To put this post together, we banged together the heads of everyone on the Mequoda team to consolidate some of the mishaps that have occurred with our clients. We’re calling these editors Mequoda editors because they’re running a Mequoda system, but the principles apply to any editor in the magazine world.

There have been some truly talented print editors that were either let go, or who left by themselves because they couldn’t weather the print-to-digital transitions. Ones that refused to SEO their content and wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in content that had to be re-optimized later.

Any editor who wants to survive in the magazine publishing industry today needs to be able to write great content and optimize that content so that it’s an evergreen source of traffic for years to come. And any editor who wants to become invaluable to their publication embraces it with open arms and takes the initiative to learn from the mistakes of past editors. Like the ones below:

1. Only covering news stories. If all of your posts are focused on the latest trends and hot happenings, you may get traffic but it is fleeting and unsustainable. Dedicate a certain percent of your editorial resources to producing evergreen content.

2. Ignoring your blockbuster posts. These are your perennial performers and need to be cultivated and carefully nurtured on a regular basis. If Google finds a broken link or other fatal error, then the damage may be irreparable. Keep these posts current, clean and evergreen. Re-promote them on social media every once in a while to keep up appearances.

3. Forgetting to make lemonade when you have lemons. If you have a single post that accounts for nearly 40% of all organic search arrivals, take advantage of this good fortune rather than ignore it. Come up with ways to increase conversions through that page. Even if the subject matter is not in your preferred wheelhouse, or you don’t have a sponsor that aligns with this topic. Find a new sponsor.

4. Skipping editorial meetings. The Mequoda strategy can only succeed if everyone is working towards the same basic goals. Not showing up to a meeting is a pretty strong indicator that certain members of the team have their own agenda.

5. Coming up with excuses not to SEO. If you’re continually making excuses not to optimize content, you’re wasting money. Some editors claim SEO will sacrifice editorial quality or integrity, but remember that you have complete control over how you optimize a blog post, so if it looks “spammy,” then whose fault is it?

6. Missing the big picture. In a Mequoda system, everything is connected. We create blog posts that align with categories, that align with white papers, that upsell to paid products, that may then upsell to higher priced products. We work really hard on aligning the bottom of the pyramid, the blog posts, with the top of the pyramid. Focus only on the blog, and you’re forgetting where your salary comes from.

7. Forgetting the upsell. On that same note, know that that SEO is used to drive traffic to your articles, which makes every article you write the beginning of a lead flow. You don’t have to turn every article into an advertorial; that’s why all Mequoda operators are equipped with a simple code to add a text ad into the middle of each post. Don’t forget those simple but often forgotten text ads! Going back and adding them back in is a giant waste of resources.

8. Doing without testing. Editors who make decisions without testing often fail the hardest. What we think doesn’t work (long copy, pop-ups, etc.) often performs best when we A/B test. Don’t make decisions based on opinions rather than testing, because when someone finally has the smarts to test, your intuition will be shocked and so will the person writing your check.

9. Doing what you’re told. This is the time of innovation, and the most valuable editors keep up to date on current trends come to their managers with new ideas for creating better content and using it to convert more visitors into subscribers in line with your brand guidelines. Some organizations make it hard for one person to make a difference, but this is a time when innovation and a fresh perspective should be welcome.

10. Getting lazy. Perhaps you did all of these things correctly, you saw the return, you got excited, you got credit, and you took a break. This is a slump any successful editor can get into, because a blockbuster combo of valuable content and optimized copy can get exhausting! Keep up the good work and you’ll see traffic for your site double and triple over the next year. Talk about landing job security.

There are also a few things our Gold Members, maybe your bosses, sometimes forget about, that editors should keep on top of because they’re fundamentally your duty, even if nobody tells you so:

• Making sure every category gets a free report, and making sure every article in that category promotes it. The more aligned a report is with the content, the higher your conversion rates will be. If you have a goal of building your email list (as all Mequoda System editors do), this is ultimately the responsibility of the editor, although the publisher often forgets to assign it.

• Not setting up the conversion architecture for those free reports. You’re probably not a web designer, but every free report should get its own Rapid Conversion Landing Page, OFIE, OFIN, Text Ad and Floater (more about those). You’ll be responsible for writing the copy for the landing page and possibly writing the ads. So every time you create a new free report, provide your web person with the copy they need to update the ads. Tell them which category to implement them in, too!

• Creating an SEO campaign around each new free report. Each one should have a press release written and distributed for it. We also recommend scheduling tweets at least once a week promoting that report for the next month or two. Also, write a post on the blog that promotes your new release. Basically, create as many inbound links to this page as possible.

If you want to become a model editor at your publishing company, join us at one of our upcoming Digital Publishing and Marketing Intensives!

I’m a big fan of planning.

And I believe that your website is a reflection of your entire business and business model.

A visitor to your website should quickly be able to understand your mission, your audience, the scope of your content, and even how you make money.

It always surprises me that people don’t start the process of building a profitable website by building a website plan. While the website planning process can seem complex, it really can be boiled down to answering a few simple questions:

• How will your website make your user’s life better?

• How will your website content fit into your brand pyramid?

• How will your website generate revenue for your organization?

• Who are the people that will be running your website?

• What process will you use to build an audience for your website?

Let me illustrate, by answering the above questions for the case study we use to teach our quarterly Digital Publishing & Marketing Intensive:

Green Gardens Network – 1 Page Business Plan

Mission: Provide gardeners of all experience levels with the inspiration and knowledge they need to create beautiful gardens in any climate.

Content: Our website is home to Hidden Gardens Magazine and our online store, which includes 48 in-depth gardening encyclopedias. We produce a daily newsletter and blog posts that offer curated content from our magazine and encyclopedias. We use social media to distribute gardening tips and photography that will promote our brands and bring new and repeat visitors to our website.

Revenue: We sell digital and print subscriptions to our magazine, we sell our encyclopedias, and we partner with leading gardening suppliers to sponsor our content and brands.

People: Our website is operated by our marketing department. Our staff includes a full-time online marketing director, daily editor, store manager, email marketing assistant, and customer service assistant. We partner with Mequoda Group for strategy, analytics, design, development and systems management.

Marketing: We use a variety of organic sources including search engines, link building, and social media to bring new visitors to our website. Once there, we make every effort to convert them into free email subscribers. Finally, we monetize those relationships over the long term by offering our subscribers great deals on our premium products and our sponsors’ products.

Obviously, there’s a lot of detail that falls behind the above. But the above is a great place to start. It frames the scope of the website as it relates to the total business. It is written in simple language that anyone can understand.

Whether you’re launching a business from scratch, expanding a legacy franchise into the digital arena, or just thinking about optimizing a digital business that already exists, I think you’ll find this exercise a valuable one.

If you’d like to take a deeper dive into the process of building profitable websites, I invite you to join me and our team at the next Digital Publishing & Marketing Intensive.

Develop new ideas for blog posts by re-mixing old content with fresh ideas and new media

If you find the concept of blogging several times a day exhausting, join the club. However the one thing that publishers have over any other type of content-creators is an endless supply of content that can be re-mixed and re-purposed into new, evergreen blog posts.

When we racked our brains to come up with a solid list of ideas for blog posts that any editor would be able to work with, we came up with 28 different ways to deliver new content without burning out. The best part is that most of it involves content that you already own!

