4 killer print alumni mag headlines + what made them work

August 27, 2026/by Erin Peterson

The best print alumni magazines don’t just have creative, surprising editorial. (Though they do.)

And they don’t just have beautiful, irresistible design. (Though they’ve got that, too.)

They combine the two in unexpected and delightful ways.

And there are few places that this combination can be more effective than in your feature story headlines.

Here are a few recent print alumni magazine headlines I loved, because the words and visuals work together in ways only print can pull off.

I’ve also included a few ideas for bringing more headline creativity to your own publication.

1. Written in Code

I offered a handful of potential headlines for this Kenyon piece, and not all of them hit the mark. (“The new literacy”? YAWN, there is a reason that one didn’t make the cut.)

There were actually ones I liked better than the one they ended up choosing! But that was before I saw the way that they took “Written in Code” all the way to the moon.

Look at that first page closely, and you’ll see how designer Erin Mayes took that headline very, very literally. (Good luck incorporating such a cool idea into “The new literacy.”)

Make your headlines better: use the rule of three
While I prefer it when the design and editorial teams work together to come up with headlines, it’s not always possible.

At the very least, a designer should have three headline options to choose from for major features, because they may see visual possibilities in headlines you might otherwise dismiss.

2. A Day in the Life of UNL

This was a cool feature for Nebraska Quarterly.

I love how the word “life” evokes a classic digital alarm clock. It’s instantly recognizable and perfectly suited to a feature organized around a single day.

Even better, the team carries that digital-clock visual language throughout the feature, which means the headline doesn’t feel like a one-page gimmick.

It becomes the organizing idea for the whole package.

Make your headlines better: Go long.
As a rule, I like headlines that are a little bit longer: Five words? Seven words? YES, ABSOLUTELY.

Do they need to be as long as this completely off-the-wall 29-worder? They do not! (But also: there is no question that 29 words will capture your reader’s attention.)

3. A New Way of Seeing

This headline for a profile of a photographer evokes a camera viewfinder and focusing system in the word “seeing.” A+, perfection.

The story is about a photographer whose work reframes the way people see things around them.

The headline literally does the same thing. Incredible!

Make your headlines better: Generate many
Come up with LOTS of headlines (think 20 or 25, not just a couple) before you settle on one.

Can you use AI to help? *sigh* Yeah, okay, fine.

But think of AI as a jumping off point, not a tool that will take you from start to finish.

The best headlines tend to come after your brain gets a little tired and starts going down less conventional paths.

4. A Force for Good

I don’t really follow football, but even I can appreciate the route line and arrows that snake the reader through this headline for a story about an alum who’s making the game safer. And those X’s and O’s that evoke a coach’s sideline whiteboard scrawls are fantastic.

No notes, Loyola magazine!

Make your headlines better: Bring people together
Bring your editorial team, your design team, and the cleverest people at your institution (regardless of their job) together for a headline happy hour.

The work of building headlines together will almost certainly make them stronger.

Your alumni mag website doesn’t work. Here’s why.

July 27, 2026/by Erin Peterson

For almost as long as alumni magazine websites and digital publications have existed, I have been trying to crack the code: how can schools make them work?

I have been paying attention to this specific challenge for more than 15 years, so I promise you: I have seen it all. I have looked at it from every angle!

And in the consulting I do, I’ve had a chance to see the numbers folks are getting from these approaches.

In a word: yikes.

For example:

Maybe you just need better tech?

I have seen alumni magazines try Flipboard back when it was only for iPads.

I’ve seen dedicated websites and an infinite array of digital publishing platforms.

I’ve seen schools that throw the PDF online and call it a day.

Verdict: nope, not the tech.

Maybe you need to dial in your publishing cadence or strategy?

I’ve seen institutions put up all the content from their magazine in a single drop.

I’ve seen them put up some in advance, or embargo everything until an issue has made it into everyone’s mailboxes.

I’ve seen individual stories dropped weekly. Even three times a week, whew!

Verdict: Nope, not that either.

Maybe you need to make the site more beautiful? With more stuff?

I’ve seen some incredible, award-winning alumni magazine websites.

I’ve seen sites that include tons of new content — animations, videos, additional interviews — to entice readers.

Verdict: Absolutely not. I have watched alumni mag websites go from award-winning to “404 page not found” in a matter of months.

Sheesh, Erin, maybe reviewing 1,000 alumni magazines a year isn’t enough! Maybe your consulting with dozens of clients isn’t giving you the right data! Maybe you just need to cast your net more widely!

I’ve also asked publicly many times!

Here, you can see the absolute crickets this LinkedIn post got me *publicly.*

As you can see from that post, nobody told me about how their websites or digital platforms were killing it!

But in my DMs and in my emails: people admitted their online magazines were flailing.

(Oh, and a bunch of salespeople tried to sell me on their online magazine “solutions” while providing ZERO DATA on their effectiveness. GO AWAY.)

Let me be clear: I’ve seen some of the approaches I’ve shared above earn a big pop of attention!

For exactly one issue.

I have yet to see a digital approach work the way that institutions want them to long term.

The reality is this: If you want your alumni to pay attention to your institution, your print magazine is where it’s at.

Here’s why.

