How Prognos reaches customers and partners online with digital publications

Digital formats for an ever-increasing online readership

Prognos is one of the oldest economic research companies in Europe. Founded at the University of Basel, Prognos experts have been researching for a wide range of customers from the public and private sectors since 1959 - politically independent and scientifically based.

As a research and consulting institution, Prognos publishes over 200 studies and analyses a year with a team of over 180 employees working at 9 international sites. To provide an insight into its own work, Prognos regularly publishes the magazine "trendletter". With the published articles, thought-provoking approaches and current statistics, Prognos reaches decision-makers from politics, economy and society twice a year.

The magazine is produced with a print run of over 9,000 issues and sent out by post. Online, the magazine is offered for download as a PDF and presented in a PDF flipbook until 2020. Because more and more users read mainly online - on their PCs at work, on the go on their smartphones or on their tablets - modern digital options have increasingly moved into the focus of the editorial team.

Challenge: Transferring the print publication into an interactive online magazine

The central challenge was to transfer the trendletter, which had been published as a print publication for many years, from a PDF file to an interactive online magazine. The continuation of the magazine form with closed issues was decisive in the choice of provider.

The first issue was produced jointly by Prognos editorial staff and the Webmag Team as part of a training. A specific online feature was developed for special characteristics of the magazine, such as the typical centre of the issue, which can also be used in subsequent issues.

In addition to being sent out by newsletter, individual articles from the issues are posted on the company's social media channels and lead to further interaction with their target groups.

Intuitive in-house creation of specialist publications for customers

In addition to the successful implementation of the trendletter, the implementation of digital customer studies is being approached. Here, studies that Prognos produces for its customers are not delivered in PDF form, but as browser-based, responsive publications that are either published on the Prognos subdomain or on a subdomain of the relevant customer. These single issues are added as required by the Prognos team and realised in-house. This is how Prognos not only leads the way with its own digitalisation, but also strengthens the digital communication of its clients and partners.

Julia Thurau - Prognos: „With Webmag, we have given our trendletter magazine a contemporary digital appearance. Our readers can now read our articles much more conveniently on their smartphones or tablets than before. Thanks to Webmag's intuitive publishing platform, we produce all issues in-house. In case of questions, the Webmag Team provides a prompt and competent support. The Webmag service is also very helpful for studies and other publications that we publish for ourselves and our customers. So we have not only brought the trendletter up to date. With Webmag, we can also offer our clients a contemporary format for publishing their study results.“