• Magazines: Article Post, Article Review, Issue Review, Issue Excerpt and Interview Outtakes
• Books: Chapter Post, Chapter Excerpt, Chapter Review, Book Review, Book Excerpt and Author Interview
• Live Events: Event Review, Event Transcript and Event Commentary
• Media Websites: Link Review, News & Commentary and Link Roundup
• Videos: Video Post and Video Transcript
• Podcasts: Podcast Review and Podcast Transcript
• Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter and Forum Roundup
• Original Thinking: Keyword Inspiration, Personal Story and Best Practice Review

We also put together a presentation, hosted by Amanda MacArthur, that describes how any editor can use all of these sources to build a robust blog on recycled content.

Magazines

Idea for Blog Post 1. Article Post

What’s easier than taking exactly what was written in the magazine and posting it online? Not much, right? Here are a few bullet points outlining how other publishers are doing it:

• SEO. They may alter the headline and copy a little bit to make room for SEO. A big archive of articles is great, but who’s going to care if nobody can find them?
• Attribution. They tell you the name of the magazine it came from and sometimes even include the issue, date and page numbers.
• Byline. If the original article had an author, then the byline on the blog goes to the same author. If your blogs don’t include a dedicated byline, you can add the original author in the same place you note the issue.

Guideposts is one of the many publishers who re-purpose magazine content in this fashion:

Idea for Blog Post 2. Article Review

Article reviews bring new life to the original article. They touch on the most important and interesting parts of the original printed article and make a new blog post from them.

In this example from Glamour, they’ve taken a concept that was featured in their magazine and went real-world with it, using photos to demonstrate the technique they’ve explained. No models, no fancy flash photography, just a more casual approach to an interesting topic. They also tell you exactly what article they’re talking about, right in the blog title.

Idea for Blog Post 3. Issue Review

What is an Editor’s Letter really, anyway? Why, it’s an issue review! And there’s no reason why you can’t re-purpose this type of content onto your blog to get everyone jazzed up about the current, or future issues.

In this example by Budget Travel, they’re talking about their 10th anniversary issue, where they are proudly reflecting upon the process of creating an issue that was entirely user generated – from the photos, to the article, to the magazine cover.

Idea for Blog Post 4. Issue Excerpt

A little more specific than an Issue Review is the Issue Excerpt, which grabs bits and pieces from the magazine and turns them into a single blog post. You can grab content verbatim (with appropriate credit to the original editor) or construct into more of a bulleted list of key points.

For example, People recently created a World’s Most Beautiful Women issue and then created a whole “sneak peek” of the issue on their website which excerpted from all over the print magazine.

Idea for Blog Post 5. Interview Outtakes

One of the most popular methods of re-purposing magazine content in the industry today is highlighting the “outtakes” as a way to promote the printed, more elaborate article.

In this example from The Artist’s Magazine, Richard McKinley provides blog-length fodder that ends up promoting a full interview in the magazine. It’s dubbed Richard McKinley Interview Outtakes, but it’s actually quite an informative and robust article all on its own.

Books

Idea for Blog Post 6. Chapter Post

Book: The Four Hour Body

Blog: The Blog of Tim Ferriss: Experiments in LifeStyle Design

Tim Ferris knows how to get people to buzz about his books months in advance, creating a hype as strong as a new Stephen Spielberg film.

So it’s no wonder that he gets this whole blogging thing, and the fact that you need to give some away in order for people to want more. It also helps that the content is already written and paid for.

Here, Ferris is simply taking the first chapter of his book and posting the whole thing in in its entirety online. He’s also pumping it up with the table of contents. So he’s giving you a full chapter of content, then telling you what else you’ll get if you read his book. Of course at the bottom, he has links to buy the book.

Idea for Blog Post 7. Chapter Excerpt

Book: ReWork

Blog: 37 Signals Blog

37 Signals is a software development company who just happened to write and market a book so correctly that they’re now a bestseller in both the US and the UK. The Chapter Excerpt you see here is them announcing the book. For this strategy, you’re basically quoting yourself and then adding commentary to it, but you don’t necessarily need to write an “announcement” in order to take advantage of the excerpt strategy. Instead, you can create a series of blog posts that pull excerpts from the book, where you can expand upon them. You can also use this strategy for books you want to review in your niche that aren’t your own.

Idea for Blog Post 8. Book Exerpt

Think the same thing as above, except you’re pulling from various parts of the book.

Idea for Blog Post 9. Chapter Review

Book: Eat This, Not That

Blog: Men’s Health Blog

The former Editor & Publisher of Men’s Health, Dave Zinczenko, has published a blockbuster series books called Eat This, Not That.

What Men’s Health is doing is taking excerpts from the whole chapter to create a chapter review. The difference between this one and the last example is that instead of copying and pasting one excerpt and commenting on it, they’re really speculating on the whole chapter here.

While Eat This, Not That does have its own blog, Zinczenko was smart enough to leverage his Men’s Health audience to cross promote this particular book, which appeals to the same audience.

Idea for Blog Post 10. Book Review

Book: Knitwear Design Workshop

Blog: Knitting Daily (Interweave Knits)

Consider it a service to your readers when you write book reviews. Some publishers choose to review their own books while others review those of experts in their niche. You can help them decide whether or not to invest their money in a book and whether or not to waste their precious time reading it.

Kathleen Cubley, Managing Editor of Knitting Daily, was so smart about this review that she let the author, Shirley Paden, pretty much review the book herself. The article starts with a brief introduction of Paden and the book and then it’s all Paden from there on out. Talk about easy. The best part? The book is sold in the Knitting Daily store.

Idea for Blog Post 11. Author Interview

Look at this last example and re-imagine it into a series of questions and answers.

Live Events

Idea for Blog Post 12. Event Review

Events aren’t just person-to-person, they’re also online. There are plenty of free webinars online that you can sign up for and start taking notes. In the B2B world this is often easier to do than in the B2C world because the B2B realm is tossing webinars at you left and right to sell a product. In the B2C world you can still find them, the task just might be a little harder. In any case, you know your industry and whether you have free events at your fingertips. If you do, it’s easy to listen in for an hour or so and create a quick take-away post of everything you learned in the webinar that you can pass along.

You can also write a blog post wrap-up of every single one of your events, which will make it even easier to remember and transcribe the content. Here’s an example of how Beading Daily captured a review of their annual Bead Fest:

Idea for Blog Post 13. Event Transcript

Speaking of transcription, some event coordinators record their speakers and then transcribe them. The major perk to this is that you have an easy blog post, and also that you always have something to pull from when you need quotes, numbers and data. Here’s an example of one company who posted the video of their webinar and then the transcript below it.

Idea for Blog Post 14. Event Commentary

Blogs like Wired, MacRumors and even The New York Times are live-blogging major events like Apple’s annual events. Live-blogging makes commentary easy. Below is an example from Wired where you can see them updating the blog in real-time, marked by timestamps and including photos of the stage.

Media Websites

Idea for Blog Post 15. Link Review

A link review is a short review of an article or news story from some external source. The review should give relevant information, a link to the original article for further reading, and personal insight on the topic discussed in the article. Even if you and your staff have full workloads, link reviews can fit easily into your day.

