Archive for Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

The secret behind increasing publishing revenue is in the power of three
In the Harry Potter books and movies, a man named Xenophilius Lovegood wore a necklace with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. When Harry asks Lovegood about the symbol—which appears as a circle inside of a triangle and a straight line down the middle—he explains that   Continue

Multiplatform publishers can generate revenue from users, from sponsors, or both. Consumer-focused portals that are sponsorship-based ask users to pay – not with money, but with time and information. They spend time viewing web pages and signing up for email feeds, thus creating advertising inventory that can be used to sell the publisher’s products (internal advertising) and/or sold to third-party sponsors (external advertising) on a CPM, CPC, CPA, or SEA basis.   Continue

It’s in our nature to try to classify, catalog, and organize any type of information that would help you make more informed business decisions. Defining publishing niches is a part of that.

On a call with the team couple weeks ago, we decided to do some research to see what we considered the biggest niches. This type of information could be useful for a publisher looking to launch a new niche magazine, or a magazine needing a pivot.   Continue

Our latest version of the Multiplatform Publishing Strategy handbook delivers a proven, integrated set of business processes, principles and tools for the digital publisher, whether you’re B2B, consumer, local, regional or national; multi-title or single.   Continue

These multiplatform publishing business models can be incorporated into your business at little extra cost, but with huge revenue potential
At the beginning of the year we highlighted three resolutions multiplatform publishers should make in 2017. As we’ve watched the success of our clients grow by adding new platforms, my main recommendations for this year were to   Continue

When you think of a magazine platform, you probably think print and digital. They seem like black and white, but there’s actually a whole lot of grey on the digital side of things. A digital magazine, as defined by the Alliance for Audited Media (formerly ABC) defines a digital edition as distribution of a magazine’s content via electronic means. The digital edition must maintain the same identity of the host publication by maintaining the same brand characteristics.
 Mequoda agrees with this definition.   Continue

Are you following the Google rules that have been set out for all publishers?
Google has been very aggressive in setting standards lately that will affect search engine rankings and visibility. In a nutshell, the Google rules basically require publishers to create websites that are responsive, fast and secure.

Maybe you’ve heard this story, about two guys   Continue

There’s a quote out there from Jonathan MacDonald I heard recently at an IMAG event that says, the rate of change you’re experiencing now represents the slowest rate of technological and societal change you are likely to experience in the rest of your life. So if you’re thinking that change in multiplatform publishing has been fast so far, you haven’t seen anything yet. It’s accelerating!   Continue

The MPA releases its Magazine Media Factbook 2017/18, sharing multiplatform publishing data you can use
You may be surprised by some of the data we have to share about multiplatform publishing. But we’re not as surprised because we’re so ingrained in the industry and we constantly see the ongoing growth for multiplatform publishers.

Today we’re looking at research from   Continue

Mequoda Masters).

In fact, this council of elders in Mequodaland convinced us to come up with a set of four relatively simple principles you need in order to build a multiplatform media business that wouldn’t require a degree in Mequoda-ise to understand.   Continue

The best thing you can offer in an ad package is exclusivity, although few publishers can. Back in the days of print-only publishing, there was little opportunity to be an exclusive sponsor of anything, but what brought them in was a separate but aligned strategy: scarcity. The most scarce and desirable sections of a magazine are the back of the front cover, and the back cover, which go for more than $100,000 each in most magazines. And a new element that the web brings to advertisers, moreso than ever before, is alignment. The most successful sponsor-driven publishers we know do very well at aligning the right ads with related content.   Continue

You’ve probably heard by now that About.com is shut down as of May 2. What you might not know is that they transferred much of their best content to some niche publishing websites that are more personally branded. When you think of About.com you’re thinking wow, it’s the last of the AskJeeves generation, right? But About.com has spent the last couple of decades thriving off of CPM revenue, and paying their writers a portion of that.   Continue

Mequoda has helped hundreds of media brands build vigorous, profitable, growing multiplatform publishing businesses. And we can help you.

