Forbes Media to promote investment guide iPad app

Forbes Media will market its just-released iPad application through e-mail, Forbes.com, its print magazine and social media beginning this week.

The company plans to use considerable direct response in the effort, said Nina La France, VP of consumer marketing.

“The iPad represents an interesting new opportunity to distribute content to readers who may or may not be consuming it in the other ways we make it available. So we wanted to explore the possibilities around taking advantage of the new medium,” she said.

Forbes Media designed the application internally and worked with Internet marketing and technology design company R2integrated on its implementation.

The application, which is sponsored by John Hancock, allows consumers to access feature stories from Forbes' 2010 Investment Guide. It also has video interviews with financial planning and investment experts.

La France said one of Forbes Media's goals is for readers to form an extended relationship to the brand through the application.

“It's this idea that people will go to it everyday, open it, take a look, pick thematically or pick stories as they see them presented in the table of contents, which we try to make very easy to navigate — that's how the relationship extends,” she said.