Guy Kawasaki’s Holy Kaw blog is a famous example of link reviews. In this example, there’s a little mix of original content and sourced content. Either way, it gives enough away to be the final destination, regardless of someone wants to click through to the full story.

Idea for Blog Post 16. News & Commentary

What happened recently? How can you tie in a current, general interest event into an evergreen topic using re-purposed content from your magazine or from the blog?

Below, Charmed Yogi, a yoga blog that wouldn’t typically comment on Twinkies, took time out to comment when Hostess went out of business and turned it into something more zen.

Idea for Blog Post 17. Link Roundup

Link round-ups are just that – a round-up of links, usually in a list on your site. For example, in December some publications will make a list of their top 10 articles for the year. In this example from Black Belt, they’re pulling together a list of their top videos.

Videos

Idea for Blog Post 18. Video Post

A video post is simply an article that focuses on the content in the video — just like this article you’re reading right now!

Speaking of Black Belt‘s videos, they also have video posts.

Idea for Blog Post 19. Video Transcript

Publishers will post video transcripts in order to get double-duty out of their videos. Instead of slapping a video in a plain post with a few descriptive sentences, you can get a huge SEO benefit by including the transcript below it.

About.com always posts transcripts with their videos. Here’s an example of a video and transcript by our own Amanda MacArthur.

Podcasts

Idea for Blog Post 20. Podcast Review

A Podcast Review is a good way to post a podcast but not annoy your readers by making it so exclusive that they can only learn from it by downloading. Since not everyone has time to listen to a Podcast, create a short post that describes the podcast and includes some skimmable bullet points they can use to determine whether they want to download it.

Wired has a good example, below, where they talk about the podcast and then embed the mp3 below.

Idea for Blog Post 21. Podcast Transcript

No time to review a podcast? Cool. Embed the file and post a transcript instead! In the example below The Guardian does just that.

Social Networks

Idea for Blog Post 22. Facebook

Use your fans for crowdsourcing. Tell them you’re writing an article and need feedback. Use their feedback as quotes. Or, ask them what they want you to write about if you’re totally tapped out of ideas for blog posts.

In this example, BarkBox is leveraging Facebook and Google+ to ask fans to submit photos of their dogs for an upcoming blog post.

Idea for Blog Post 23. Twitter

The media is regularly quoting Tweets now, so it’s officially allowed. Be careful what you use as “facts,” but Twitter can be a great place to find opinions. You can ask certain questions, but you can also use Twitter’s search feature to search a specific topic and see what people are saying about it.

BuzzFeed is famous for using this approach. Some of their editors write posts almost entirely comprised of Tweets, and sometimes they focus on just one and turn it into a headline.

Idea for Blog Post 24. Forum Roundup

If you have a forum, this is a great place to look for intense discussions and turn them into full-fledged blog posts. You can quote your forum users and add your own commentary to turn it into something valuable and conclusive.

Or, you can write a post that simply gives updates on what’s going on in the forums, like this post from MacNN which drives traffic into the forums and builds more discussion.

Original Thinking

Idea for Blog Post 25. Keyword Inspiration

Just when you think you’ve written about everything, the Google Keyword Tool can give you a list of everything people are searching for. By typing a broad keyword term into the tool, it will deliver back a list of the most popular search phrases using that keyword. You’d be surprised what people are looking for that you may not have written about yet.

Idea for Blog Post 26. Personal Story

Storytelling is the best-used practice of bloggers, and it’s probably why some bloggers can truly compete with legacy publishers.

CNN recently published a post called “Why I’m Quitting Facebook” which was uncharacteristically personal, and I thought this would be a good place to share it:

Idea for Blog Post 27. Best Practice Review

Here’s a good, quick-tip type of article that’s easy to write. Determine what the most basic best practices are in your industry and start creating an archive of them. Think of them like glossary pages, except they offer a tip or strategy for doing a single thing. These can easily be pulled in from old magazine or blog content.

This example from Cosmopolitan is 50% image and 50% text and gives a short review of how to do a single hair trick.

Idea for Blog Post 28. Product Review

Is there a product you use that makes you better at doing your job, or at life in general? Everyone appreciates a real opinion on products they can purchase, and affiliate links can make you money. Depending on the size of your audience, affiliate commissions can be a major money maker for you like it is for many bloggers. If you don’t already have an Amazon affiliate account, get on that. If it isn’t a product on Amazon, look at the site for the company or product for a link that says “affiliates”. Many sites have it at the very bottom of the site.

Below is how AutoWeek reviews cars. One thing we like about this particular review is how they don’t just take one person’s word for it, they bring in three people to weigh in.

Do you have more sources to share with our readers? Let us know in the comments!

Amanda MacArthur contributed to this article.

Public relations had not changed much until the popularity and reach of the Internet increased.

In the days before heavy Internet usage, many publicists turned to media relations. In addition to communicating with their public, they would attempt to secure coverage in magazines or newspapers whose readership would be interested in information.

Today, public relations professionals, editors, bloggers and content marketers can spread their newsworthy information through distribution sites and social networks.

However, with the amount of competition present on the Internet, the process of disseminating newsworthy content relies greatly on the press release itself.

Online PR has brought the public feel back with the ability to reach communities directly and the ability to have two-way communication with those communities. Press release distribution, forums, social media, video clips and audio pieces are all available to the online publicist.

Online PR can be partially tangible, too, thanks to the evolution in technology. With Google Analytics you can monitor where traffic is coming from and how much there is. Goals can be set up in Google Analytics that will inform you when a specific goal is reached.

In addition, there are new ways to spread press releases:

• Contacting bloggers, or submitting press releases directly to web sites
• Social media press releases, which integrate several types of content in one place
• SEO copywriting should be kept in mind, when writing the press release

Watch our Press Release Guidelines recorded webinar now, or keep reading for additional tips and tricks:

Writing a Great Press Release

Like most content, focus on quality first, optimize second, and then find out where it fits best.

Begin by writing a great press release.

It may sound simple, but there’s an art to press release creation. You cannot overstep the bounds of true PR by making your release sound too promotional. Even if you are promoting for product, make the release newsworthy. Allow the content to show the importance and value of what you’re promoting. Don’t come off as a pitch person in the version you intend to send to bloggers. Hand-write those letters as if they’re coming from a friend, but make them easy to skim and include bullet points they can direct their eyes toward.

Optimize your press release with keywords so that your release can be found by Google.

Add a keyword or two to the release’s title, in addition to your company’s name for branding purposes. Include your keywords throughout, for a keyword density of at least 3%.

Do a little research before selecting distribution sites to use.

We’ve compiled a list of the best paid and free press release sites, rated by PageRank and inbound links. We used to have a much larger list and dwindled it down to just the sites that’ll make you look good when Google sees them.

Press Release Guidelines for SEO & Copywriting

When performed correctly, online PR will help you gain visibility for the topics you cover. After creating your press release, you should begin the SEO process. This is where online PR incorporates aspects of SEO campaigns. With your press release optimized for your keywords, you will be positioned to receive coverage on these topics.

If your press release is picked up by Google after distribution, you will likely see the listing of the release on Page 1, 2, or 3 in Google. We have personally seen some of my press releases get picked up by Google and reside on Page 1 and Page 2 for over a week.