The push-pull differentiator

There’s a fundamental difference between your print magazine and your website that explains almost everything about why one gets read and the other gets ignored.

It’s not about technology, content strategy, or publishing cadence.

It’s about how each one reaches people in the first place: Push media vs. pull media.

Push media comes straight to you.

It arrives whether you asked for it or not.

Your magazine lands in your reader’s mailbox, gets carried into the house, sits on the kitchen counter, and — if you’ve done your job well — earns the coffee table or nightstand.

Even “ignored,” it’s not ignored: the cover’s doing its job from the counter.

Pull media is the opposite.

Your website only works if your alum decides to go to it.

They might get that email that includes a link to your site, but they still have to open the email, decide they’re interested in your teaser, and click the link.

Same with that social media post: they still have to read the teaser and decide to click!

Unfortunately, no matter how much your alumni love your institution (and I know they do!), this is actually asking a lot of your reader.

And the idea that they might just…independently decide to check out your site?

Uh, good luck.

Even alumni who had a life-changing experience at your school benefit from a nudge to remind them of that important connection.

Your print magazine is that nudge.

It just shows up!

And unlike your crummy Uncle Ron, your magazine is a truly welcome guest.

It’s why CASE surveys consistently show that between 70 and 90 percent of respondents want their alumni magazine IN PRINT, rather than online only.

In other words, it’s an expensive — but HIGHLY EFFECTIVE — magic trick that captures your audience’s attention in a way that they genuinely appreciate.

It’s a magic trick that no website — no matter how beautiful, no matter how clever the publishing strategy — can perform.

That’s why magazines that try to go all digital go back to print again. And again. And again.

Every digital approach has pluses and minuses. But my advice? Don’t spend more time on it than you absolutely have to, because the payoff is small.

Print solves one of the hardest problems in communications: getting your audience’s attention.

The best move is to invest more in print, because that is where the right changes really can move the needle.

Yes, print is expensive.

But print is also effective.

Don’t focus on your website and make your print magazine an afterthought.

Make print a central piece of your alumni communications strategy.

The #1 thing that would make your print mag better

June 18, 2026/by Erin Peterson

If you’re responsible for an alumni magazine, there are probably a lot of things you’d like to do to make it better if you had the time and resources.

Here are some of the things people have told me they’ve put on their shortlist.

Streamline the approval process
Hire a dream writer, photographer, or illustrator
Figure out a way to make class notes less painful

And it’s true that all these things are valuable, but that’s not where I’d tell most people to start.

Here’s what I almost always tell them: Survey your readers.

Are you slightly annoyed just reading that? Do you feel like it’s something you’ll get around to when you have a little more time, but truly, what a hassle?

The good news is that you are extremely not alone.

About 70 percent of the editors I talk to haven’t surveyed their readers in at least three years.

And that number is probably generous among institutional magazines as a whole, because I’m hearing from people who are already motivated to improve their publications!

But whether your number is three years, five years or — gulp, never — that’s a long time to fly blind.

The CASE Magazine Readership Survey is on hiatus. Time to build your own.

For years, the CASE Magazine Readership Survey was the industry gold standard.

It’s on hiatus now (my guess: dead).

For now, anyway, if you want to send your readers a survey, you have to build it yourself.

The good news: you don’t need to replicate the 11-page CASE version (!!!) to get useful insight.

A focused survey can tell you almost everything you need to know.

When I work with clients, I help tailor questions based on what matters most to them — but here are a couple good places to start.

I like both of them for different reasons, but I recommend them as a starting point, not an exact template for your institution’s publication.

What you’ll learn from a survey

After you send out that first survey, you’ll probably learn that your magazine is (very probably) beloved.

Hooray!

Even if it’s never won an award, and even if you’ve been secretly worried that no one actually reads it, your audience probably spends more time with it than you imagine.

They keep it longer than you’d expect. They hand it to a family with a kid who might just be perfect for your institution. They feel a pull toward your school every time they flip through it.

Maybe you already know this (or at least suspect that it’s true). Still, without a survey, those details stay anecdotal or invisible.

There’s no data-backed story to tell when someone wonders aloud whether the print budget is really worth it.

Surveys don’t just help defend your magazine. They improve it.

Defending the value of your magazine — while important — isn’t the primary value of a good survey.

Done well, a survey can help you understand what your readers actually want.

Sometimes, what they want will surprise you.

For example, not long ago, I chatted with a client about their publication’s “letter from the desk of” column, which I have railed against for more than 30 million years.

Readers skim it, skip it, and sometimes get actively annoyed by it, I told them. Most publications could probably cut the letter and no one would complain.

But my opinion on those letters is based on what I knew about MOST institutions. Not their specific institution and its alums.

And once we did their survey, we learned that the president’s letter was the single most-read page in the entire magazine.

Why? I don’t know! Who are these maniacs?

I can theorize, but the reality is that it kind of doesn’t matter.

Without a survey, I would have told them to get rid of it or minimize it, because most magazine surveys have found that readers don’t like it.

But their survey data told us the opposite. It was time to take that page far more seriously than we had been.

And now we do.

Your charge

If you’re reading this newsletter, it probably means you already believe that your magazine matters.

A survey is one of the very best ways to prove it — and to get a roadmap for creating a publication your audience appreciates even more.

