Here are practical ideas for your 2026 special sections, themes and guides

Good morning! I want to share a few quick updates before we get started today:

• City Regional Magazine Association: I had the chance on Thursday to present on AI workflows and AI sales tactics at the City Regional Magazine Association’s Fall Roundtable in Chicago. I love this event because of how intimate it is and it was awesome getting to see so many friends and clients there this week.

Here I am at the City Regional Magazine Association’s Fall Roundtable this week talking about AI workflows and sales prompts.

• Webinar on SEO: Join me for a webinar next week where I’ll tackle what’s happening with SEO. I’ll explain why so many publishers are seeing changes in their SEO traffic and what you can do about it. You can register here.

Now on to this week’s newsletter:

It’s that time of year when you’re probably making budget assumptions for the new year and discussing changes to your product lineup.

And I am guessing part of that planning will include products that are outside of your core, like special sections, magazines and guides.

I want to spend today’s newsletter talking about a few things to consider when it comes to your 2026 calendar:

1. Get year-round revenue from a special section or theme

I’m not talking about just doing the same special section theme every month (though there is nothing wrong with that), but rather how you can take a theme and make it a yearlong revenue play.

Let’s take summer camps as an example. You may be doing a summer camps special section sometime earlier in the year like February or March but there’s no reason that you can’t add to that throughout the year, especially digitally.

Each of those camps very likely offers classes throughout the year like art, music and karate. And for the winter break, they probably have a weeklong camp as well.

So why not offer a 4-time campaign: The camp guide, a branded content story, a package on their regular classes and their winter breaks.

2. Move away from advertisers writing stories about themselves

I know that for years things like Progress Editions, health sections and senior sections have been some of the products that offered advertisers the opportunity to buy an ad and have their story show up on the page next to their ad.

I think it’s probably time to rethink that strategy. There’s nothing wrong with providing a program that features an advertisement in print along with a story but it should be a branded content story written by your team.

Yes you can probably charge more money for this but it’s also just better for the advertiser.

Trust is a major factor when it comes to your content and that includes paid content and having stories written by an advertiser about their brand isn’t an effective way to build that trust today.

Having a writer who interviews that advertiser, checks facts and creates a journalism-focused article is much better.

3. Make sure your special sections are also digitally focused

I can’t tell you how many times I see a media company put hours and hours of work into a special section only to have it live as just a PDF on their website.

This is a miss on numerous levels, both for your readers and advertisers.

There are a few things I’d put on your 2026 special sections list when it comes to digital:

1. Make sure you post all of the content from your edition as stories online as so many of them are evergreen and great for search.
2. Create a newsletter for each special section distributing the edition as well as the digital headlines, which provides additional sponsorship opportunity for those who advertised in the section.
3. Think about how you could promote the edition — or specific stories that are in it — through Reels. This is a nice opportunity to offer one of those advertisers in the edition the ability to sponsor those Reels.

We can help you with your special sections

We’d love the chance to help you with your special section themes or guides for 2026. Email me at david@davidarkinconsulting.com.