SEO Press Release Guideline #1: Write a Great Title for Your Online Press Release

The most succinct copywriting tip we’ve heard in a long time came from Fred Gleeck at a product development seminar. Fred cited this maxim in a discussion of how to title your book. But the adage is just as valid whether you’re writing a headline for an advertisement or a press release, or a pithy subject line for a convincing email message, or a list of product benefits.

We all know that people sort for self-interest. Everyone’s favorite radio station is WII-FM. That’s short for “What’s in it for me?”

So here’s Fred’s formula for writing a compelling book title that appeals to the customer’s self-interest:

Combine your customer’s greatest need with your product’s greatest benefit.

For example, “Low Cost Website Promotion” (Need: website promotion; benefit: low cost ways to do it).

When titling your press release, make sure you incorporate your main keyword and the name of your company. Search engines like keywords in titles, and adding your company name will help in branding purposes. Also, if your release gets picked up by a major source like Google News or Yahoo! News, your company’s name will be page-one in those search engines for as long as the release remains up.

SEO Press Release Guideline #2: Optimize Your Subhead

Follow up on the promise of your headline with your subhead. Add your secondary keyword phrase in the subhead of the press release. This way you’ll be hitting multiple keyword phrases while maintaining a good written flow.

SEO Press Release Guideline #3: Write a Compelling Lead Paragraph

Your lead needs to set the tone for the entire press release. If interest is lost in the lead, the rest of your press release will not be read. Focus on creating interest while delivering the journalistic standard of supplying who, what, where, when and why the rest of your press release is important.

As your lead paragraph is ranked just below your headline and subhead in importance, make sure the content in the lead paragraph incorporates both keyword phrases, if possible, and includes newsworthy information. If it isn’t written in a newsworthy manner, chances are no one will want to write about it, and in some cases it won’t even be approved by press release distribution websites. Distribution sites want to have the best content on their servers to increase credibility and traffic. You have to play by their rules in order to get their assistance in page rank and visibility.

SEO Press Release Guideline #4: Make Your Body Long Enough to Index, Short Enough to Digest

For press releases getting distributed through the Internet, make the body copy at least 300 words in length. This way, if you’re including keyword phrases throughout, you make it possible to get indexed by Google. If your release isn’t at least 300 words long, Google will not pay attention. 300 words is also short enough to digest by the person who’s reading it, especially if you break it up into bullet points.

SEO Press Release Guideline #5: Include Unique Links

When a distribution site will allow it, link your keywords and your press release’s title back to the rapid conversion landing page. Google will understand that the linked word is more important than other generic, unlinked words.

At the Mequoda Daily, most of our press releases are about products, both free and paid. Many press release distribution sites, both free and paid, offer the opportunity to include links.

Always link back to the product’s landing page when possible. For additional tracking, create a unique URL for each landing page that you can point to from your press release.

When submitting your press releases to PR sites, there are two important factors that a PR site should offer you: Credibility and SEO. One thing they shouldn’t use: No-Follow Tags on the links that you embed in your press release.

Posting SEO Press Releases on Your Own Website

There are three main reasons to post your press release on your own website. They include:

Reason #1: Posting press releases on your own site gives you control over meta data, image ALT tags and other elements necessary for strong SEO.

Reason #2: You will be making your content management system more robust with the added releases.

Reason #3: Adding press releases to your website also leaves you with the opportunity to link back to the release when publishing to distribution sites.

How Online PR Has Changed (and How to Adapt)

In college, one thing you can count on during PR class is hearing the phrase “mutually beneficial relationships.” It’s been heard so many times by PR students that it probably ricochets around inside their heads, like a rubber ball down a corridor.

The phrase used to wander into our articles from time to time, but now we consciously try not to allow it into the copy. It’s played-out, and besides, public relations is more than just “beneficial relationships.”

The expansion of Internet mediums and their ability to connect audiences has changed the way public relations is viewed. We have talked to and worked with PR professionals from the old school of thought. Their suggestions were always the same: “Focus on the media.”

We cannot dispute the value of the media, but we can simply state that a focus on the media isn’t really public relations. Media relations is the focus of getting news outlets to report on your event or company. It may involve getting information to the public, but it doesn’t work directly with them. Therefore, “focusing on the media” isn’t a component of true public relations.

And with the immense opportunities found on the Internet, we find it hard to even say media relations is as important as public relations anymore. Many of you may disagree (and if you do, please share your insight on our blog), but think about the validity behind each. If you’re correctly working a true public relations campaign, you will be reaching your audience to some extent. If you try and receive coverage with the media, you may be doing nothing more than wasting your time if they refuse your requests.

It’s even gotten harder to spread press releases, too, because of the simple process that is required to submit a press release. There’s much more competition out there.

• You no longer need to pay for distribution, so anyone can create and submit a press release.
• You don’t need to be a dedicated PR person to create a press release. Anyone can make one.
• You don’t need to have special industry contacts to submit a press release to a website. Most websites have a place for you to submit your press release through a simple contact form.

What hasn’t changed is this:

• You still need a great call to action – the difference is that you need to be better at grabbing their attention.
• You still need to know people – bloggers are more likely to promote you if they know you.
• You still need to write a better press release than anyone else in your industry, even more so now.

Want to learn more about SEO Copywriting or Online PR? We just released our Press Release Guidelines webinar from Mequoda Pro for you to watch completely free with this post. Scroll back on up and enjoy!

How the top magazines on Twitter are winning the follower wars

Are you tweeting? Twittering? Tweetering? I am ... Mary is … Amanda, Aimee and Norann are.

When Amanda first launched our Twitter account in May 2008, she didn’t ask permission. We’d sent her off to San Francisco the previous year, a month after Twitter made its official debut at the South by Southwest Conference and was seeing marketers get a lot of traction.

Our first tweet, sent on May 2^nd, 2008 was:

What is Twitter? http://snurl.com/26t9bij

Seems appropriate, right? How could we publish an article about Twitter without launching a profile of our own?

We’ve since sent more than 8,200 more tweets that have driven tens of thousands of page views since then.

To be honest, I’m not even sure we knew she was “tweeting” until one day we looked at our analytics and saw that Twitter was our second highest source of traffic right under Google.

Over the last five years we’ve talked a lot about Twitter, and we’ve held several great in-house and Summit workshops.

Publishers we’ve spoken to and clients we’ve worked with have all had mixed reactions. In the beginning it was a question of ROI and “why” any publisher should spend their time on a network that, from an outside perspective, was a place where people posted photos of their lunch — as if Facebook was somehow more evolved than that.

Since that time, our magazine clients have found that Twitter users convert into email subscribers up to nine times better than visitors from search.

That answers the question of “why”.

Twitter is a serious marketing platform. Retailers are seeing a significant of revenue from it and eventually magazine publishers will too – when we all figure out how to do it right.

So the question now isn’t why, but how.

How magazine publishers are using Twitter

We know that the top 10 magazines in terms of circulation are Game Informer Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Reader’s Digest, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, National Geographic, People, Woman’s Day, Time and Taste of Home.

We also know that these aren’t necessarily the ones that are doing their best to stay at the top of those general-interest topics.

The reason I say that is because our definition of a successful online publisher is one that generates more traffic to their website on a monthly basis than they have print subscribers in their file (their OMI – Online Magazine Index).

Special-interest publishers knock it out of the park in terms of that OMI. They routinely drive three, five, eight times more traffic to their sites than they have subscribers and make their advertisers very happy with those numbers.

