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MEMORANDUM TO: PAUL TRAPP
EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT OF MARKETING
FROM: DANNY MOSCO
MARKETING ASSOCIATE
SUBJECT: MARKETING DIMENSIONS OF RELEVANT MEDIA GROUP AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Relevant Media Group is a multi-media group that targets twenty and thirty year old
Christians, founded by Cameron Strang on June 1, 2000 when he was 24 years old. The brand
reaches more than 5 million readers every month through their portfolio of products, including:
print and iPad magazines, relevantmagazine.com, relevant.tv, and the weekly relevant podcast..
For Relevant, faith and culture are woven together in an inseparable fabric, setting up the brand’s
values of the pursuit of Truth and intentional dialogue with contemporary culture. Relevant does
not champion themselves with answers to all of the questions we ask along life’s journey, but
rather seeks to create authentic content which asks questions other people will not, in order to
encourage readers’ growth. Thus, the unifying vision of Relevant, or the Schwerpunkt
(Richards 76), of God, Faith, and Culture is made abundantly clear
(http://www.relevantmediagroup.com/our-story/).
Market Positioning
Relevant occupies a niche in the market for young adult media, perhaps having created
that niche itself. Founder and CEO Cameron Strang started the company as a response to what he
saw as a lack of media for younger generations that addressed questions of life, faith, and culture
in one place. Using the typical segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP) reveals the types of
customers Relevant is working to reach (Kumar 27). Relevant generally works with millennials
in their 20s and 30s, and more specifically targets those who live in and near cities and generally
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like to stay current with cultural trends. Finally, the positioning of the company is unique
because they offer compelling stories with leading cultural icons, through the lens of a faith-
based worldview. Relevant’s early days had a strong ch’i effect because this sort of combination
had not been done before. However, ch’i eventually becomes cheng (Richards 142) and Relevant
has worked to create deep differentiation to keep this from happening (Kumar 28).
This deep differentiation comes from using the entire value network (Kumar 38) rather
than being limited to the traditional four p’s marketing mix. Relevant delivers content to its
subscribers at prices which are lower than other magazines in the industry, while still making a
profit. For example, Relevant charges $12 for a one year subscription, compared to $29.95 for
Rolling Stone Magazine, another magazine covering contemporary culture. Furthermore,
Relevant also delivers loads of free content through a weekly podcast on iTunes, countless
articles on relevantmagazine.com, free streaming music on a section of the website called “the
drop,” and more (relevantmagazine.com/subscribe).
The differentiation gets deeper with some innovation in the value proposition.
Relevant’s value network is set up differently than others’; for example, typically media
companies necessitate keeping a larger staff of writers, editors, designers, marketing personnel,
etc. but Relevant significantly reduces this by keeping a small staff of 14 people. Moreover they
rely a great deal on outside contributions from other websites and blogs for articles posted on
their magazine website, and some in the magazine as well. Distribution costs are brought down
as physical print issues and digital editions are combined. Finally, Relevant offers far more than
just a subscription to a bi-monthly magazine publication; subscribers are given access to all of
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Relevant’s products and exclusive content not available to others, such as music compilation
albums (Kumar 36).
Customer Experience
Relevant’s success ultimately stems from the unique customer value proposition they
offer, and how they manage all of the clues throughout the customer’s experience to create
synergistic total experiences. It always begins with a particular end frame in mind for the
customer, and then working backwards to systematically manage the experience to lead the
customer to this end frame. The importance of creating emotional connection also cannot be
over-emphasized, as the experience motif, links directly with the entire end frame. Some of
examples of what Relevant’s customers would like to feel on an emotional level would include
things such as: feeling connected, encouraged, motivated, inspired, and creative. The Experience
Preference Model is an excellent tool for discerning how all of the clues in the customer’s
experience are lining up. If the end frame is then a customer who feels connected with
contemporary culture, then let us look at how the different clues look on the continuum of the
experience model (Carbone 3, 69, 49, 62).