Your readers are ready to tell you what you want to know! All you have to do is ask.

Stop trying to impress strangers

May 22, 2026/by Erin Peterson

For years, I thought the pinnacle of alumni magazine achievement was to create something so beautiful and ambitious that even someone with zero connection to the school would want to pick it up.

It had to have topics so big and high stakes that, like a newsstand magazine, it could captivate a complete stranger, the way the New Yorker or National Geographic might do. (No pressure, my magazine friends who do the absolute best they can with a “team of one.”)

But after years of reviewing thousands of consumer and alumni magazines, I realized the truth was more nuanced. Alumni publications have plenty to learn from their consumer mag counterparts — but this particular “impress strangers” philosophy isn’t one of them.

What I eventually understood was that an alumni magazine is starting from a completely different place than a general-interest publication.

The reader already knows (and hopefully loves) at least some version of your institution.

They know your school’s picturesque viewbook vistas and light-dappled academic building lobbies because they experienced them. They feel a radiating warmth when they see their alma mater’s name on a stranger’s sweatshirt a thousand miles from campus.

They already feel a certain kind of ownership of the place because, for at least a few years, it really was theirs.

It’s this built-in intimacy that gives an alumni magazine a true advantage over a consumer magazine: your ideal reader already knows and cares about the thing you’re going to tell them stories about.

And that means that the world of stories available to you, and that you can tell ambitiously, is completely different.

They can be “small” stories, obsessively told — about a tradition, a much-loved space, a singular professor. They can be knowing and voice-y, and your readers will be nodding along.

These are stories that can seem less ambitious, but I’d argue that it’s a different kind of ambition — and in some ways, a harder kind.

You’re not trying to make a stranger care! You’re trying to create stories worthy of readers who already do.

Here are three (well, four) extremely specific stories that I consider beautifully ambitious.

1. Oregon Stater’s “Stories from the Suit”

You guys, I could not POSSIBLY love this 10-pager on Oregon State’s mascots more.

Let me bullet point the ways.

What a cover!
Plus a stealthily clever back cover.
Oh my god, an editor’s letter linked to the story that I actually read and liked. It included real insight on what it takes to find people (22, to be exact) whose job demands anonymity. And also this line: “There are, I now know, a great many alumni walking among us who can execute a flawless push-up routine while wearing a 10-pound beaver head.” The best, Scholle McFarland!
This lead, from writer Kip Carlson: “It’s about 20 minutes until tipoff and Benny Beaver is getting his game face on. Actually, he’s getting his entire head on. And his tail. And fur. And basketball shoes.” Friends, we are in GOOD HANDS for this story.
A centerfold. (!)
I could go on, but we have other stories to get to.

2. Macalester’s “Biography of Old Main”

I live just a few miles from Macalester’s campus, and I love that place so much that I have found a nearly infinite number of pretexts to drop by over the years.

So a couple years ago, when the editor asked if I would write a story about the most iconic building on campus, I could not say yes fast enough. Together, we mapped out a plan for a biography of the building.

I didn’t want Old Main to feel like an untouchable icon; I wanted to show it as the messy, weird, and genuinely loved space that it had been over time — and still was.

I was also interested in what it meant to experience the building as a person, now.

I hung out there for hours. I listened to people gripe about the elevator speed, then timed it myself. (37 seconds for four floors, good grief.)

I talked to the administrative assistant who’d been cultivating a veritable garden in the study spaces and the professor who fed the squirrels from her window.

All of those weird little details made the story package, along with details from dozens of historical documents.

By the end of that story, I felt like the building was an old friend. I hope a lot of readers did, too.

3. University of Utah’s “A Tree Grows on Campus”

There are SO MANY stories about buildings in university publications, but a story like this one from the University of Utah is such an incredible reminder that people’s experiences on campus are also shaped by its landscapes.

I’ve seen a few versions of this story over the years, but Utah’s in particular knocked me flat:

Here’s what associate editor Lisa Anderson said about it:

“We wanted to write a story about the fact that our campus is the state arboretum, thanks to the botany chair who started planting a wide variety of trees on the grounds in the 1930s to see if they would survive in this climate.

I didn’t want to just write a history of the arboretum or a profile of the professor—I wanted to celebrate trees and spark curiosity about the specimens on campus, so I did short writeups with interesting facts about a handful of species. We paired them with beautiful custom illustrations and a map with coordinates so people can visit them in person.

This has been one of our most popular stories ever.”

Incredible.

And not for nothing — it also got turned into a downloadable poster.

Your readers turn to class notes first. Are you delivering?

April 17, 2026/by Erin Peterson

You know who loves class notes?

Pretty much every alum you’ve got. It’s why class notes consistently rank as the most-read section in alumni magazine readership surveys.

You know who hates class notes?

Pretty much everyone in your institution who’s even tangentially involved in their production.

As a former class notes editor, I get it.

They’re difficult to keep track of, they’re fiddly to produce, and alumni ALWAYS find errors, despite your best efforts.

It’s also why, every single month, I hear from at least one editor who wants me to bless their efforts to move their class notes section online.

So easily updatable! So expandable! So great to free up space in your print publication!

Friends, you can keep sending me your very good reasons to put your class notes online for the next 30 million years.

