Well, that was actually our assumption too, but we have been proven wrong the last couple of months. Here are three cases where digital magazines have proven great results targeting a mid-aged audience:

1) Designing digital magazines for the elderly audience

A great example that breaks this prejudice is this member magazine from DaneAge (ÆldreSagen), a national membership organization with approximately 525,000 members, who have all reached retirement age. DaneAge already publishes a magazine for its members, and this very rich digital magazine is a way to leverage new technologies and make them compelling to the target group. Action speaks louder than words, so check out the magazine here (sorry, it’s in Danish only).

2) Mid-aged readers have no significant preference for print versions

Another Danish magazine publisher did a reader survey lately as a part of their evaluation of Zmags digital magazine software. The editorial profile of the magazine is targeted at housing and gardening, thus the majority of their readers are over 50 years old.

The results of the survey stresses that a user-friendly digital magazine definitely adds value for the mid-aged audience. Here are some highlights of what we got insight to:

• 82 percent of readers older than 60 years agree that the digital magazine is a good way to get information
• 85 percent of readers older than 50 years agree that the digital magazine is easy to navigate
• 79 percent of readers older than 50 years agree that the digital magazine gives a good overview

According to the survey, there is no real preference for a hard copy versus a digital magazine. Overall, 24 percent prefer a print version, 23 percent prefer the digital magazine, while the rest do not prefer one over the other. Based it on these numbers, mid-aged readers have no significant preference for print versions. The key is that the digital version is easy to use.

3) Titles targeting mid-aged audience are money-makers, too

Right Coast Cars, which specializes in promoting automotive events, recently decided to expand their business to the digital platform. Their strategy included building a revenue channel from interactive ads placed inside the magazine. However, they had concerns about whether their core reader – the 45+-year-old male – was ready to look for classic cars online. To cut a long story short, their audience really liked the user-friendly digital magazine: Right Coast Cars saw their investment returned on the very first issue and have been able to expand their production from one to four digital magazines per year. Read more about their results with online magazines here.