Canadian personal finance magazine MoneySense is marking the start of a new decade – and many a New Year’s resolution – with a shiny new website dedicated to helping Canadians make better DIY financial decisions.
Targeting men and women 40 to 60, the Rogers-owned magazine has a readership of 843,000 (12+, PMB Fall 2009) and paid circulation of 114,000 (PMB Fall 2009). The magazine once shared its online home with Canadian Business and Profit magazine under the name CBOnline. But although the site was growing, user feedback indicated that readers were having a tough time finding what they wanted and discerning what content belonged to what mag, Duncan Hood, editor, MoneySense, tells MiC.
‘When we redid the website, we wanted to make sure that it really looked and felt like MoneySense magazine. That was what was missing form our web presence before,’ Hood explains. ‘It’s a very comfortable magazine, a trusted magazine that people can go to for easy to follow advice that makes sense and we’re really trying to pull over all the qualities of that brand onto the website.’
The site debuted this week with TD Canada Trust as the title launch partner and exclusive ‘financial services provider’ for the first phase of the rollout. The sponsorship includes takeover branding of the site’s ad units in the first phase and may include sponsored content as development goes forward.
MoneySense.ca is designed around the same topical channels as the print edition, says Hood, a strategy that not only makes it easier for print readers to navigate the site, but for advertisers to sponsor individual categories across both platforms. Going forward, sponsorship opportunities of the mag’s most popular content online, the ‘Lists’ category (Top 500 Stocks, etc) and financial health calculators, will likely open up in the future as well, Hood says.
The new site will be promoted in print in MoneySense and sister publications and web properties such as Maclean’s, Chatelaine, and Flare. A still-classified special event has also been planned for January 2010 to promote the launch.