But the answer to your question “Should I move my school’s class notes online” is, and always will be, ABSOLUTELY NOT.

The number of people who will read class notes in print is almost always extremely high.

The number of people who will read class notes online is almost always extremely low.

Ditch the class notes in print, and you might gain a little more print real estate. But you’ll also lose all the readers who thought they were only coming for the class notes — and then stayed for everything else.

Class notes are the gateway to the rest of your magazine (and a whole lot more)

When you don’t have class notes in your publication, many readers will send your magazine straight to the recycling bin.

With them? You’ve got a good chance of nabbing readers’ attention for a few more stories.

And the more submissions you get, the more value you’re generating beyond the page.

A robust class notes section is a stealth intelligence source for your whole institution.

You might find the seed of your next great profile
The career office might flag an alum who could mentor students.
Advancement might spot a donor prospect.

In other words, yes, class notes are good for your readers. And they can also be great for your whole school.

Here’s how to make a class notes section worthy of your readers’ attention.

1. Go big

For most publications, 20-35 percent of your pages should be devoted to class notes, obituaries, and alumni news.

People are always interested in learning about their classmates. (And no, your readers don’t “already keep up with all of the people they knew in college on social media.”)

The data shows that people love class notes no matter how big the institution — it’s true if you’ve got an alumni body of 5,000, 50,000, or 500,000.

So keep asking for class notes!

That can mean:

Making the request more prominent in your magazine (like, REALLY prominent, maybe)
Asking survey respondents to send in their news
Attending popular on-campus alumni events like homecoming or reunion, setting up a table, and asking people to fill out cards with their latest news

Even adding a single page to your class note page count can bring new people to your pages and more readers to your magazine.

2. Encourage competition

I’ve noticed that a number of magazines will run the best photo they get on a full page or even a full spread (!!), either as a tacit or explicit competition to get readers to submit incredible photos.

Here’s one from Penn Stater:

It works!

And even if you only run one “winning” photo, it often boosts the quality of all the photos you get.

3. Expand your lens

Class notes can go beyond weddings, promotions, and babies. Consider adding:

Archival photos or objects
Prompts (here’s a great one that features alumni award winners)
Alumni encounters

4. Get personal

Sure, it’s fine to call your class notes section what it is — class notes are class notes!

But there’s something really lovely about publications that have class notes sections that offer at least a tiny nod to the personality or purpose of the institution.

Here are a few:

The University of Chicago gives a nod to their academia-focused alums by calling their class notes “Peer Review”
All those doctors reading Harvard Medicine’s magazine head to a class notes section called “Rounds”
UConn Magazine’s alumni section? Straightforward and effective: “UConn Nation”

Your section headers can help illuminate the story of your institution.

It’s true that class notes aren’t easy. But they’re worth the headache, the page count, and your very best editorial thinking.

Instead of ditching them or moving them online, find ways to make your class notes section even better and more valuable for everyone.

What would your print magazine’s impact slide say?

March 16, 2026/by Erin Peterson

Over the past decade, I’ve shared a lot about the craft of making a magazine.

How do you make your headlines better?

How can you craft stories your audience actually wants to read?

What kind of covers get readers to pluck a publication out of their mailbox and put it on their coffee table?

There’s no doubt that making a beautiful, compelling magazine is important!

It’s also only part of the equation.

The other part is proving it works.

And while there are a lot of different ways you can talk about whether or not your magazine works, there’s one thought experiment I find especially clarifying: If you had to summarize your print magazine’s impact in a single slide for a VP, what would it say?

From my perspective, there are three simple, interlocking ways to think about impact. Here’s what they are, and a few ways you might start measuring them.

1. Is your audience reading it?

First, you need to answer the most basic question about your magazine. Is anyone actually cracking the cover? There are a variety of ways you can get a sense of reader interest:

Responses to prompts
This might include things like mystery photos, surveys, questions like “who was your favorite professor,” or finding hidden mascots. Prompt responses show that readers are paying attention.

Here’s one prompt approach that reliably generates a few dozen responses per issue for one editor — including the exact steps to do it well.

Letters to the editor
Though a little bit less common these days, letters to the editor pages show readers are engaged enough to continue the conversation. There are effective ways to nudge people to do this!

Follow the letters to the editor blueprint from the University of Chicago.

Light-touch survey results
Surveys help confirm readers are opening, reading, and have feelings (!!) about your stories.

Here’s a survey that Tina Hay, former editor of the Penn Stater, has used.

2. Does your audience actually want it?

Passive readers flip through your pages, but you also want to specifically highlight details about people who reach out, ask for more, or go out of their way to tell you they care.

Class notes
Submissions show that alumni value your magazine enough to want to be part of it. (And it’s the #1 section people actively turn to, so having a robust section has a big impact.)

Here’s more on class notes.

Individual kudos from inside or beyond the institution
When people contact you to praise a story or your publication, it indicates that your work resonates enough that people take time to tell you.

This is a super smart editor hack that generates lots of positive feedback.

Requests for extra issues from development, admissions/enrollment, alumni events, etc.
It’s a vote of confidence when your colleagues see the magazine as valuable enough to share with donors, prospective students, or event attendees.

