Magazine Business Models Harness Growth Trends

AccuList's many business periodical clients will face challenges and opportunities in the fast-moving currents of publishing in 2020. The good news for printed magazines: Print is not only viable but thriving in many cases, with 64% of printing industry members telling Quocirca’s Global Print 2025 study that print will remain important well into 2025. At the same time, surveys show that digital subscriptions, advertising and content are increasingly necessary drivers of the bottom line. In fact, worldwide news publishers surveyed now say digital publishing subscriptions are their top revenue stream. Given mobile and social audience trends, publishers also say they are increasing efforts to recreate quick-loading content for any device and are using more digital content, including videos and podcasts, to drive audience development--and that includes distribution via social media networks. At the start of the year, a What's New in Publishing post by magazine consultant Mary Hogarth suggested that the best way to navigate the challenges of digital expansion, content innovation and multi-channel audience-building is to develop a solid business model that includes expanding revenue streams across print and digital channels. Here are some of Hogarth's suggestions for boosting revenue streams:

• Brand extensions, such as digital editions, sister publications, books, events, conferences, courses and festivals;
• Advertising sales strategy innovations, for example selling online plus print advertising as one package;
• Expanding sponsorships/promotions and services by facilitating strategic partnerships or third-party sponsorship of in-house events, plus selling design and content packaging services;
• Increased copy sales via digital/print magazines on newsstands, subscription growth, in-house back issue sales, and direct sales to partners/advertisers if appropriate;
• Memberships schemes that can help cash-flow and likely increase audience reach and reader loyalty;
• Online content/paywalls, such as using a micro-payment system to sell additional content;
• Product licensing, such as selling the rights to content to be re-purposed in an existing title, or licensing the brand in terms of merchandising.

For more and a link to the article, see our website blog post at https://www.acculist.com/the-right-business-model-helps-magazines-harness-industry-trends/

Publisher Missteps Undermine Online Subscription

Subscription marketing is a goal for most B2B and B2C publishers, but a recent Publishing Executive (PE) magazine article warns that publishers' common online errors are undermining circulation marketing investments. Access to premium content should be online but limited to subscribers, urges PE author Eric Shanfelt, founding partner of eMedia Strategist. After all, why subscribe if you can go to the website and see all content for free? Unfortunately, some publishers are so baffled by the technology of locking down content as subscriber-only that they don't even put their premium content online--losing a big selling point with digital traffic. Others are worried about reducing Google search traffic or ad impression dollars by limiting content access but not factoring in the cost of lost subscribers, argues Shanfelt. For success with subscriber-only premium content, the website must then prominently promote that premium content and its subscriber-only status via clear incentives and calls-to-action. A website or mobile subscription page should not be just an order form, Shanfelt advises. Remember that most people who visit a subscription page are just considering subscribing. They need to be sold. Visitors should clearly see the benefits of subscribing and what they get. Plus the page should generate a sense of urgency to sign up and use FOMO (fear of missing out) to push orders. Equally important, the subscription process should be quick and easy. Make the subscription link easy to see and navigation simple by putting an obvious menu item and widget on every website page, with a link directly to a single-page subscription form, not a multi-step process. And finally, make sure the subscription page is not only secure but loads quickly on desktop or mobile. If it doesn’t load in 2-3 seconds, up to 50% of potential subscribers could be lost, warns Shanfelt. In order to test and adjust marketing tactics, online subscription and confirmation pages should use Google Analytics to see how people get to subscription pages and how well they convert from different sources. Subscription/confirmation pages should also use tracking pixels from Facebook, Google, Bing and other digital sources, as well as from customer data platforms and e-mail systems. More important, circulation data needs to be integrated with the website subscription pages. If the website is synchronized with the circulation system, people can log into the site by authenticating against subscriber data to get access to premium content, for example. Integration also allows for conditional content blocks in follow-up e-mails to upsell non-subscriber leads and a sync of subscriber lists with programmatic ad networks. See the full post at http://www.acculistusa.com/publisher-mistakes-undermine-online-subscription-efforts/