Some of those publishers are Forbes, PC World, Make, Eating Well, The Economist, Seattle Weekly and Wired.

We analyzed these publishers, plus the top three general interest publishers mentioned above, to see how Twitter might be a major source of their traffic in order of OMI. This first chart shows us how well they’re doing on the web. The OMI shows us that Forbes, for example, gets eight times more traffic to their site than they have subscribers. Part of that traffic is the reason why their circulation is so high.

Next we take the same publishers, which I’ve sorted by their Twitter OMI, or their TMI. All of these publishers have more followers than tweets, but several of them, like The Economist, have 200 times more followers than tweets

What this proves is that their brand is strong enough, and their tweets are likeable enough, to build and keep that following. With that in mind, we decided to analyze the top five publishers on Twitter, according to this list: People, The Economist, National Geographic, Wired and Time.

You’ll notice that People, Time and National Geographic have now landed in the top 10 for both OMI and TMI. See a correlation?

How the top five magazines on Twitter got so popular

Not to say that this is definite list of every publisher, but according to our research, these publishers are an impressive bunch to analyze. They amaglso have brand advantage so it’s true that they don’t have to try as hard, but just remember that an annoying, boring, or useless feed will drive followers away no matter who you are. We were happy to see that all of the top publishers on Twitter didn’t resort to auto-tweets but actually talked back to followers sometimes too.

People magazine on Twitter: @PeopleMag

People magazine has been a Twitter best-practice profile for some time. They were one of the first magazines on Twitter to handcraft their tweets, respond to readers and post photos behind the scenes. Whenever they mention a celebrity, they always use their official Twitter handle. This is an excellent strategy for every publisher to get your article in front of as many people as possible.

We’re happy that they’re winning the subscription and Twitter wars.

What Do a Kangaroo & James Franco Have in Common? (Hint: @rebelwilson) #mtvmovieawards ow.ly/jYCn6

— People magazine (@peoplemag) April 11, 2013

The Economist on Twitter: @TheEconomist Although at first glance The Economists’ feed might look like it’s auto-generated, it’s not. If you look carefully, you’ll see that they rewrite every single headline into something more conversational. For example, an article on the site is called Eating Themselves to Death, but the tweet reads:

Mexico has become one of the most overweight countries on earth, even more so than America econ.st/16QN1RS — The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 10, 2013

They also invite users to participate in their Google+ chats, vote on hot button issues, use hashtags and post photos.

National Geographic on Twitter: @NatGeo

National Geographic suffers from first-glance misrepresentation just like The Economist but they too are re-writing tweets to appeal as quickly as possible to their followers. They appear to have mastered the art of short headlines, which are often informal, short and more click-provoking than their real headlines.

For example, the article name is The Simple Truth About Good Composition, and the tweet is written as:

What exactly is good composition? on.natgeo.com/154avqj

— National Geographic (@NatGeo) April 11, 2013

Wired magazine on Twitter: @Wired Wired is really good at pulling out the most interesting piece of an article and using it as their tweet. For example, an article titled, We Love Amazon, But Going to the Store Matters Most ends up looking like this:

Reality check: physical stores are still where most Americans decide what to buy. oak.ctx.ly/r/3v7v — Wired (@wired) April 11, 2013

And an article about a helicopter crash looks like this:

Needless to say, folks, please don’t text while you’re flying a helicopter. #psa oak.ctx.ly/r/3tv6

— Wired (@wired) April 10, 2013

They also take the time to share articles within the Wired network in order to promote their other accounts, like @gadgetlab. Time magazine on Twitter: @TIME In the not too distant past, TIME was a feed of stories, and when we compared them to other publishers like them, were’nt doing so hot. But their Twitter publishing strategy has ramped up and so have their followers. They too are onboard the headline-writing train. They also shout-out their other brands in tweets and cross-promote articles from them, like @TIMEHealthland, @TIMEBusiness and @TIMEPolitics. When they can, they use quotes and shout out their writers if they’re on Twitter, like so:

Opinion: You can’t be an ‘accidental’ racist, says @toure on @timeideas | ti.me/10O9hd8 — TIME.com (@TIME) April 11, 2013

In their Twitter bio they also include the name of the person who’s posting the tweets, @kellyconniff.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the biggest commonalities between all of these publishers on Twitter is that they re-write their headlines and they use the @ symbol whenever they can to get more visibility and re-tweets.

At Mequoda we rewrite our headlines several different ways and then schedule those tweets a few times the first day, again on the weekend, once the next week, the next month, three months from now and six months from now.

We’ve been teaching these strategies for a few years now, and back in 2011 we hosted a webinar that falls completely in line with everything you just read. We’ve been releasing some of our old webinars from Mequoda Pro and this is our newest debut.

Thankfully we were ahead of our time because the whole presentation is completely relevant to everything you just read and will help you implement it for your own magazine. Enjoy!

Most of the publishers I work with are rich with content assets.

If they’re not rich with revenue, it’s usually because they don’t know how to leverage those assets. Efficiency is key to success in a multiplatform publishing environment. Before you can design a system that minimizes manpower and maximizes automation, you need to do a thorough inventory of your content assets.

Your assets may be spread out in places that you haven’t thought of as repositories. Some of those places may be channels and others may be platforms. It’s also possible that you have a dusty warehouse full of old copies of magazines books and other content assets that no one has touched in years. Start the process of becoming an efficient multiplatform publisher by doing a thorough inventory.

Nine elements of a successful content marketing system

Stephen Covey likes to say that you should be again with the end in mind. The end, in this case, is a content marketing system for publishers. Using my definitions, the system includes four platforms and five channels. Let’s take a look at how you’ll be using all that content in the hopes that it helps you discover all of the assets in your brand family.

Content marketing element #1: Store assets.

These are all of the books, magazines, videos and other content assets that you’ve sold on a one-shot basis over the years. Make sure you include items that are “out-of-print,” because there’s no such thing in the digital age.

Content marketing element #2: Magazine assets.

This would include all of the issues of the magazine brand you’re building the system for, plus any related brand that may no longer exist. From a larger perspective, use the words newspaper and newsletter as a substitute for magazine here, because we’re really talking about the same thing, Or at least variations on a theme.

Content marketing element #3: Email assets.

Many publishers I work with have never thought to repurpose the emails they send as web posts or anything else. Of course, taken one by one, emails don’t represent much content. However, when you take them in aggregate if you’ve been publishing emails for a while and if you’ve been doing it daily, you may have a lot of content sitting in an email repository.

Content marketing element #4: Website assets.

This could include blog posts, repurposed articles, databases, and even web-based apps. Include your comments and forums of all types, and you may be surprised at the amount of content stored in even a small website.

Content marketing element #5: Search assets.

For this exercise, we’re trying to discover how often our website shows up on page 1 in Google. You may not think of Google and other search engines as a content publishing platform, but it’s certainly a content publishing channel. Most of the publishers I work with have hundreds of listings that show up on page 1 for search terms that are trackable. A keyword benchmark study is the tool desired to do this asset inventory.

Content marketing element #6: Social assets.

For starters, let’s stick with the majors: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You’ll want to inventory the content you’ve posted along with the content your staff may have posted under your brand family identity.

Content marketing element #7: App assets.

