This is your chance to reach more than 365,000 Africa fanatics.
Special Places is where Africa Geographic's readers and fans research and plan their travels. We provide them with multiple platforms, from the traditional and respected printed magazines, web sites and blogs to the cutting edge tablet apps and frenetic social media.
Once you scratch beneath the flurry of modern day living and the explosion of social media you will see that one thing has not changed when it comes to travel choices. It’s still all about trust. Nobody is going to fly halfway across the world unless they trust you and what you offer. You have to earn that trust. Africa Geographic has earned this trust the hard way – after more than 20 years in this space we are trusted for practicing what we preach and for delivering on our promises.
We won’t promise you the world, but we will promise to give you exposure to our global community of Africa fans. We promise to filter the chaos and deliver people that love and travel to Africa.
Special Places offers establishments, operators, agents and other suppliers a very cost-effective way to gain access to a large, growing and passionate international online and print community, to put heads into beds and to market your brand to the world.
Having a website, app and Facebook page does not automatically make you visible! You need to create content (adverts, blogs and social media posts) and team up with media partners to get your content noticed by the right people – to stand out above the masses. Special Places offers the travel trade a cost-effective inside lane to travellers as they harvest travel information on an hourly, daily, weekly basis. Attract and engage travellers via our socially-enhanced community – and reap the rewards. Team up with us and we’ll show you how!
Marketing boffins call this sort of arrangement ‘Content Marketing’ and it’s now an essential part of any online strategy. We’ve been doing it for years and now you can do it too.
Experienced marketers understand the benefit of combined print and digital campaigns, as the ‘print versus digital debate’ has moved on from a duel to a dialogue. At Africa Geographic we offer our readers and fans the entire ecosystem, because that’s what they want. We strongly recommend to marketers that they adopt a hybrid approach. For further information about the benefits of each refer to the ‘Why Print?’ and ‘Why Digital?’ tabs above.
Owners of multiple establishments please contact us for a tailored proposal.
We have 3 Special Places packages:
1. Print and digital
$180 / R1,625 per month (12 months)A 1/12th size advert in all 12 (or 6) issues of Africa Geographic print magazine
One free ¼ page advert, which you can use for any special offers or as an advert
All benefits as per the "Digital Heavy" package below, including 4 blog posts per year (one a review) on our highly active blog site plus access to our large and active social media community
10 free copies of Africa Geographic Magazine delivered to your property each month
2. Digital heavy
$70 / R630 per month (12 months)All benefits from 3. below (Digital Light package), plus
2 blog posts into our blog ecosystem, per 6-month period, plus
1 of the above blog posts may be an establishment review, plus
1 of the above blog posts may be a travel special offer, plus
Free listing in our Charities listing of your own community or conservation project, plus
Free access to our regular marketing tutorials with advice and tips for online marketing of your product.
Unlimited posts onto our Facebook page, which we will repost if the post offers sufficient editorial value to our fans.
3. Digital light
$30 / R270 per month (12 months)Advertisement in digital Special Places
Digital sticker “xxxx is one of Africa Geographic’s Special Places”, for your web site and other marketing collateral.
Notes
Prices exclude VAT (not applicable if you are outside of South Africa)
Minimum contract period of 6 months
Payment options: Once-off payment, or monthly via debit order
Automatic contract renewal beyond the initial term will occur unless you provide us with a two-month notice of termination, in which case the contract will expire after the initial term
Special Places members to provide all material for advertisements and blog posts. Blog posts must be in line with our Blogging Rules and Blogging Guidelines. We reserve the right to edit all posts and to refuse posts that don’t meet required standards.
As a tab on the Africa Geographic blog
Click here to see the blog.
As a tab on the Safari interactive magazine blog
Click here to see the blog.
In Africa Geographic print magazine (Heavy package only)
In Africa Geographic print magazine – APP for the iPad (Heavy package only)
Click here to access the app via the iStore.