More on extending the reach and impact of your publication

3. Does your publication deliver results?

This is where you connect your magazine to things that are especially important to leadership: mission, fundraising, and value.

Stories linked to your school’s mission or strategic plan.
Institutional stories signal to leadership that the magazine isn’t operating in a silo—it’s a strategic communications tool.

How to make an incredible strategic plan story that delivers.

Gifts from blow-in envelopes or QR codes.
These tie your magazine directly to revenue — a metric that gets everyone’s attention.

Go to “expand and test” to see the $52,000 magazine experiment.

Cost savings or efficiency improvements.
Did you switch printers and save the school thousands? Better align your mailing list to the people who are most likely to find value in your publication? These show you’re delivering value and being a good steward of resources.

I believe that it’s important to start taking the measurement of your magazine seriously, even if you have lots of institutional support!

Because at some point, someone will ask what the magazine actually does for the institution. Maybe it’s a new VP, a budget conversation, or a strategic planning process.

When that moment comes, you don’t want to be scrambling.

You want a clear, confident answer ready, ideally with numbers attached. You’re likely doing incredible work with your magazine! You just need to show it in a few clean, measurable ways.

Here’s your action step: Pick at least one measure from each of the three categories above and start tracking them in your very next issue.

They’re not what you hoped for? That’s okay! You can methodically work to make them better over time.

But even beyond defending your budget or the value of your magazine, tracking your magazine’s impact helps you do better work.

When you know what resonates, you can do more of it. When something’s a flop, you can ditch it in favor of another approach or idea.

Plus, it’s way more fun to work on a project that you know matters.

And the work of measurement doesn’t have to be hard. A slide, a one-page PDF, even a running list in a simple spreadsheet or Google doc will do.

The point is to start collecting evidence now so you have it when you need it.

Are you overlooking these two essential pages of your magazine?

February 17, 2026/by Erin Peterson

Recently, I was ho-humming my way through a stack of alumni magazines. (Yes, I really do review 1,000+ a year, and yes, I would love it if you added Capstone to your mailing list.)

And then I came across On Wisconsin. I like their work a lot, so I picked up the magazine, opened it to the first page, and blammo:

I was transported to their football stadium via a gorgeous 11×17 photograph. (Try that, iPhone screen.)

Whew, I loved it.

I knew I was in very good hands. And I was ready to follow wherever they wanted to take me. (And as a Minnesotan who is contractually obligated to side-eye Wisconsin, that’s saying a lot!)

Even more than that, it reminded me about the larger goal that all alumni magazines should have for their inside front cover spread.

Your inside front cover spread must instill reader trust

Of all the pages in an alumni magazine, the inside front cover spread is one of the most overlooked.

Maybe it’s where you throw your table of contents, maybe a letter from leadership, maybe a masthead in the tiniest possible font.

It’s usually kind of a mess!

And it’s true, there’s a lot of information that has to go somewhere, and this spread often becomes the junk drawer of your magazine — the place where everything that doesn’t have a home gets shoved in and forgotten.

But that approach is a big mistake.

It’s the first FULL spread your reader is likely to see.

And while you’ve already done the hard work of hooking them with your front cover, this is the moment where they’re asking themselves: Do I feel like I’m in good hands? Do I trust what they’re doing?

A cluttered, chaotic spread doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

And it could just make your reader set it aside before they even get started.

Before and after: University of Wisconsin-Platteville

Here’s an example of what I mean.

This is the inside front cover spread from an issue of UW-Platteville’s Alumni Today.

It’s pretty typical for an alumni magazine!

But also, it’s a lot: table of contents, masthead, letter from the alumni association president, a “refer a Pioneer” callout. Everything is fighting for attention, and nothing wins.

Now here’s what it looks like after a redesign I worked on with designer Kat Braz:

It’s clean and immersive. A single striking image demands your attention.

The table of contents is still there! But it’s organized and intentional.

This is a spread that lets readers know that true pros are at the helm — and that it’ll be worth readers’ time to keep turning the pages.

Another approach worth stealing

To be fair, not every magazine starts off with a table of contents. And in this case, you have even more flexibility. Here’s one example I refer to frequently:

This is from TCNJ Magazine.

Instead of a TOC on that first spread, they’ve created a beautiful, illustration-driven spread that brings together the best prompt responses from a previous issue: “What campus performances have stayed with you?”

I love this because it’s striking, it puts alumni voices front and center, and it immediately signals that this is a magazine that was built by people who truly care about the publication and their readers.

It works because it leans into what print does best. It creates an experience you can’t replicate on a screen.

Your charge: no more “lazy pages” in print

Right now, with tight budgets and the high cost of print publications, every page must earn its keep.

That’s exactly why your inside front cover spread can’t be an afterthought!

This is prime real estate. It’s one of the first things your reader sees. And it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Is your inside front cover — whether it’s a table of contents page or something else — doing its critical job of earning your reader’s trust?

Are people actually reading your print alumni magazine?

January 9, 2026/by Erin Peterson

There’s no doubt about it: the shift from print to digital alumni magazines has accelerated.

But is that shift actually working?

For years, I’ve been asking folks how those digital magazines are performing compared to their print counterparts.

