Mequoda Systems

Membership Marketing Made Easy

Mequoda Systems partners with publishers to develop content-driven web and email marketing programs that maximize audience development, customer engagement, revenues and profits for online membership marketing systems—and Mequoda is seeking additional partners with valuable content and strong databases to launch new membership programs in 2019.

Mequoda partners who have launched web and email membership marketing programs over the last two years have seen revenues double, even triple, within 12 months. Mequoda publishing partners include Prime Publishing, Yankee Publishing, and Cabot Heritage Corporation.

Mequoda builds membership and email marketing systems for publishers with a seven-strategy approach known as CAROTME (Content, Audience, Revenue, Organization, Technology, Measurement, Economics):

Content Strategy

Mequoda develops a plan that leverages existing partner content, strategizes new content, schedules content publishing, and optimizes member contact frequency. Strategy includes clear identification of content purposing to serve both basic (free) members and premium (paid) members.

Audience Strategy

Mequoda develops plan for acquiring basic and premium members for partner that also leverages existing databases and other media assets. Strategy includes Google keyword research and website navigational taxonomy development to support membership programs.

Revenue Strategy

Mequoda reviews partner products and pricing and develops 12-month price, offer, and incentive testing plan to be executed with Six Sigma Marketing discipline. Strategy includes conversion and renewal pricing plan, membership positioning, copywriting plan, and member-retention tactics.

Organizational Strategy

Mequoda reviews partner organizational structure and identifies roles and responsibilities for integrating partner and Mequoda teams, in support of successful membership marketing systems. Strategy includes leveraging existing structure and resources to optimize performance.

Technology Strategy

Mequoda leverages for partners its proprietary state-of-the-art Haven Content Management System (CMS) in connection with Mequoda’s Customer Experience Management System (CXMS) that has the ability to integrate all web, email, social media, and fulfillment activities—including third-party systems. Strategy includes development, maintenance, and upgrade plans for new membership marketing systems and shared resources that make Mequoda’s platform a cost-effective choice for publishers of all sizes.

Measurement Strategy

Mequoda identifies partner key performance metrics, used to both track and forecast performance of new membership marketing systems. Strategy includes industry and system benchmarking, variance reporting, in-depth analysis, and recommendations and action plans for optimizing audience, revenue, and profits.

Economic Strategy

Mequoda develops for partners a 5-year financial model that combines key metrics, marketplace trends, and partner-specific situations to provide a forward forecast of basic membership, premium membership, revenue, costs, and margin.

If you’d like to schedule a meeting to talk about a web and email membership marketing program for your organization, please click the button below.

Our Team

Don Nicholas, Chief Executive Officer

Don is Chief Executive Officer of Mequoda Systems and has served as a subscription marketing advisor for virtually every major U.S. magazine and newsletter publisher during a decades-long career. Under Don’s leadership, Mequoda Systems has launched more than 300 complex subscription publishing and membership marketing systems that include websites, email, social media, and fulfillment-integration functionality. Don is the author of numerous books on subscription marketing, technology, publishing, and journalism.

Kim Mateus, Chief Strategy Officer

Kim is Chief Strategy Officer and an experienced marketing professional who oversees strategic planning for all Mequoda partners, having guided the development of more than 20 subscription and membership marketing systems. Kim and her team maintain a robust best practices database of marketing techniques and business processes that helps power all Mequoda partner marketing programs. Kim’s focus on client content strategies is a natural extension of her journalism education and background.

Bill Dugan, Chief Copywriter

Bill is Chief Copywriter and a publishing industry veteran with over 30 years of membership marketing expertise. With experience in consumer and business publishing ventures, Bill brings classic direct-marketing expertise to Mequoda-powered technology in support of membership marketing systems for publishers. An accomplished and award-winning copywriter, Bill has recruited a six-member world-class copywriting team to assist with creating compelling, engaging, and successful content for Mequoda partners.

Nancy Horan, Chief Systems Officer

Nancy is Chief Systems Officer and has designed some of the most sophisticated membership systems in the industry. Nancy and her engineering team develop and deploy cutting-edge software and technology to drive success for complex systems—with a strong focus on optimal user experience, proven best practices, and system operator ease-of-use. Nancy also oversees research and development for Mequoda’s Haven Content Management System of more than 150 operating components, application protocol interfaces, and integration with third-party fulfillment systems.

Laura Pittman, Chief Operating Officer

Laura serves as Chief Operating Officer and oversees accounting, financial forecasting, and business plan development for Mequoda’s partners. Laura is chief architect of the Mequoda Subscription Marketing Model and the Mequoda Audience Development Analytics Suite. Laura and her team create custom operating forecasts for Mequoda partners, to quantify and explore the impact of creating new—and expanding existing—subscription and membership marketing systems. Laura has served as a senior executive for Blue Dolphin Group and MagazineWeek.

Eileen Shea, Content Marketing Director

Eileen is Content Marketing Director and a seasoned, top-notch direct-marketing professional with a wealth of experience in planning and managing successful programs. Eileen’s breadth of marketing experience covers both consumer and business publishing—from U.S. News & World Report to Harvard Business Review—and marketing strategy and best practices. Eileen’s keen and timely data-analytics capabilities help Mequoda partners stay on top of current trends to maximize revenue and profits.

Norann Oleson, Analytics Director

Norann is Analytics Director. She and her team of analysts are responsible for preparing and updating the Mequoda proprietary Audience Development Analytics Suite for our publishing partners. In this capacity, she oversees and performs research, creates reports, analyzes results and helps drive traffic for our partners. This makes Norann a master of data and analytics for dozens of business and consumer publishers, with an understanding of more comparable data than any single-company analyst. Norann holds a Google Analytics Individual Certification.

Who We Serve

Testimonials

“We have used the Mequoda System to create five successful membership programs that leverage our 227-year-old brand and the many books, calendars and issues we produce."
- Paul Belliveau, Vice President New Media and Production, The Old Farmer’s Almanac

“We partnered with Mequoda to create two successful all-access membership programs that are completely independent of our legacy advertising driven business.”
- Stuart Hochwert, Founder and CEO, Prime Publishing

“Even though we are a digital-only publisher, we’ve been able to adapt the Mequoda strategies to dramatically increase our revenues in less than 12 months.”
- Hampton Stephens, Publisher, World Politics Review

“Our all-access membership program includes our print edition, our amazing New England Travel Library, and our new PBS television series. We may have been founded in 1935, but our current strategy is fully multiplatform and digital.”
- Brook Holmberg, Publisher, Yankee Magazine

"We leveraged the Mequoda System and software to create two new capstone membership programs that have reignited our revenue growth."
- Ed Coburn President Cabot Wealth Network