Publishers need to embrace that digital is an extension of the print version of their magazines. They can and should play off each other, a strategy we call Print-to-Web. For example, an article in print that includes recipes could have an extension online where users can upload their own recipes to be voted on by their peers. This incentives sharing with social media and gently drives further engagement. You could even host a final event where prominent figures in the community judge the top 10 vote getters and pick a winner thereby using one article to reach your audience online, in print and in person. A win-win-win!
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How Publishers Can Increase Their Bottom Line with Social Media
How Publishers Can Increase Their Bottom Line with Social Media
Contests and an Engagement Approach
As I talk with publishers one thing often becomes very clear, they think website content is all about articles and revenue is all about banner ads. It’s not! It’s understandable of course, these are the most direct corollaries to your existing print product and they’re also the most obvious parts of any website but they are just the tip of the iceberg. So, what else is there you ask? We estimate that the average local community magazine website will see only 50% of its content coming in the form of articles with the balance split between things like directory listings, reviews and supplements as [...]
Take Advantage of Holiday Downtime to Investigate Your Digital Future
For all you publishers out there I’m sure you feel like there’s never enough hours in the day to do the things you need to do to keep the business going let alone investigate ways to grow your business. Why not take advantage of the slow Holiday season to get caught up on some much needed investment in your business’s future? Locable builds community online by collaborating with local publishers. We extend your brand, your readership and your relationships… that sounds like what you’re trying to do with digital too, right? In our case, we have the right technology and [...]
Are you afraid embracing digital may cannibalize print?
Will digital cannibalize print?… This is a very common concern I encounter from publishers, it’s simultaneously a legitimate question and often the equivalent of burying your head in the sand. To be clear, there are many things you could do online that would absolutely have a negative impact on print and you need to understand what these are and why the consequences are what they are. That said, Locable is entirely interested in the digital activities that extend your brand (not to be confused with putting your magazine online) and drive complementary digital revenue. In fact, we see that publishers that embrace digital the right way [...]
Growing Digital Revenue is Easier for Publishers Than Print Revenue
I just spoke with a publisher who said they can’t think about digital right now because they need to bring in some more business/revenue. Wait, what?!? First, there are a number of problems with this statement. You always need to bring in more business or do something, if you don’t think about digital now when will you think about it? When you go out of business? But, more to the point, if you need to close some quick business Digital is exactly what you need to be thinking about. We have a publisher who is about to launch their new site and [...]
Top 5 Mistakes Magazine Publishers Make Online
Locable started as a research project out of the University of Washington back in January of 2009 and over the last three and a half years we’ve learned a great deal about local publishers, particularly local magazine publishers. In general, it’s been a great experience with each publisher bringing their own expertise, interests, passions and reasons for starting their publication. We’ve also seen some trends emerge, trends that demonstrate commonly held assumptions and misunderstandings as they apply to all things digital. Publishers view success online as an optional activity – Success online is not option, it’s urgent! Publishers approach the [...]
Beyond the Banner Ad
Without exception publishers think that making money online is about advertising and that advertising is about banner ads – you know those little boxes of varying size that appear in various locations depending on the site you’re looking at. This is a fundamental mistake that demonstrates why publishers need a partner to take their unfair local advantage and apply it to digital. Publishers mistakenly think that the web is a digital version of their magazine or simply a new medium for which to experience their existing product and that is incorrect. Google and Facebook are proving that you can make [...]
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