Their answers have been surprisingly consistent, and are typically along the lines of: “Well, it’s not really possible to measure print engagement, and our numbers with digital are [hand waves, mumbles]. We’re eager to keep experimenting!”

Look, I get it: people want to move to digital for sustainability (translation: cost), dynamic storytelling (translation: cost), meeting readers where they are (translation: cost), and of course: cost.

It’s also true that printing and mailing costs are big, tantalizing line items in any budget to cut.

And yet: if you’ve got a print magazine, it’s probably time to get serious about measuring not just its cost, but its impact.

Because the worst possible outcome is making the switch to digital, realizing that readers don’t like it (or ignore it), and then sheepishly returning to print after alienating some of your most loyal supporters.

Don’t believe this happens?

Here’s one example.
Here’s another.
Sheesh, you want more? Fine, here’s a third.

This process of measuring print impact and value starts by understanding if your readers are actually paying attention to your magazine.

And no, this is not impossible!

Four ways to measure print engagement

It’s true that you can’t measure print engagement in the same way that you measure clicks and likes. (But let’s also be honest about how accurate those clicks and likes are.)

Here are four great ways to think about understanding print magazine engagement.

1. Surveys

There are a few options here: The CASE Magazine Readership Survey (which appears to be on hiatus, but the questions are still available!), an in-house developed survey that covers similar ground but in ways that are more personalized to your institution, and “light touch” surveys of 8-10 questions that you can run after every issue.

Here’s one that Tina Hay, the former editor of the Penn Stater, has used.

2. Prompts
You can ask your readers lots of things! Ask them to name a favorite professor, share an unforgettable campus job, or to identify a mystery photo.

The answers don’t just help you gauge who’s reading the magazine — they can also drive storytelling in future issues.

3. Interactions
To demonstrate the magazine’s value to institutional leaders, one editor creates an annual impact report that tracks metrics like the total number of class notes pages per year and alumni photo submissions.

Her logic is simple: those contributions aren’t passive — they’re evidence that alumni want to be seen by — and connected to — the institution and its community.

The print magazine is one vehicle that makes this possible.

4. Philanthropy
While I don’t recommend that people think of their magazine as a direct-mail appeal in disguise, magazines do drive some philanthropy.

Blow-in gift envelopes are a clear example of this; mailing list experiments, carefully tracked, are another.

You might be happy with what you uncover.

You might be unhappy with what you uncover!

But before you make the dramatic decision to cut your print alumni magazine, or move — perhaps catastrophically — to a format alumni don’t care about or pay attention to, know how your magazine stacks up.

Not sure how your print magazine is performing? Let’s talk. I’ve helped dozens of teams uncover their magazine’s real value — and expand its impact.

Your print magazine’s actual ROI (with numbers)

December 9, 2025/by Erin Peterson

It is — how do I say this? — a weird time to be in higher ed.

Let’s take an inventory:

The demographic cliff has arrived.
Trust in higher ed as a whole has eroded.
Federal funding for hundreds of institutions nationwide is on the chopping block.

Honestly, you probably didn’t need to click on any of those links — you know this!

So it might seem strange that I, a person who has worked in higher ed for 20+ years, am still so bullish on the seemingly impractical — yet remarkably enduring — print alumni magazine.

Erin Peterson, ARE THERE NOT BIGGER FISH TO FRY THESE DAYS?

Well, yeah, maybe.

But here’s why print magazines still matter and why, when used wisely, they still earn their keep in your communications toolbox.

With real, actual numbers and data.

Your alumni might not trust “the media.” They do trust your print magazine.

A recent Gallup survey found that 69 percent of people have little to no trust in the mainstream media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.

Which: yikes.

So when there’s a daily drumbeat of dismal headlines about higher ed, is it good or bad that no one believes them?

Let’s leave that conundrum for another time and look at these stories through a different lens: the print alumni magazine.

It turns out your alumni actually want to hear about the hard stuff — and they want to hear it from you.

In a survey reported on in CASE Currents in 2020, “campus controversies” were among the hot topics readers most wanted to explore within alumni magazines. In an earlier version of the survey, 63 percent of readers ranked “issues facing education” as a subject they were interested or very interested in — one of the highest scores on the list.

Translation: If your institution is wrestling with big issues — enrollment challenges, budget cuts, shifting public perception — your alumni want to know your side of the story.

Here’s another stat worth knowing: that same 2020 survey found that print alumni magazines are tied with email as “the channel where readers say they get the most information about the institution.”

But when it comes to nuanced, in-depth storytelling? Print wins.

CASE found that 89 percent of alumni spend at least 10 minutes with their alumni magazine. Compare that to Statista’s report that the average person spends just 10 seconds on a brand email.

Emails can share persuasive soundbites! But magazines are where people go for the full story.

Put all that together, and here’s what it means: Your print magazine is one of the most effective, trusted tools you have to share your institution’s perspective with your alumni — especially when the story is difficult or complicated.

Print magazines rekindle relationships that drive giving

No, I’m not talking about donor stories!

I’m talking about that incredible professor whose teaching changed the trajectory of thousands of students’ lives. And the coach whose advice has been the north star for generations of athletes. And the countless other individuals who were part of students’ lives and made an indelible impression on them.

Yes, your alumni feel a connection to your institution, but even more than that, they feel a connection to your institution’s people.

