Industry News

Bo Sacks tells the independent magazine industry why they shouldn’t panic
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Don Peschke, founder of August Home Publishing, discusses how his company is meeting its mission of “surrounding our customers with service” … Continue Reading »

With traffic and sales doubling in the past year, Taunton’s Janine Scolpino discusses some keys to membership website success
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Magazine publishers discuss how they’re going to save their brands through online publishing

This week I was in Chicago attending and presenting at the FOLIO: Growth Summit.

“It’s not enough to make drastic cuts and then hunker down,” said Tony Silber, general manager of FOLIO:. “You need to be taking the initiative, looking at doing the things you do better, looking at doing new things. That’s what this year’s FOLIO: Growth Summit is all about.”

And that it was. … Continue Reading »

Cia Romano and I talk social networks – both building your own, and using existing social networks to develop a diverse online audience. … Continue Reading »

Google’s Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, tells magazine publishers why some of their sites “suck” and what kind of thinking is required to fix them … Continue Reading »

A wrap-up of the best ideas from SiPA’s 25th annual mid-year marketing conference that took place this week in Las Vegas

We love the wrap-up sessions at the end of SiPA conferences. They allow us to hear the best-of the best that we may have missed, as there are always great sessions running concurrently. Here are the tips, along with supplemental Mequoda Daily content that can help put you on path to more profitability and success online. … Continue Reading »

Google Website Optimizer tips from SiPA’s 25th Annual Mid-Year Marketing Conference: Gain. Market. Share. … Continue Reading »

Stephan Spencer, Founder and President of Netconcepts lists some helpful SEO tips and (mostly) free online tools … Continue Reading »

Web 2.0 Expo Notes: Web 2.0 Supply & Demand Metrics Aaron Kim, Emerging Technologies Evangelist with IBM Global Business Services talks about metrics in a Web 2.0 world … Continue Reading »

Lane Becker of GetSatisfaction.com talks about the online world where loyalty = profits & satisfaction = growth … Continue Reading »

Aaron Kim, Emerging Technologies Evangelist with IBM Global Business Services talks about both sides of how companies are reacting to Web 2.0 … Continue Reading »

Chris “Silver” Smith of NetConcepts explain how search engines are working with you to improve search rankings and deliver qualified results … Continue Reading »

Chris “Silver” Smith of NetConcepts explains why ignoring search engine optimization means that you’re “leaving money on the table” … Continue Reading »

Two days of social media conferencing, 340+ attendees, and a whole lot of Twittering going on. … Continue Reading »

Tips for helping editors think like marketers when it comes to their products … Continue Reading »

Information wants to be free (to the end user… but the advertiser’s going to pay) … Continue Reading »

Essentials to keep in mind when laying the foundation for copyright protection of your digital content … Continue Reading »

‘Incentivizing’ editors to come up with audio conferences and other one-shot product ideas … Continue Reading »

Bob Bly shares his tips for writing subject lines that get your email opened and read at SiPA’s 32nd Annual International Newsletter & Specialized-Information Conference … Continue Reading »

What You’ll Like and Dislike about Selling Online Advertising … Continue Reading »

“It’s all about the user” says Cia Romano of Interface Guru

Cia Romano, CEO of digital consulting and usability firm Interface Guru, told publishers that their website is the window to the corporate soul and that if their strategy isn’t user-centric, then they have no strategy at all.

Romano asked the publishers in the room how many of them have identified the three types of people that visit their website, and only about 2 or 3 raised their hand. “That’s not good,” said Romano. … Continue Reading »

Do you have an Internet Hub? How are you using it to expand your brand?

Mequoda’s Don Nicholas presented a rapid-fire version of our Making Money Online workshop and moderated a panel focused on one of the seven strategies: multiplatform editorial management.

Don was joined on the panel by David McKee of DRG, Phil Penny of Belvoir Media Group and Bryan Welch of Ogden Publications. The panelists talked about their multiplatform strategies, where their content originates from and how they view the Web as central to their strategy. … Continue Reading »

What can we learn from the big guys? Be more like little guys.

In a panel titled “Learning From the Big Guys” Marta Wohrle, former Senior VP of digital media at Hachette Filipacchi Media told a story about when Perezhilton.com put a link in his blog to ElleGirl.com and it sent so much traffic that the server crashed. At that point, the CTO came in and told Worhle that if she kept driving so much traffic, she’d have to write a check to purchase larger servers – demonstrating the backwards thinking often practiced in a larger organization. … Continue Reading »

Top Free New Media Tools You’ll Need for Everything with SpongeCell.com’s Ben Katzman … Continue Reading »

12 Webpage Templates Used by Today’s Top Publishers to Convert and Monetize the Most Visitors … Continue Reading »

29 Insider Secrets for Creating Effective and Profitable Email Newsletters … Continue Reading »

Learn the 11 Key Metrics Every Online Business Manager Should Know

In this session, Don talked about the key metric management dashboard than every online manager should have. With this dashboard, you are able to see on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, your successes and failures. … Continue Reading »

Leveraging Content and Keywords to Drive Targeted Website Traffic, Build Email Circulation and Sell Information Products … Continue Reading »

How the Web’s Top Publishers are Using New Media to Build Loyal Customer Relationships

This session is based is the strategy of expanding your brand by distributing your content and repurposing via many platforms. The reason why new media is so beneficial to us is that it enables us to generate revenue by simply recycling existing content. … Continue Reading »

Day one at the Mequoda Summit defines online publishing and delivers the seven strategies for online publishing success

It’s day one at the Mequoda Summit in beautiful Napa Valley. The conference room is full to maximum capacity with an even mix of online publishers ranging from magazine and newsletter publishers to primarily digital publishers. … Continue Reading »

Choosing the Right Keywords to Attract Targeted Website Traffic

Don considers this “the new direct mail”. Keyword research and implementation is perhaps the most complex, yet effective way to drive the most search traffic to your website. The idea is that if you research your keywords and compare the search to pages ratio, you can choose your keywords based on your likeliness to show up on page one. … Continue Reading »

Multiple Business Models are Required to Maximize Online Revenue

In session three, entitled Generating Website Revenue, Don revealed that there are the 12 different types of business models, or “archetypes” that a publisher uses to make money online. … Continue Reading »

I write to you from lively and exciting Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Don and I are here attending SIPA’s 23rd Annual Marketing Conference and it’s so much fun! Fantastic content, smart, engaging people and of course, excellent location!

Yesterday, I attended a roundtable moderated by one of my mentors, Andrew Palmer, Director of Ecommerce for Agora Financial and he’s allowed me to share some of his thoughts on the Free Content Model. … Continue Reading »

I’m writing live from the American Magazine Conference, hosted by the Magazine Publishers of America in Phoenix, Arizona. The conference kicked off on Sunday with an MPA-IMAG meeting where, similar to their May conference in NYC, staffing remains a concern. … Continue Reading »

Online Publishing Tips from SiPA

Early this week, more than 570 publishers gathered at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, for the Specialized Information Publishers Association’s (SIPA) 30th Annual International Newsletter & Specialized-Information Conference. This year’s theme was: “Get Creative! Right-Brain Thinking for Publishing Profits.” … Continue Reading »