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InContext / An inside look at the business of digital content

Meredith Unveils Brand-Immersive Website

February 3, 2015 | By Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN@michellemanafy

Boasting household-name magazine brands that reach an audience of 100 million American women, 17 owned or operated television stations, and a reach of 70 million monthly unique visitors through its food, family, home, lifestyle and multicultural digital channels, Meredith Corporation has a lot to offer. And now, with a completely redesigned and responsive website, Meredith is better able to convey the breadth of its offerings to potential business partners, advertisers and employees according to Nancy Weber, EVP/Chief Marketing Officer.

Meredith2While some consumers come to the Meredith Corporate website to get subscription information, in general readers visit individual brand sites directly. That said, the Meredith Corporate website serves a fairly broad B2B audience on its own given the company’s growing media and marketing portfolio, including recently added print, broadcast and digital properties, as well as its expanded digital advertising capabilities.

Thus, Weber said that the first step, when kicking off this project just over a year ago, was to put together an “internal task force of stakeholders,” which included the IT department, human resources, corporate and consumer public relations, communications, and finance, as well as a design team made up of corporate and digital creative, guided by Domani Studios. The team also included representatives from each of Meredith’s business divisions, including its local television stations, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing (MXM) and all of its magazines.

Weber noted that essentials for this redesign included a responsive site that would be optimized for delivery across device and screen size and ease-of-use for the many stakeholders and site contributors within Meredith, adding “We wanted a site that could quickly provide updated information about the company in near real time.” Improving the social component of the site was important as well. To this end, most pages include standard social sharing links and many include a live feed of news and selected social content along the right rail with bold images, quick share functionality, and links out to specific brand’s social feeds.

“Our company has been growing very quickly over the last couple of years—including last week’s announcement of our Shape acquisition—we needed to move to a platform that was really flexible. Obviously, you have to be forward thinking and make sure you are building something not just for today, but for what the company will be doing next year or the year after.”

Given this growth trajectory, Weber is enthusiastic about how the site will better attract potential advertisers and employees. Beyond presenting a clearer (and more attractive) picture of Meredith Corporation, the new site provides greater insights into who is using the site. “One of the things we’re most excited about is that we’ll have a lot more detailed information on who is coming to the site,” risaid Weber. “Our audience is made up of people looking to do business with us, invest with us, and people who want to work here. This new site will be easier to use and more reflective of what a terrific company this is.”

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