If you were early to the app party, you may have already produced one or more content-driven apps. These may be as simple as replica magazines and books, or as complex as games and gadgets. Whatever their format, make sure that all your apps are listed as part of your content assets.

Content marketing element #8: Legacy assets.

If your magazine brand has reached beyond books and videos you may have other legacy media assets to inventory. This would include any physical inventory of back issues, special interest publications, books and videos plus other content that you’ve distributed elsewhere. I’m always surprised, for example, at how many publishers produce television shows that have been in syndication or aired on a one-shot basis. Many publishers also do live events that have generated reams of content in the way of video, audio, or transcripts.

Content marketing element #9: Link assets:

Start with the big picture by doing a link asset inventory using one of the many commercial software programs available to automate the task, starting with Open Site Explorer, possibly moving up towards a program like Advanced Web Ranking. Then take a look at Google Analytics to discover which website are driving substantial amounts of referral traffic into your hub on a prolonged basis. Add to this some qualitative information about the relationships you have with the website that are driving traffic on a consistent basis. Pay specific attention to those to which you syndicate content and will be able to do so in the future.

Many hands, many perspectives

I like to review the results of this process with the group I’m working with. The review often leads to discovery of additional assets and brings everyone up to speed on the assets at hand. The inventory creates a sound foundation for building an online business plan that includes the four key platforms in the illustration and the five primary channels. While every online business plan is unique, most include these nine elements.

Do you have other content that you consider and asset that I’ve missed? Please share it in the comments so we can enhance our understanding of content marketing!

Organic marketing focuses on the shift from spending money on marketing to spending time on a disciplined strategy, proven to increase traffic and get your message out with paying for it.

Organic marketing consulting is something we do at Mequoda everyday, yet we don’t always call it that. It’s important for all digital publishers and marketers to realize that organic marketing has multiple names, including content marketing and earned media. Although the names are different, the overall concept is the same.

While some will tell you organic marketing is agency work, we believe it’s an internal function for online publishers. The process of organic marketing has created a new role for the online managing editor, which is now part of the marketing department

Today I wanted to list our articles that describe some of the more popular organic marketing programs that have worked well for our clients.

Organic marketing strategies

We have over 40 suggestions for organic marketing strategies, however most of our clients use five to 10 of them due to the associated labor restraints. With that said, here are 10 options.

• Newsletters: A sustainable form of content that serves your audience and your interests.

• Twitter: A micropublishing social network perfect for publishers.

• Single email articles: The best single email articles engage your audience and properly call them to action.

• Press release distribution websites: Submitting SEO press releases can help you get published in Google News and attract new audience members.

• Facebook: Getting “likes” on Facebook can lead to higher rankings in Google.

• Rapid Conversion Landing Pages: This conversion architecture helps publishers build their email file by starting low-risk relationships with visitors.

• LinkedIn: Primarily for B2B companies, this social network can help you make new connections and send traffic back to your website.

• Portals: Creating your own portal allows you to supply the digital community with a lot of high-quality SEO-optimized content.

• Magazines: As a desirable object of ownership, magazines help create audiences and send users back to your website for more information.

• Email sales letters: Long-form sales letters are successful in achieving more conversions for both free and paid products.

You can learn how to build a larger audience with organic marketing plans used by other companies, even if they refer to them differently.

Looking for organic marketing consulting?

Check out our webinar 29 Ways to Increase Website Traffic for a comprehensive discussion on organic marketing strategies, or join us this April for our Internet Marketing Intensive in New York City.

If you’re more interested in a one-on-one discussion, feel free give me a free no-obligation call to discuss your organic marketing needs.

Sixteen years later, I can still remember the day a large publishing company, who’d been negotiating with my marketing services firm to revive a struggling magazine it owned, decided to cuts its losses and shut the magazine down instead.

Twenty-six people, whose jobs we had been hoping to save with our services, got some very bad news that day. When I told my staff, we sat there looking around the conference table at each other, reflecting for a moment on what it was like for that magazine’s employees.

These days, the death of a legacy print publication has become an almost daily occurrence. And the job market is in far worse shape for former editors, designers, marketers and advertising staff than it was then. No wonder publishers are struggling every day to remain relevant by transitioning to the Internet – yet there are still no guarantees of success or even survival in this complex, evolving new marketplace.

Mequoda’s only purpose in life is to prevent any other publishing company from going out of business, ever. That’s why we offer our decades of experience, proven best practices and user-friendly Mequoda Method for digital publishing success in our three-day Internet Marketing Intensive, the definitive training course in publishing and marketing content online.

If you’re a publisher who’s trying to thrive in the new digital era, if you’ve got some content to monetize but know you can do better to ensure long-term profitability … if you have even the slightest of doubts about digital success … take note: The Mequoda Method that we teach at every Intensive is guaranteed to take any publisher who’s already generating at least $1 million in revenue and increase those annual revenues with online earnings by 20% within 24 months. If not, we’ll cheerfully refund the entire cost of your Intensive registration!

That’s my promise to you. I make it because that day in 1997 was so painful, I still remember the exact number of employees who lost their jobs – and I refuse to let that happen to any other publisher, marketer, editor or audience development manager who comes to me for help.

The secret that shouldn’t be a secret

The Mequoda Method, sometimes knows as the Agora Method or the Rodale Method, is hugely successful, yet largely unknown in publishing circles. Certainly, publishers such as Interweave, The Motley Fool, Consumer Reports, Harvard Law School, Sound Mind Investing, Business & Legal Resources and more utilize it to enjoy millions in profits and earn as much as 50% of their revenues online. But hundreds more publishers remain unaware, and struggle to fully monetize the great content they produce.

That’s where the Mequoda Method comes in. We teach the entire process, from conceptualizing the perfect online presence for your organization, to organic audience development and SEO keyword research, to website design, in just three days. Attendees take home every step, every tool needed to energize their marketing programs and maximize online revenues.

Better yet, you’ll sit next to your peers in an intimate learning environment, ask as many questions as you want of your expert Mequoda instructors, and thoroughly understand the entire program from beginning to end. If you’ve ever been to one of those huge industry conferences, sat in the back of the ballroom and wondered how on earth you’ll execute the latest online marketing fad you’ve just learned about, you’ll understand how unusual the Intensive experience is!

We strictly limit attendance at our Intensives to just 42 people! And we bring four of our experts to provide a student-teacher ratio that can’t be beat at any business school.

Don’t take my word for it

I hope my guarantee above tells you how confident I am in this definitive, documented process we teach at the Intensive. But you certainly don’t have to take my word for it. Consider these recommendations from your peers:

“We’ve found the Mequoda Method to be effective at helping us create entirely new streams of revenue.”
Robert Michel
Editor-in-Chief
The Dark Report

“We’ve used the Mequoda Method to sell thousands of books, videos, and subscriptions.”
Sherman Hall
Managing Director
American Ceramics Society

“We’ve rebuilt our entire online presence around the Mequoda Method.”
Phil Ash
President
Investing Daily

“We’ve used the Mequoda Method to build the world’s largest Spanish-language health care website.”
Carl Kravetz
Publisher & Executive Director
Vida y Salud

“We use the Mequoda Method to sell out our executive education programs.”
Gail Odeneal
Director of Marketing, Program on Negotiation
Harvard Law School

As you can see, the Mequoda Method works for both B2B and B2C publications, and for books, online content, professional training programs, and niche periodicals. You can use it to sell videos, ebooks, events and much more – any content product you can name. And you can learn the method in just three days at the next Internet Marketing Intensive!