2018 Offers New Publishing Growth Opportunities

Business and consumer publications face some pivotal audience- and revenue-building challenges, but there are also growth opportunities in 2018. We note three potential positives recently highlighted by Publishing Executive magazine. Audiences are increasing their demand for quality content, and advertisers are seeking publishers who can deliver that quality, so there is a lot of untapped revenue potential for publishers who commit to quality. This is especially true since the free-information era is ending as readers become wary of free but low-value content and increasingly willing to pay for reliable quality. For digital publishers, the downside of a shift to paid content can be a shrinkage of circulation, forcing them to balance potential subscription revenue against lower ad page-views. The Publishing Executive article offers mitigating tactics: leaky paywalls; metered paywalls; charging only for premium content; allowing only paid subscribers to comment or participate in an online community; early access to certain articles for paid subscribers, etc. Meanwhile, with daily access to vast amounts of information in print, online, media and social, mass-market-oriented print and digital publications have been struggling, and niche publishers proliferating. Readers want to focus on what’s relevant to their specific interests, and many advertisers want to reach the right pool of people more than just the largest pool of people. The trick for publications is to embrace niche demand without sacrificing too much circulation. The Publishing Executive article offers some suggestions. Digital publications can create a product-within-a-product on the website, for example, with content targeted to a subset of the normal audience and attractive to new sponsors who want to reach that specific audience. For print publications, there are niche-targeted inserts, bonus sections, customized covers, polybagged special reports, or ad packages that combine a full-page magazine ad with a niche-targeted cover wrap or insert. Finally, brand advertisers have become concerned about aligning with publishers who tolerate fake news, violence, extremism, or other offensive content. This means that respected publishers can court advertising revenue (and circulation) in 2018 by stressing brand quality and safety in their promotions. On that point, Publishing Executive quotes from an Advertising Age piece in which Shelagh Daly Miller of AARP declared: "Only when brands partner with reputable publishers can they have full confidence in where their ads are being placed. That’s a message that should be all over our industry’s media kits. And tattooed onto the foreheads of our ad reps." For more on publishing opportunity trends, see http://www.acculistusa.com/2018-offers-new-growth-opportunities-for-publishing-marketers/

Price, Premium, Copy Tweaks Lift Acquisition Mailer

While many direct mailers focus on the secret to millennial response, it's good to keep a close eye on mail tactics that work well with older and general audiences, too. A case in point is a recent Target Marketing magazine case study sharing the Mayo Clinic Health Letter's expertise in testing toward maximum acquisition response for its control. With its huge 2 million to 5 million mail pieces per quarter, Mayo has a lot of room for testing! Targeting an older audience (age 70 and up), the Mayo Clinic mailer has long used an oversized kraft outer envelope with a simple teaser that appeals to the older market preference for courtesy: "Please favor us with a reply within 10 days." Successfully tested changes include shifting the envelope size from 11"x 14" to a 10" x 14" to save money, but inside-package tweaks have delivered the response boosts. For example, the letter now leads with pricing, a "tough times" stress on the per issue $1.97 over an annual savings. But one of the most significant response-getters has been the addition of a premium in the form of existing internal special reports--on weight loss or arthritis, for example--offered for free. The control has also increased its lift by moving to an eight-page letter, up from the original four-page pitch. The results are proof that longer copy can outdo short copy when it comes to self-help offers and older markets. For one, the long-form letter allows marketers to pack in more benefits. Second, it allows for a larger type size. For example, the Mayo letter has shifted to a 14-point type as a boon to aging eyesight and a way to distinguish its approach as more personal and less corporate. Meanwhile, the mailer's reply card page has three-in-one power: reply form, premium stuffer and a BRE, in yellow to stand out in the package. For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/how-acquisition-mailing-won-with-price-premium-benefits-copy/

Subscription Marketing Basics Still Win Audiences

Despite modern publishing's multi-platform environment (print, web, mobile), many long-time subscription marketing rules retain their relevance. A recent post from Bill Dugan, for niche magazine consulting firm Mequoda, stressed just that point by reminding audience development pros of the fundamentals for price, offer and creative. As a list brokerage with many paid or controlled circulation clients, AccuList USA would, of course, add another important component: quality data. As Dugan stresses, the art and science of pricing still counts. In pricing, whether for print, online, tablet or combination packages, subscription marketers actually have an edge over many other products by being able to sell the same product at different prices each time it’s purchased, from a new subscriber to each subsequent renewal. Pricing strategies can include 1) simply the same price at every stage of buying or renewing; 2) giving the more price-sensitive new subscriber an introductory discount and then selling renewals at full price; 3) maximizing response and profitability with a step-up program from a low introductory price through gradual renewal increases to maximum; and 4) rewarding subscribers with a lower monthly price for selecting a longer (annual) term. Next, marketers can build a range of offers. Based on testing, Dugan reports that the best response is earned by a "soft offer," meaning a trial free issue or more, plus a premium and a bill-me-later for a full subscription. The lowest response offer is the old-fashioned hard offer, requesting up-front credit card payment with no trial or premium,per his testing. And finally, direct marketing success requires wrapping the offer in effective creative. A key to creative response today, whether direct mail or e-mail, is personalization that focuses on the target customers’ needs. Of course, effective personalization requires targeted, quality data! So while Dugan didn't talk about the paramount importance of data, we remind marketers of the continuing relevance of either the 40-40-20 rule (40% of response success from audience/list, 40% from offer and 20% for creative) or the 60-30-10 formula (60% from targeted audience/list). Bottom line, good audience data is key. For more on our proprietary research on market-tested data and selection parameters most likely to boost response, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/subscription-marketing-basics-still-create-winning-formulas/