What We Are
Motif is an arts and entertainment publication in Rhode Island. Its team publishes free papers for more than 60,000 local print readers (audited), online content for another 20,000 and videos, social media, community events and other media for thousands more.
The Opportunity amid this Chaotic Current Business Environment
Print is consolidating and struggling to connect with an audience that is reluctant to pay directly for news. The large institutional news outlets have lost their local relevance and connections to local influencers. They’ve also lost the trust of many readers in an increasingly politicized, slanted environment.
Quarantines, work from home and the canceling of the majority of in-person entertainment and other events leaves readers feeling disconnected from their usual activities and hungry for activities and event news.
This leaves an audience for news that is:
• Unwilling to pay for content, but eager to read it.
• Untrusting of nationalized sources.
• Desperate for content that’s authentic.
• Seeks local connection and community in their news.
• Very eager to connect with events as they re-emerge.
Motif provides exactly that kind of content, with an edge that used to be labeled “alternative,” until mainstream sensibilities drifted to a place where what was once fringe is now what a majority of readers are looking for. Motif appeals to all these audience needs.
The shake-out in the industry is showing that paid / subscription print readership is plummeting. This is not because people don’t like print, it is because they don’t want to pay for news in this information age. Readership for free papers has remained roughly steady for decades. Advertising revenue for free papers is down, however, because of the perception among advertisers that “print is dead.”
This creates a gap between reality and perception, where there is an opportunity to create a strong audience connection that defies any one media, leveraging the popularity of print with readers to create a loyal audience that’s financially leveraged through all media.
Motif Can Take Advantage of This Opportunity
Our plan lays out four paths/plans to transition/pivot to a successful model.
1. Build multi-media/cross-platform options familiar throughout our existing market – RI and surrounding areas. Extending our content into video, podcasting and more events has met with initial success. We will engage in more aggressive, wide-reaching sales efforts and editorial tie-ins, community bonding events and partnerships with more content generation. There is no current competition in this niche, this is the time to become the media outlet of record with audience segments, like music lovers, theater lovers, beer lovers, etc., where we are already well respected.
2. Invest in a space that can also generate income. Local entertainment papers around the country are having success building event-based income streams.Motif has a reputation for creating great events. With the right space we could generate both residential and event rental income, and we could throw more frequent events paid for by covers, food, alcohol, merch sales and sponsorships.
3. Create a family of Motif publications in five top New England cities. Each would be a combination of centralized services for efficiency and local writers and sales people providing the authentic community connection.
4. Create a national ad buying network that would allow large advertisers to easily buy placement in 50 – 100 local papers through one buy. Such networks exist for radio, outdoor ads and TV, but no such solution exists for local print. Motif would take a small percentage of all buys made through the network, and would also receive some of these placements. Nationwide, local ad media spending is roughly a $55 billion business (according to Statista). According to Forbes, $14.8 billion of that was in local print media (pre-COVID numbers). Our plan calls for a mere 3% of that spending to pass through the total conglomerated periodicals – a goal we should easily surpass.
Motif Philosophy and Value to the Community
Motif is dedicated to honesty, transparency and trustworthiness, and celebrates local marvels in every field of endeavor, especially the arts and entertainment. Our creative team believes in deploys local reporters to tell the stories that come from the place where they live, play and work to ensure stories are relevant, honest and often surprising.
Our Name?
A motif is a recurring element, usually in an artistic or literary work, that has deeper meaning hidden beneath the surface. Motif serves as a similar throughline in the community. Each issue fosters a recurring theme. Each story takes a surface-level topic and dives deeper, telling the stories that corporate entities overlook or don’t pursue.
Audience
Our 76,000 current readers represent 8% of RI. We don’t aim to be a paper for everyone, but we can easily triple that footprint with the right outreach (and by getting in the hands of more tourists, once there are tourists again). Our reader base skews more educated, higher income, younger and more female than average, and we’d expect those qualities to persist, but the most defining characteristic of our readers is that they go out and do stuff — they like to leave the house, and wish to interact with the communities around them.
Competition
Many of the free papers of New England have largely closed. Many were unable to transition to the online world, and unsuccessful in downscaling their traditional operations to accommodate modern efficiencies. As a very lean operation, Motif didn’t need to downscale, and we have in fact been able to scale up, incrementally There are currently NE cities with significant readerships that have no viable entertainment papers at all.
Although significant competition is online, players like Facebook and Twitter have largely lost the trust of locals and are seen as giant, impersonal machines. Individual groups on these social media can have successful local relevance, but they are not easily tied into the advertising streams. No platform has emerged that allows local curation, with relevant advertising, of arts and entertainment experiences.
Our Team
Publisher Mike Ryan
Mr. Ryan has been publishing Motif for almost 9 years, and wrote the film column for a number of years before that. After graduating from Portsmouth Abbey, he earned a bachelor’s in psychology from Princeton University, a degree in graphic design from RISD and an associate’s in marketing from Johnson & Wales University. He spent his early employment in advertising, first as a writer, then as a designer and ultimately as a creative director at RI-based ad firms. He has helmed a number of startups, getting involved in the web development industry very early on (the year html was invented), and was a principal at Envision Technology Advisors for 10 years, where he oversaw web and communications projects for clients including Titleist, AMICA Insurance, Met Life, Bryant U, Brown University, BankRI and hundreds more as Envision grew to 35 employees. He worked full-time in the communications department at AMICA, in the creative department at RISD, was a founder of the non-profit, RI Film Collaborative and the first RI Producer of the 48 Hour Film Project, He continues to be involved in countless local arts initiatives and boards. He is a serial entrepreneur who has managed to sell his interest in four different highly profitable start-ups over the course of his career, two in communications and two in the tech sector.
Editor Emily Olson
Emily Olson has been Motif’s editor for almost nine years. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, she was the senior editor at PRNewswire in Boston, then served as an editor at a Boston-based educational research company before starting her own content marketing company in Providence. In addition to overseeing Motif’s day-to-day editorial operations, she’s been involved in several local arts-related projects.
News Editor Rob Smith
Rob Smith has been a core part of the Motif team for four years. He joined the publication as an intern after college, and distinguished himself by organizing the listings in the back of each issue and running award events with exacting efficiency. As an undergraduate at RI College, he worked in the college radio station as news director before becoming general manager. In addition to ensuring smooth business operations at Motif, Rob oversees and edits the news section of the magazine, providing comprehensive coverage to overlooked local issues, and he ensures the magazine has an aggressive social media presence.
Financial Outlook and Prospects
An investment of up to $5 million will enable Motif to expand beyond RI into additional citiesand to spearhead a national advertising network. The company would be profitable in under three years, with an ROI of 200% within five years. The first two years would be building years, laying the foundation for exponential ad revenue growth.
After COVID restrictions are lifted and/or new products take hold, many competitive news sources will be shuttered, The public demand for their services will have grown, creating an exceptional gap – and opportunity – between supply and demand.
For a copy of the full business plan, contact BrantLittle@motifri.com or Publisher@motifri.com.