This is no small thing!

Here’s what Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen discovered in his research:

He found that most of the successful alumni who gave generous donations to their alma maters did so because a specific professor or coach inspired them.

Among all of these donors, “Their connection wasn’t their discipline, it wasn’t even the college,” says Christensen. “It was an individual member of the faculty who had changed their lives.”

The reason I bring this up is that your print magazine is one of the best places to tell the stories of those people in deep, robust ways.

It is a way to remind your readers of these people when they win awards, when they’re doing something new and interesting, and when they retire.

And it is the way to connect with the broadest array of people who are likely to remember, appreciate, and find ways to recognize the value of that person in their lives.

Print is still the best way to show your alumni they’re part of something bigger

You’ve seen me share a version of this argument one million times, here’s one million and one: Your. Readers. Love. Class. Notes.

Yes, this is true if you are a tiny liberal arts school, and yes it is true if you are a vast research institution, and yes it is true if you are a college within a larger institution.

Your readers love to see what their friends, enemies, and frenemies are up to. They love to see what their fellow alumni are doing, even if they don’t know them personally. I’ve seen this trend play out in the data across dozens of institutions.

And while I argue that it’s wise to commit 20-35 percent of your pages to class notes, readers will always want more.

It’s why the director of alumni communications at Harvard said it would be “like WWIII” if HBS magazine cut its 450-page class notes section.

And it’s why, when I surveyed alumni about the class notes section of a print magazine I was working on (which already fell well within the recommended range), the overwhelming majority wanted more of them:

Your alumni have a million ways to connect with each other. But seeing all those class notes in one place is a visual reminder of the larger community that they belong to.

Engaging class notes, profiles of beloved faculty and staff, and nuanced storytelling about important issues — these are some of the many reasons that 88 percent of survey respondents agree or strongly agree that the magazines they receive strengthen their personal connection to their institutions.

Taken together, the numbers couldn’t be clearer. When you use your magazine to tackle real issues with honesty, to spotlight the people who shaped lives, and to showcase the class notes your readers devour, you’re building advocates who believe in — and support — your institution and its future.

Evolution or revolution?

November 8, 2025/by Erin Peterson

Let me tell you a secret about redesigns.

Years ago, when I was just getting started in alumni magazines, I got to play a role in the Carleton Voice’s ambitious redesign.

The design was beautiful. The photography was stunning. The writing got a big upgrade (if I do say so myself).

OH, AND THE MAGAZINE WON A DANG SIBLEY.

But do you know what alumni, our target audience, had to say about it?

Here, I’ll pull some excerpts from the letters page after that first issue dropped:

“A bit hard to take.”
“Do you really think Carleton grads had difficulty ‘navigating’ the old Voice?”
“When we graduate, do our minds deteriorate to such an extent that only by assaulting our eyes can a publication arouse our interest?”

And those were the publishable ones!

You guys, I’m still really, really proud of the work I did on that magazine. And to be fair, there were some nice compliments from alums.

But I also didn’t forget the sting of disappointment I felt from the cutting reactions.

Because as nice as it was to get that external validation from our peers, the feedback that actually mattered was from the readers who would see the magazine issue after issue.

I’d like to say that it was an isolated incident.

But when I went out on my own to work with alumni magazines around the country, I discovered something surprising: this reaction happened ALL THE TIME after alumni magazines underwent a redesign.

That reality made me rethink everything about what it takes for an alumni magazine to succeed.

The problem with redesigns

So let’s unpack this a little bit.

It’s very, very common, when you’re frustrated with your print alumni magazine, to assume a redesign (or a refresh or reimagining or re-whatever) will solve your problems.

Ditch that stale nameplate, that tired grid, that played-out section.

Modernize! Improve the photography! Come up with some fun new departments and feature formats!

It’s time for a revolution.

There’s no question that these kinds of before-and-after transformations often earn the admiration of judges and peers. And honestly, I’m one of the first to recognize them in this newsletter.

I spend all of my day thinking about print magazines, so of course I love the innovation and creativity and care that goes into this work.

But that doesn’t always mean that your actual audience will love it.

Alumni are often extremely conservative when it comes to their alumni magazine.

They like getting something that feels familiar, even if a redesign offers an objectively better magazine experience.

That’s true even if you conduct broad surveys and focus groups and write an editor’s letter at the beginning of the brand new issue telling them exactly what you’ve done and why.

Even worse: the cool before-and-afters we all love often obscure a messy middle that many of us would prefer not to talk about.

Cost: Before you begin that redesign, you’ll have to make the very politically — and sometimes financially — expensive argument that it’s time for an overhaul.
Time: One rule of thumb? You can expect a redesign to take as much time and money as a regular issue — ON TOP of your other work. And often, that rule of thumb is an optimistic estimate.
Emotional roller coaster: It is awesome to see mockups and to imagine what is possible going forward. And it is devastating to hear from your audience when they tell you that your magazine is — wait, let me check my notes — “assaulting their eyes.”
Ongoing challenges: If you’ve hired an external team to support the redesign, you may have funding for their support only for an issue or two, then realize you’ll have to figure out how to maintain the ambition, voice, and visual strength of the magazine beyond that contract with fewer dollars and less support. Did you…actually just create MORE work for yourself?