All clues large and small matter since the total experience is the sum of those clues. The
most common clue people encounter is the website. The aspects of the website include the logo
displayed in the top corner, the way the menu is laid at the top of the page, and the main part of
the page which features one article after another. Part of the website is the aesthetics involved,
which are simple and subdued with neutral colors and sans serif type face. All of those clues add
up to suggest a modern, sleek, and in with the trends website; this is important for a magazine
that proclaims itself in touch with the modern culture. Placed along the spectrum between the
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reject zone, commodity zone, and the preference/ch’i zone, I would say it lands in the upper part
of the commodity zone. It does indeed look nice, but it looks as you would expect a creative,
artistic media company should look like (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/).
Many similar things could be said about the magazine itself in terms of its aesthetics and
layout, though the content itself is a different clue. Before Relevant Magazine, it was simply
unheard of for any kind of faith-based media outlet to be landing interviews with cultural pop
stars, movie actors, and famous musical acts. That in and of itself sends the message that the
magazine is in fact practicing engaging the culture, rather than just talking about it. For this
reason, this clue lands in the preference zone (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/relevant-
magazine).
Furthermore, the weekly podcast Relevant releases every Friday through iTunes shows a
completely different side of the organization. Here the creators of the magazine engage in a one
and a half to two hour show which features things such as: heavy doses of silly humor; weekly
entertainment releases in music and film; “slices” of current happenings in culture; a portion of
an interview or two from a leading author, musician, pastor, or actor; and an editorial question of
the week. Hearing the creators engaging with each other every week helps foster a deeper
connection to Relevant’s audience. This dimension lands in the ch’i zone for how each episode
brings consistently fresh new ideas and humor (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/podcast).
Recommendations
To summarize the dimensions of Relevant Media Group’s organization, we start at the
beginning, which is their Schwerpunkt. The intent of the organization is to weave faith and
culture into one, and employees have bought in. Relevant targets a segment of millennials who
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are mostly urban and trendy and in touch with contemporary culture. They achieve deep
differentiation by value innovating - subscribers are offered more value for a lower price because
Relevant keeps a small staff and outsources many contributions from other websites and blogs.
All of Relevant’s clues are strategically managed in order to orchestrate the emotional end frame
for their customers, namely feeling in-touch with culture, challenged to live differently, and
inspired to live that way.
The weekly podcast provides another strong clue to the customer about the relationship
between faith and culture Relevant positions itself with, and gives another touchpoint through
which the customer can connect with the brand. According to these dimensions, Relevant’s
overall position would fall in the preference zone. Among all faith-based media outlets, and even
among those not, they uniquely combine star interviews with thought provoking reads,
continually challenging the status quo.
I would recommend for Relevant to continue to emphasize their experience as their value
proposition with new ways. Currently Relevant’s audience connects to the brand through an
online presence, an audio podcast, and a print/digital magazine. These things are all good, but it
could be taken a step further by conducting live events in select cities across the country. It can
take the form of a panel who discusses contemporary issues, while weaving in their distinct sense
of humor along with it. I think this would take the brand a step further and really catapult their
customers into the preference zone.
6. Appendix
Certain to Win:
Schwerpunkt - Chapter 4, page 76
Ch’i/Cheng - Chapter 6, page 142
Marketing as Strategy:
STP - Chapter 2, page 27
Deep Differentiation - Chapter 2, page 28
Value Network - Chapter 2, Page 38
Value Proposition - Chapter 2, Page 36
Clued In:
Customer Value Proposition, Clues, Total Experience - Chapter 1, page 3
End Frame - Chapter 4, Page 69
Experience Motif - Chapter 3, Page 49
Experience Preference Model - Chapter 4, Page 62
8. Carbone, Lewis P. Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: FT Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.
Kumar, Nirmalya. Marketing as Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Driving Growth
and Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2004. Print.
"RELEVANT Magazine." RELEVANT Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Richards, Chester W. Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business.
Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2004. Print.
