caravan and Motorhome and 4x4 sites
Express publications.own quiet a few mags.
Cheers
John

I suspect Social Media, Facebook etc is probably as powerful as Magazine advertising. I had 20 years in the media and see it slowly sinking under the onslaught of Social Media. The younger generation demographics , who you need to attract and keep, are falling for both print and radio. My 2 bobs worth.

I like the Pat Callinane emags and paper mags.

E Mags: Unsealed 4x4 and RV Daily
The only paper mag from any publisher that I get now is Pat Callinanes 4x4 Adventures.

I think they're a cut above the average, and the often interactive ads in the eMags are attractive.

I used to get Overlander, but it has morphed from an informative 4x4 travel magazine oriented toward journeys and destinations to insane builds, juvenile jargon and all the associated rip-tear-bust stuff that the rest of them seem to think is what the market wants.

I dropped 4x4 Action for the same reasons as above.

The magazines are personal taste, of course. What would give you the best exposure would probably be one of those I don't like. :-)

Cheers Frank

I subscribe to 4x4 Australia , On The Road , and Outback. All of them are read to death...then go as dunny library for a while...and when I get a few ....drop then off at my barbers shop. He says they don't last long as they get pinched....so last time I tore out a couple of middle pages. Apparently that worked ...as he still had them a few days ago.....and they were all dogeared and turned inside out....so methinks they get read pretty well.

Cheers Keith

Hi Michelle
The only magazine I get is Pat Callinan's 4x4 Adventures, and it seems pretty popular with many travellers.
My son subscribes to https://www.outdooraustralia.com/magazine , which might also have subscribers who would be interested in your offerings.

Cheers
Jim

I hope this is not out of order Michelle but IMHO Hema owns the (declining ) magazine audience. They have a great set of touring meps and spend a truck load in sponsorship.

You have a ready market on this forum. Many of the users also populate other forums, and as someone who has an interest in mapping I can tell you the word gets around the forums on what is popular and what is not. I think you should look to work with your existing readers more closely. I have never seen people recommend EO traveller on other forum GPS sections. Why is that? Word of mouth must be important for mapping.

I have Memory Map with EO. But for whatever internal reasons you and Memory Map have abandoned me as a customer on the EO upgrades of MM. I know you say it is up to them, but that is a little like Apple saying that a faulty apple is up to JB HiFI - I gave up waiting, and use the similar free 250K topo map from MM.

I also had some interest in the EO app on a PC, but you force me to buy it before tying it, with no recourse if I don't like it or it has bugs. There is no indication of what it looks like or how it works. So I decided not to proceed. Surely a 7 day free trial would spur a lot of interest.

My last piece of unwanted advice is IMHO you should take support questions away from the normal forum, to a dedicated support area. As a regular forum user, my main exposure to EO traveller is a bunch of complaints and bugs on the forum. It is easy to look at those and think "Thank god I never bought that";

If it was me I would get those conversations away from the front page..

FWIW....

I have an extremely low opinion of anything EMG. They are full of paid advertorial and have ceased to be relevant or informative for me. Facebook and EO are now my sources of info.

Hi Michelle, as others have mentioned, Social Media is the new “black”. Facebook has a plethora of Caravan & Traveller pages, might be worth looking at some of these sites. Also, I think the E-Magazines are probably more popular than printed magazines. I subscribed to the Pat Callinan E-Magazines, but I also subscribe to the printed Carlisle Rogers 4WD Touring Australia magazine.

Macca.

Have you considered the CMCA mag "The Wanderer"?

Being a parochial West Aussie, there is only one mag worth its salt and that is Western 4W Driver by Nick Underwood!!!!!

BTW just noticed how skinny the latest edition of 4WD Action mag is compared to days gone by and just a mag full of ads.

cheers Dunc

Hi Michelle,

You could try some of the UTubers like Ronny Dahl and Andrew St Pierre White.

I would think the grey nomads should be one of your main targets.

Maybe an offer to some Clubs like 4x4 clubs, caravan clubs, camping groups etc with a kick back to the club for each unit sold or a discount scale dependent on quantity sold within the Club.

What about asking people to write an article on the Traveller App and how they used it, with a prize for the best article every, say 6 months.