What you get from the Internet Marketing Intensive

Let me lay out an overview of the Intensive so you can see exactly how the building blocks of the Mequoda Method work together to support a powerful online presence:

Digital Publishing Trends
We start the program with inspiration: How publishers large and small have transformed themselves into digital powerhouses, and the secrets you can deploy to do the same. You’ll leave this session with a clear picture of your path forward.

Content Marketing Strategy
Now that we’ve set the stage, we’ll take a 30,000-foot look at the eight strategies that you must understand to be successful on the Internet: content, audience, revenue, commerce, keyword, website, contact and measurement. These strategies will help you build a market-dominant presence on the Internet in your niche!

Designing Websites that Work
To have an online presence, you must have a website! But there’s so much more to designing a profitable website than choosing colors. In this session, you’ll get the tricks we use to make the process much simpler than you’d imagine, from choosing a business model to the latest in responsive website design. You can get your new or improved website up and running profitably in no time after mastering this skill.

SEO Keyword Research
Once you build a website, will they come? Not by accident, they won’t. SEO keyword research is the basis of everything else you musts do to drive traffic, and we’ll teach you the documented process we use to drive traffic in droves. You get every step we take, examples of spreadsheets we use, and the benefit of knowing your new visitors are qualified, excited prospects for your products.

29 Ways to Increase Organic Website Traffic
The Mequoda Method utilizes everything from keywords to email to press releases to drive traffic organically – without paid advertising. Most publishers would be profoundly grateful for just a fraction of the users we can drive to their sites using our array of strategies. (Actually, we’ll reveal more than 29!) You’ll be amazed at how simple it is and how many new visitors you’ll see once you implement this program for yourself.

SEO Campaign Management
Making money by giving away content? Whoever heard of such a thing! But it’s true, and we’ve got the real-world case study to prove it. This is the next step in using your SEO skills to make millions. You get a step-by-step process for a complete SEO marketing campaign that’s driven not by expensive ads or pay-per-clicks, but by organic marketing.

Breakthrough Online Copywriting
Once you understand the proper use of keyword research and site optimization, you need copy to sell to your new audience. But many copywriters simply don’t understand the elements that create great sales letters, emails and ads, not to mention the all-important SEO techniques. We’ll show you and your copywriters exactly how it’s done. Take home a blockbuster sales letter you can use as a template to sell, sell, sell every product you’ve got to offer!

SEO Blogging, Social Media and User-Generated Content: You Can Do It All
One thing you must understand for the digital world is the new field of online editing. Instead of having your editors randomly tweeting and blogging, you’ll learn precisely how the new specialist, the online editor, publicizes your great content efficiently and effectively, and what goes into effective blogs and social media. You’ll be able to organize your editorial workflow and start driving more traffic than ever once you understand this skill!

SEO & Google Analytics
Now that you’re using keywords and driving visitors to your site in the thousands, you need to understand what’s working and what’s not. That’s where Google Analytics comes in – but for most publishers, it can be completely overwhelming! Do you have any idea which metrics should matter to you, and how to efficiently use this tool to generate traffic and revenue? We’ll take the mystery out of Google Analytics. And you take home the spreadsheets and the proven techniques that will supercharge your organic marketing efforts.

Business Plan Development
Once you’ve mastered all these skills, you still have to know how to make sense of the big picture. We deliver a time-tested business plan that has been used to successfully raise millions of dollars. You can use this business plan format to rally the troops, gain executive support, and when necessary, raise capital for your digital publishing business.

How to Conduct a Digital Publishing Audit
OK, you’ve created a digital publishing company! But what comes next? How do you keep the momentum going? This workshop delivers a quantifiable methodology, or scorecard, for auditing your current market position. The audit shows, at a very high level, the direct impact that marketing and resource decisions have on market share. By analyzing scorecard data, you can identify high- and underperforming areas and make better resource allocation decisions.

No other training course can take you from 0 to Success in just three days. No other Internet marketers have ever quantified the Mequoda Method into this easy-to-learn, user-friendly program. And certainly no one has ever offered this money-back guarantee on your registration cost before! Don’t delay – register now for the April Intensive, because 2013 isn’t getting any younger, your revenues aren’t growing any faster on their own and we limit attendance to 42 people!

Best regards,

Don Nicholas

CEO & Lead Instructor

Mequoda Group

PS: If you’re still not sure you should join us, please email our Training Services Manager or call her at (774) 261-3842 for more information.

PPS: Need more? Feel free to email our Member Services Manager or call her (866) 713-1005 to schedule a 30-minute phone conversation with me about your needs, how to apply the Mequoda Method to your organization, and the value you’ll gain by attending this very special event.

I’ve been running marketing services departments and companies for the better part of 30 years. Mequoda Group is an independent co-operative Internet marketing services company that currently supports 20+ client organizations. The most common marketing system configuration we’re supporting is a daily portal or blog at the core with one or more subscription websites, and an online store that sells books and videos. Our organization doesn’t produce any of the original premium content, but we do produce a lot of the affinity content that is used for audience development including white papers, blog posts, and social media. We also produce and analyze the email newsletters, email promotions, and landing pages that are used to generate revenue.

I’ve also helped a number of clients build their own internal Internet marketing services department. Unsurprisingly, the organizations I’ve helped build very closely resemble the organization that I currently manage. While I won’t tell you that the way I do it is the only way to run an Internet marketing services company, I will tell you that I’ve evolved my structure over time and that it works pretty well.

Let me share the 11 functional areas that are integral to the services we provide.

To give you a better picture of what I’m describing above, let me briefly describe each of the 11 areas and what the people in those groups do for a living.

Internet marketing strategy

This is the idea department for the organization. It’s tasked with figuring out what the Internet marketing program should be and what it should be trying to accomplish. This could involve taking a legacy magazine and looking for ways to leverage the content. A typical strategic initiative might include building a subscription website and initiating digital additions to be distributed through Apple, Amazon, and other digital retailers. Another typical initiative might be building an online portal to act as an audience development nexus that can be used to build email newsletter circulation. This same initiative would also include coming up with an email publishing and marketing program that would maximize the revenue per subscriber through product sales and advertising support.

Internet marketing operations

This is the practicality group inside the larger organization. It’s their job to measure the resources required to meet the business plan objectives and develop a financial model that validates the goals and the process. With each business plan and budget in hand, it’s their job to make sure that the plan stays on schedule and on budget. This group is also responsible for tracking all of the resources being used to accomplish the group’s goals, while making sure that corrections and modifications are being made as needed.

Internet marketing technology

You might think of these folks as the “how” team. It’s their job to keep track of all the technology that’s available in the market place: hardware, software, and services. They are also responsible for project management and systems integration. They select platforms, build project plans, supervise their implementation, and make sure all the other players in the organization are working together to meet their common goals, schedule, and budget. Once a system is up and running, this team is responsible for ongoing troubleshooting, maintenance, and upgrades. At the highest level, this group maintains the technology roadmap that shows where the organization is going over the next three to five years, so that resources can be allocated in an efficient manner.

