An ‘old friend’ comes to visit every month

North Carolina’s Our State magazine sells more than 200,000 copies each month, making it the second largest “statewide magazine” in the nation. Only Texas Monthly has a greater circulation.

Bernie Mann, Our State president and publisher, said 2019 was the best year ever for the magazine. “We’re growing while others around us are losing ground.”

Robert C. Lopez, writing for the Greenboro (N.C) News & Record, observed that “times are tough for print media as eyeballs and advertising dollars move to the Internet.” He interviewed Dr. Samir Husni of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, a noted consultant in the magazine industry.

“The secret for the success of Our State is the content and the relationship (Mann and his team) have developed with readers and advertisers,” Dr. Husni told Lopez. “If you flip through the pages, you can feel the human touch in the magazine. It feels like an old friend coming to visit. It’s jumping at you to create a conversation.”

Mann said: “People live in a place like New Jersey, but they don’t love New Jersey in the same way that people in North Carolina love where they live. What we want to do in the magazine is reflect that pride.”

Mann, 84, grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to North Carolina in 1965. He spent most of his career in radio. Basically, Mann was a fixer-upper guy. He would buy a weak station, build it up, then sell it, and then do it again somewhere else. His company, Mann Media Inc., eventually diversified into publishing.

When Shaw Publishing Company in Charlotte put Our State – then known as The State: Down Home in North Carolina – up for sale in 1996, Mann bought it.

One of his first moves was to change the name from The State to Our State. Mann said the word “our” is warmer, more inclusive and more suited to the publication.

“We added color throughout the magazine, which served to highlight the beauty of our state,” Mann said. “We searched for the best writers and photographers to enhance the quality of our content.”

The iconic Cape Lookout Lighthouse graces the cover of Our State

To get people’s attention, “you’ve got to start by creating a great product,” he said. “You can never, ever let anything happen to deteriorate that product. Every month you’ve got to produce a great magazine, and each new issue needs to be better than the last.”

The normal range for magazines is to run about 50/50 in their editorial/advertising ratio. Mann said Our State aims for 60/40, but sometimes it becomes 70/30. He is adamant about not sacrificing the quality of content in the magazine.

A subtle change in the magazine occurred in the November 2015 issue. The official name of the publication became Our State: Celebrating North Carolina. How true. Indeed, each issue celebrates the happenings and heritage of a progressive, dynamic North Carolina.

“I’m fortunate to be doing something I love,” Mann said. “I’ve collected a staff of terrific people. I love watching them do terrific things.”

He said he never grows tired of meeting folks on the street and hearing them say: “Oh, I love Our State.”

“When you can get people to say they love something, that’s strong. I use the same toothpaste twice a day,” Mann said, “and I don’t even know the name of it. There are very few inanimate objects that people will truly say they love. If you can get that love brand going, boy, that’s something.”

Isn’t that the dagnabbit truth?