To be clear, I don’t want to discount the power of a redesign. For some magazines, it truly can be transformative!

It’s also risky.

An alternative: evolution, not revolution

For years, I thought the “revolution” approach was the only one that was possible for print alumni magazines.

You did the hard work of a redesign, you took your lumps from readers and collected praise from peers, you waited a few issues until folks got acclimated to the new look, and then you did it all over again when the publication started to feel stale.

But after I started studying the best magazines — really studying them, for years and years — I began to understand that there was another option beyond this somewhat masochistic revolutionary approach.

And it’s used by some of the most successful magazines ever published, including:

The Economist
The New Yorker
Vanity Fair

Here’s what they did: they used an evolutionary approach.

They changed slowly, issue by issue. A new column here. A subtle visual enhancement there. A new section that appeared and, if it didn’t gain traction, vanished without fanfare.

I love evolution, because it still allows for meaningful growth and improvement.

But it rarely inspires internal overwhelm or external fury.

The evolutionary approach is particularly well-suited for alumni magazines:

Trust-building over time. Alumni develop deep emotional connections to their publications. They want to feel like you understand and respect that relationship. When you change things slowly, you demonstrate that you’re listening and being thoughtful about their experiences and needs.

Room for experimentation. With smaller, incremental changes, you can test new ideas without betting the farm. Add some mini profiles to class notes and see how readers like them. Remove that stale dean’s letter and see if anyone protests. If readers love it, expand your ambition. If they don’t, you can quietly return to the status quo.

Sustainable for small teams. Most alumni magazine teams are lean. A complete redesign can consume months of work and derail your regular publishing schedule. Evolutionary changes let you keep improving while maintaining your workflow.

Reasonable for slow-cadence magazines. Many magazines now just publish twice a year (and sometimes even just once). Do I love it? No. But it’s the budgetary reality! If you need to skip an issue, it’s a big gap for readers, who might assume that they’ve been dropped from the mailing list or want to know if that wedding photo they sent will, you know, ever appear in your pages? An evolutionary approach allows you to keep the cadence and continue the upgrades.

Builds momentum. Each successful small change creates confidence—both for your team and your readers. Before you know it, your magazine looks and feels significantly different, but the transformation happened so naturally that readers embraced it along the way.

While revolutions can have their place (and some print magazines truly need one!), an evolution lets you keep earning trust while making the magazine better every issue.

Implement an evolutionary approach

A key to successful magazine evolution is being intentional about it.

You’re not just making random changes! You’re following a larger vision.

Maybe it’s aiming at more engagement, maybe it’s connecting with an expanded audience, maybe it’s telling your institution’s story in a more genuine way.

And you’re implementing this vision gradually through art, design, and editorial choices.

There are a lot of ways to begin this work:

You can talk to your magazine peers
You get on the mailing lists of award winning magazines (like these) to get ideas.
You can get a ton of great info from the annual Editors Forum and regional CASE conferences. (I speak regularly at CASE conferences, jamming as many actionable ideas as possible into every session.)
You can binge this newsletter! I’ve shared my very best advice here — across 200+ newsletters over more than 10 years — for free.

And yes, you can hire Capstone.

Capstone can help you develop your action plan

If you want to shortcut the learning process and get customized advice for YOUR magazine — and want to benefit from the surprising insider knowledge I’ve gained over the years but can’t share publicly — you can do that, too.

That’s exactly why Capstone offers the Magazine Action Plan.

Over the years, dozens and dozens of magazines have worked with us to get a perfect roadmap that allows them to take this evolutionary approach.

It’s an approach that uses my 20+ years of alumni magazine experience to help you pinpoint the best opportunities, avoid the biggest pitfalls, and get armed with the most relevant peer benchmarking as you make changes to your publication.

It builds in advice from some of the very best designers in the field.

We’ll tell you what you’re doing right — things that you might not know are already great about your publication. And we’ll help you make changes that actually matter.

The Magazine Action Plan is designed to support a careful cultivation of your publication, not a scorched-earth overhaul.

You build on your strengths, clear space for new ideas, and help your magazine flourish over time.

It’s designed to highlight quick wins that you can make in your very next issue
It also includes bigger changes that you can implement over the course of several issues
It includes TONS of examples that can help you see and feel what change can look like.
It takes into account your team’s strengths, resources, and constraints. We want you to aim high — but we also want the plan to be achievable and realistic for your school and your team.
It even includes an implementation call to help you take the very best next steps for your publication.

Here’s just a small sampling of what past action plan clients have said about our work, just in past few months:

“The action plan was a huge help in making some big changes, and more are coming in future issues. We have received some nice compliments about the magazine…a win!”
“Thank you so much for this. It’s relevant, it’s clear, it’s practical and it’s going to be hugely valuable as we move forward.”
“We have found this super valuable. We are very happy with everything that we’ve seen here.”

You also read some of our in-depth Magazine Action Plan case studies to learn what the experience is for clients.

Here’s one for Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure University, enrollment 2,100).

And another for State magazine (Illinois State, enrollment 20,000).

These are very different publications, and they got very different advice! But it was all focused on helping their teams serve their audience in the most meaningful, effective ways.