Internet marketing analytics

The analytics team is responsible for combing through all the data available and coming up with intelligible reports that the operators can use. The analytics can be used to measure system performance and discover system anomalies. Analytics can also be used to measure operator performance, content performance and other parameters that define the day-to-day operations of the systems. On a really good day, these are the folks that point out opportunities that can be acted on within the resources of the existing operation.

Internet marketing content development

This group is responsible for the short and long-range planning for content development related to marketing programs at all levels. On a day-to-day basis, they produce the blog posts, email newsletters, landing pages, and other materials necessary to promote the organization’s messaging and drive traffic into commerce activities and sponsor websites. This group works closely with the analytics team to evaluate the performance of their individual efforts and test and use that data to create new test programs that will maintain or improve system efficiency. While domain knowledge is helpful, the members of this team must be excellent copywriters who understand how to motivate users to take actions that could go from signing up for a free newsletter to making a purchase that costs thousands of dollars.

Internet marketing design

The design team comes into play any time a new system or module is being built or a redesign is being implemented. The team usually includes graphic artists, information architects, and usability experts. They are tasked with developing design that support and enhance the brand, and that support website functionality, usability, findability, and shareability. The design team works closely with the content team and the software team to make sure that their design fits the larger communications plan and software capabilities.

Internet marketing software development and support

The software team is responsible for choosing, supporting, and customizing the various software applications that make up the larger Internet marketing system. For us, they must be experts in WordPress and all of the various plugins that extend WordPress into a customer experience management system. They must also be experts in the third-party systems that include email management, payment processing, product fulfillment, and customer service.

While these other applications are normally freestanding systems, our software engineers must maintain the application protocol interfaces that allow those systems to communicate with the whole customer experience management system. Most sophisticated marketing systems are really a group of integrated applications that have been connected to work seamlessly under the hood. When necessary, this group also updates third party plugins and creates new plugins or software extensions that add functionality not found in the existing marketplace. For example, our software engineers currently maintain 17 proprietary plugins and support an additional 40 or so through the vetting, upgrading, and maintenance process.

System hosting and management

This group is responsible for maintaining the hardware and foundational software that keeps your website up and running. The group typically includes both lamp software engineers and hardware specialists. System security and performance are also primary job functions of this group. On a good day, this group will go completely unnoticed. It’s only when they’re not doing their job, or something gets by them, that anyone takes notice of the systems management team.

Email broadcast and management

The email team is responsible for maintaining the system that stores, segments, and tracks email usage. They support operators in the establishment of segments, tests, and other enhancements to the email marketing program. The email team is also responsible for email delivery and email security, maintaining relationships with hundreds of Internet service providers and monitoring services.

Fulfillment services

If physical books, periodicals, DVDs, or other products are part of a marketer’s mix, a fulfillment service operation becomes a requirement. The fulfillment team is responsible for the timely selection, packaging, and shipping of all physical orders that are produced by the system. In some cases, there may be multiple fulfillment vendors who are supplying this service for different types of products. In the best of cases, the fulfillment system is fully integrated with the customer experience management system and the customer service system.

Customer service

Whether your products are physical or digital, customer service will be part of the program. Your customer service team will be in the position to answer questions about missing products, product features, and even how to use a sophisticated software application or subscription website. Your customer service team will be evaluated by both the quantity of emails, phone calls, and even letters they can process properly; and the quality of service and the customer service ratings they receive. As with your fulfillment operations, it’s possible to have multiple customer service operations that provide service on different product types that might include periodicals, products, and live events.

Content marketing in 2013

The process of running a modern Internet marketing services department or company is both challenging and rewarding. We are in the enviable position of pioneering new ways of bringing our product to market so that customers can access them whenever they want them, however they want them. We also have the challenge of running an organization that requires a diverse set of skills, personalities and people to make things happen on a day-to-day basis.

If you’re in the process of building an Internet marketing services department, please feel free to contact me to discuss how we might be able to help. If you’re looking to outsource your Internet marketing services or some part of it, please also feel free to contact us to discuss the alternatives.

Happy marketing in 2013!

How would you like to expand your product line with something that’s based on content you already have, increases your credibility in your niche, offers your customers immediate gratification, and will sell in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands … or even millions?

It almost sounds too good to be true, but white papers are all that and more. The white paper format – sometimes also known as a special report, handbook or guidebook – offers the opportunity for publishers to go in depth into a particular topic that’s of more interest to their audience than a two-page article would be in your core magazine or newsletter. The white paper format allows readers to download it instantly, and, importantly for some publishers, privately.

Take for example the white papers sold by Harvard Health Publications from Harvard Medical School. My good friend Ed Coburn, the Executive Director of Mequoda’s Advisory Board, is publishing director there. He tells Mequoda that the white paper format is a blockbuster for Harvard, and they’ve sold more white papers than just about any other publisher – some 2 million, according to Ed, at $18-$20 each.

White paper format for a profitable program

The key to the white paper format is its length: 45-70 pages, so you can go into more detail than you can in your daily, weekly or monthly publication, yet it’s more easily digestible than a book. For Harvard, these white papers offer instant, downloadable information on medical conditions that readers may not be comfortable talking to their doctor or searching for books about it at a store.

What’s more, these products are easy to design, being mostly, well, white, with little ornamentation and almost no four-color illustrations.  You can get a usable white paper template from many sources, such as DemandMetric.com, or by downloading a free or inexpensive white paper from a competitor. You can also get free white paper templates at whitepapers.org.

Remember to use plenty of subheads, sidebars, and bulleted lists in order to make your white paper reader-friendly. Harvard includes “FastFacts” and a glossary in their white papers, which help inform as well as allowing the reader to skim.

Harvard gets the ideas for its white papers from readers of their other publications who request more information on certain topics, and from their editorial staff and Harvard Medical School faculty. While the program initially utilized the newsletter editorial staff to create the white papers, the white papers now generate enough revenue to support their own dedicated staff. This staff also updates the white papers regularly, since health information can change rapidly.

Selling your white papers successfully

Harvard uses multiple marketing channels to sell its white papers, including several million emails per month, social media to drive traffic, and third-party licensing offers. The most effective methods are inserts in their print newsletters and onsite landing pages, such as the page for The Sensitive Gut, their best-selling white paper of all time. These landing pages include a short sales letter and suggestions for related white papers. And when it comes to the inserts, Ed notes that people who have already paid a high price for a newsletter are already committed to his products, and are easy to convert in selling an additional product at the lower price point of $18 or $20, depending on whether the buyer choses a download or a print version.

Overall, Harvard currently has about 50 active titles, having created some 65-70 over the years and retiring some as interest faded.

Writing your white papers

The successful white paper format includes a focused topic, such as bird flu. Create a white paper outline of subtopics – perhaps causes, symptoms and treatment. Now you’re ready to create a table of contents, from which you can start writing. Don’t skip on the research! People are counting on you to provide in-depth information in about 45-50 pages, which is much more than the typical magazine or newsletter article, so you have to know your topic inside and out, and be able to back up your information with data points.

With practice, you’ll find that writing for the white paper format becomes easier. Usually you’ll find that one person on your editorial team will excel at this skill! And I believe it’s an important product line that can increase your revenues with only a modest increase in your editorial workload, at least until this product line really takes off.

Please let me know if you have had good or bad experiences marketing white papers!