Trade magazine
Periodical dedicated to a particular field
A trade magazine, also called a business-to-business magazine, trade journal, or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for this area of publishing is the trade press.
01History
In 1928, Popular Aviation became the largest aviation trade magazine with a circulation of 100,000.
As digital journalism grew in importance, trade magazines started to build their presence on the internet. To retain readership and attract new subscribers, trade magazines usually impose paywall on their websites.
02Overview
Trade publications keep industry members abreast of new developments. In this role, they function similarly to how academic journals serve their audiences. Trade publications include targeted advertising, which earns a profit for the publication and sales for the advertisers while also providing sales engineering-type advice to the readers, which may inform purchasing and investment decisions.
Trade magazines typically contain advertising content centered on the industry in question with little, if any, general-audience advertising. They may also contain industry-specific job notices.
For printed publications, some trade magazines operate on a subscription business model known as controlled circulation, in which the subscription is free but is restricted only to subscribers determined to be qualified leads.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Trade magazine”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Broadcast Magazine November 2024 cover.webp by ™/®Media Business Insight Limited, PD
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