• by Larry Dobrow , July 10, 2003

Guideposts may be one of the best-kept secrets in publishing - that is, if it's possible for one of the 15 most widely circulated publications in the United States to be somewhat of a secret.

Founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale - a minister and the author of The Power of Positive Thinking - Guideposts boasts a circulation of 2.6 million and claims to have an eight-million strong readership. Yet the magazine was largely an unknown commodity in the media world for years, possibly owing to the fact that it didn't accept advertising until January 2001.

"You have to remember - at the beginning, Guideposts was an incredibly small publication," says vice president and publisher Janine Scolpino. "We started out at four pages. When we decided to take ads, it felt like a momentous decision."

It's one that has paid off, however. Despite a slow start - Scolpino admits the magazine was only selling eight to 12 pages of ads per issue at first - Guideposts has evolved into a marketing machine. To wit, the recently released Publishers Information Bureau statistics show the magazine boosting its ad pages by 98 percent during the first six months of 2003 (to 173.7, versus 87.7 during the year-ago period). Similarly, the magazine grew its ad revenue by 108.6% during the same period, to $12.1 million from $5.8 million.

"I think it was largely a matter of generating awareness of what we were doing," Scolpino says. "A few years ago, some people in the Northeast had never heard of us. I think we've overcome that."

The irony, of course, is that since Guideposts is a circulation-driven publication, the advertising wonga feels like icing on the cake. "We don't need advertising to sustain our business model," Scolpino says. "But the [advertising] dollars certainly make it easier for us to look at new magazines and other projects."

The title's list of advertisers is quite impressive, featuring high-profile names in pharmaceuticals (GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb), food and beverages (Tyson Foods) and consumer electronics (Bose). When asked how Guideposts became an A-list venue for such companies, Scolpino points to reader involvement. In the Spring 2003 MRI data, the mag ranked number one in the "involvement index" for both adults and women, and was labeled the "favorite" magazine among 205 measured titles.

"It's kind of fun for me to be out at industry events and hear people like Tina Brown talk about 'the power of the first-person story,'" Scolpino says airily. "That's probably why our involvement numbers are so strong: our readers really care. They submit more than 55,000 stories for publication every year. When reading Guideposts, they feel like they're having a conversation with their neighbor over the backyard fence."

In upcoming months, look for Guideposts to go after advertisers in the automotive and packaged goods arenas. "We've totally captured the pharma market and now we're going after Detroit," Scolpino promises. Ranking near the top of her hit list: Ford, Chevrolet and State Farm Insurance.

"If we could maintain even 20 percent growth, I'd be really happy," Scolpino adds, before realizing that many publications would be euphoric with half that figure and letting a quick laugh escape. "I guess that didn't sound very humble, did it? Let's just say we're just happy to be where we are."