The fast food outlets set up next to each other because they feed off each other. Maybe look where the likes of Hema and Wikicamps hang out and do the same.

Grey nomads are a big part of the ute and their wagon equivalents market like the Isuzu D-Max and Isuzu MUX. Maybe a deal with a vehicle manufacture(s) or dealers for the App at a discounted price as a deal sweetener on a new vehicle.

Geez Michelle, you have made me go back 15 years to when I was working.

I hope everyone's ideas help.

Cheers, Chris

Michelle,

You could always look through the major titles at any large newsagency. They often print their circulation in the publisher;s blurb.

If not you can go to their websites and get the ad sales guys' details (they are always guys) and ask them to send you a media kit.

The media kit should set out their circulation, both digital and hard copy, as well as some information on their readership. By combining the appropriate magazines you can maximise your reach.

I wouldn't touch any magazine that does not have audited circulation.

Here are a few:
Sunscription company
Unsealed

There are also a few others, like Overlander plus a few camper trailer titles in hard copy and online. Good luck.

Keith

There are a lot of magazines in print and online, so there is a lot of completion out there. My preference is 4WD Action and Unsealed4x4 (online).

Try this one, it's an online segment, connected wit C&MH magazine

the Grey Nomad Times

Michelle, there are trade mags that list the distribution figures for the various magazines.
We get them but bin them pretty quick. I'll try and find one and get back to you but 4WD Action consistently has the highest distribution for 4WD mags in Oz.

Hi Michelle

Straight up, I confess to not reading any 4WD or Touring magazines…!

I see little point paying to read advertisements.

And living in a technological age, I find it easier to get information online, for free, if I am looking for information on a topic. An example is via ExplorOz, which is designed entirely to be an inter-active online offering (despite many thinking it is no more than just another online forum).

I doubt I am in a minority in that regard especially given we are conditioned to think that way in an age when we have access to so much information at our finger tips.

No waiting for a trip to the Doctor to read a 4WD Magazine from 5 years ago, or for the postman to deliver this month’s edition, or a trip to the local newsagent.

When was the last time anyone went to a newsagent?

Noting, print information is static, online can, and usually is far more “dynamic”.
Which brings me to my thoughts on your question…

Given EO Topo is essentially an online offering I went online to see if I could glean any information from the web by “Googling” some generic terms.

The generic terms I “Googled” included;

Mapping Software
Navigation
4WD Navigation
Four-wheel drive Navigation
Online Maps

If I was in the market for mapping software or maps this is precisely how I would look for a product.

And to my way of thinking, this is when advertising has the most impact – at the point one is actively looking for a product. I’m not a fan of seeing “pop-up” ads on search engines, but must say, I have often looked at them when I am researching a specific product – you know the ones down the right-hand side of the page highlighting Google Ads…

When I “Googled” those generic terms not once did EO Topo come up on the first page, maybe it did on subsequent pages, but who looks beyond the first page???

There were plenty of advertisements from one of your main competitors, HEMA, that covered both the software and hardware, sufficient that I would be looking at them.

Summarising my thoughts…

It appears you want to broaden your audience for the product...

If ExplorOz and EO Topo is marketing itself as an online resource that is where you should be concentrating your advertising budget.

But it looks to be missing the mark currently.

As it stands, if I didn’t know about ExplorOz and was in the market for mapping software or online maps, I wouldn’t know EO Topo existed even if I “Googled” some simple and related search terms to the market EO Topo is aimed at.

I would focus on getting that piece right...

Good luck with it…

Cheer, Baz – The Landy

Ps: And to a related point, raised earlier in this thread. You need to have somewhere else to deal with EO Topo issues, rather than it coming up in the forum, as it seems to frequently.

Regardless of what the issue, or how it was resolved, it highlights an issue - not the best way to showcase the product, and it possibly undermines your paid advertising...Baz

Thank you to everyone that has responded to my question. I got a lot more than I expected but all very useful. Much appreciated, cheers!

I agree with Boobook, Take the enquiries/.complaints off the main forum page. I don't have the EO Traveller App as I'm a Garmin user and your maps are not compatible but seeing all the issues people have (although I don't think excessive) makes you re think whether to purchase it. As you know no-one says how great the product is, do they???

4X4 Australia.