You supply the text & photos and we make up the advertisement FREE of charge
Text: 40 words describing your establishment/product in a nutshell, plus the web site address
Photo: One iconic image (high resolution) that is graphic enough to use quite small and which best represents your establishment and experience
“Never seen such a digital magazine! The music and the images make you calm and fill you up with energy. I want to go......”Niko Moerman, Netherlands
“Your magazine makes us ache for Africa” Richard and Jodie Taylor, Australia
“There is no publication that comes close to competing”Wes Kirkpatrick, USA
“I am a huge fan. Africa Geographic is simply wonderful – an opportunity to travel throughout Africa all year round.” Vincent Andrews, USA
“Just wonderful - from a South African on the French Riviera who's now terribly homesick! A superb magazine - congratulations!”Gilly Lloyd, French Riviera
“We love your stories about Africa’s wildlife – can’t wait for our next visit.” Caroline Atkinson, UK
“Thank you for a magazine that keeps Africa alive for me for the 50 weeks a year I can't be there!” Gautam Kaji, USA
Because digital is where travelers are sharing information, making decisions and transacting. And because digital is growing at a phenomenal rate.
According to e-marketer and author Damian Cook, the Internet is now the primary source of information for 95% of travellers, and 56% of travel is booked and paid for online. If you are not communicating and engaging extensively in this digital space, you should be worried.
2,4 billion Internet users and climbing!
Travellers (and the travel trade) are increasingly being empowered by technology and fast broadband to do their own research and make their own travel decisions, when and how it suits them. And they are in seamless and constant touch with one another via social media platforms and increasingly sophisticated mobile devices. They live in a world of instant access to information, each other, products and payment gateways. If you want to sell stuff to them they expect you to be active in that ecosystem.
Referrals from friends have always been a vital source of bookings in the tourism industry, and never more so than now. Social media networks have expanded friendship circles significantly, and networking and sharing of travel information have increased exponentially.
This trend is not going to slow down, on the contrary it is going to speed up, refining and defining itself as it grows, empowered by improving and cheaper technology.
You need to play an active role in this ecosystem, and having a web site is sadly not enough – there are more than 630 million web sites out there! What’s more each DAY sees 300 million photos posted on Facebook and over 4 billion videos viewed on YouTube! You would be correct if you say that this is all a bit bewildering. So, depending on your situation, this is either going to get increasingly complicated and confusing, or it is going to become increasing exciting and profitable. So how can you tap into this opportunity without investing a fortune into content, technology and human resources?
It’s easier than you think.
Firstly you should only be interested in people that will potentially travel to Africa. That filter immediately reduces the numbers substantially – separates the wheat from the chaff. Sure, Google is the world’s biggest library, but the problem is that all the books are all lying on the floor. Someone has to make sense of the chaos that is the Internet, someone has to be the filter.
Your first focus should be in finding those filter mechanisms. Your second focus should be on getting your message and content to that filtered market and to engage them in conversations.
Special Places offers you a filtered audience and the tools to use your content to have conversations with this audience and to generate sales.
Contact digital@africageographic.com for more information.
Because print has been and still is the best way to full engage the reader
For a special interest, niche magazine like Africa Geographic print advertising finds our readers when they are relaxed, in the mood, and receptive to the messages of both editorial and advertising. Africa Geographic is not a grudge read and nor is it a superficial flick through. Our readers look forward to the monthly arrival of their magazine and an engagement with it that often lasts the entire month until the next issue arrives.
This sit back and enjoy approach of our readers means that they notice advertisements and react to them. Time and again our feedback confirms that far from being an intrusion, the adverts contained represent brands appropriate to their lifestyles and interests. Adverts certainly don’t have the irritation factor found in media such as television.
There is no denying the tactile appeal of paper and ink. Studies in first-world regions such as Britain where the use of digital devices is penetrating markets to the point of saturation show that print magazines remain a powerful platform of choice across a spectrum of age from youth to senior years.
Africa Geographic has always been a highly collectable magazine and many of our readers have been with us since our very first issue 20 years ago. Content therefore has durability and longevity that really helps to anchor and define the voice, not only of our own brand but also the advertisers who take the journey with us.
Extended, visual-driven stories embracing superb photography – the hallmark of Africa Geographic’s editorial content - can offer a business model and an immersive focused quality for advertisers that is hard to beat.
Waste is a huge factor in our modern society and an often-voiced criticism of print is that it is wasteful. It can be, but Africa Geographic is kept and treasured by readers. And those copies that are over at the end of the month are where ever possible donated to schools where they reach into a further audience of younger people and their tutors.
For the Print & Digital package
For the Digital Heavy and Digital Light packages