Every quarter, I work on a 5-year business plan with one publishing company, or association looking to expand their publishing arm.
I’m writing today to tell you that the deadline to apply for our 60-Day Subscription Business Plan Development Program for Q3 is almost here, and expires Friday, May 26.   Continue

What will you be doing next week? Making money, or losing it? If you work in niche publishing, or own a magazine company, I highly recommend joining us at the Digital Revenue Summit in Boston. It’s your one and only chance this year to learn the same tested, proven techniques that have increased revenues by at least 20% for our past event attendees.

Unfortunately, we’re almost full, and today is the last day to register. Register now.   Continue

If your goal in life is to find out what your customers value—ask them.

To make my case, let me introduce you to Green Gardens Network. If you’re new to Mequoda, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with Green Gardens Network (GGN), our composite case study, and CEO Rose Harper, the embodiment of all our clients whose “example” we use as a teaching tool without revealing real publishers’ names or data.   Continue

f there were just three things you could do today to increase your audience, revenue, and profits, what would they be?

In today’s Strategy Spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman & CEO of Mequoda shares a strategy for each.   Continue

How will publishers make money in the future? Consumers will pay for content. And sponsors will pay for us to create it. At least, that’s what Grzegorz Piechota pitched in a recent session of FIPP’s recent Digital Innovator’s Summit. And if you’ve been reading here for a while, you know I agree.   Continue

Because multiplatform technology is an evolving, changing target, publishers are limited only by their imagination—and tenacity—when it comes to creating new revenue streams. It’s manifest destiny in the digital age.   Continue

The Internet has made it cheap, easy and efficient to launch new streams of niche media revenue. Choosing your content focus is a business-critical decision, as the focus you choose pretty much dictates your chances of success with a subscription website. However, more serious than the focus on content for a subscription website is the business model.
  Continue

Do you ever feel like you’re working harder than you need to? You probably are. Most people do. And the worst part is that without an outside perspective, you could spend your whole career trying to figure out how to work smarter, not harder.   Continue

How to create multiplatform events that serve both the in-person needs of your customers, but also your bottom line.
When a user conducts research to inform a decision, whether about where to hold a wedding, what car to buy, or how to spice tonight’s soup, she may want to consult her peers, or look to the   Continue

We all know the four basic advertising models, Cost per Thousand (CPM), Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Action (CPA), Directory/Classified advertising platforms. But what else is out there?

In today’s Strategy Spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman & CEO of Mequoda explains how niche publishers are boosting sponsorship revenues with one innovative strategy that advertisers love.   Continue

Pricing is no doubt one of the single clearest ways to either generate more revenue, or less. But the trick is rarely the price itself, and more how it’s positioned. Humans are naturally inclined to make choices based on the relative value of things compared and contrasted to other similar things. If you can play   Continue

In multiplatform marketing and social media, do you ever feel like the content you produce is making more money for other people, than for you? Think about it. 100 years ago, American songwriter, Victor Herbert sued a restaurant for playing his song on a piano without paying royalties for the song and formed a society, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to keep this from happening to other artists and publishers. Sure, plagiarism is one angle of what multiplatform publishers encounter when someone uses your content without permission, but what about the content you give away for free on other platforms?   Continue

Most of the multiplatform media 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 multiplatform content 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.   Continue

If you’re running or managing a publishing company, your time is often spent figuring out how to build a bigger audience, boost revenues, and increase your profitability on those numbers.

In today’s Strategy Spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman & CEO of Mequoda explains seven ways to tackle the audience portion, which will lead to increasing your magazine   Continue

Spend two days with us, and you could become a success story like these publishers.

If you’re a magazine publisher in the digital age, you’re certainly savvy enough to succeed. And perhaps you’re satisfied with your revenue and business growth as they are.

But do you know the strategies other successful publishers have used to boost revenues   Continue

“Print is dead.” “Long Live Print.” “Digital Will Save Publishing.” “Publishing Can’t Be Saved.”

If you took headlines for fact, you’d never know how to respond to the contradictory “news” you hear that seems to change every time you open a newspaper or a new tab on your computer.

In today’s Strategy Spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman &   Continue

It’s not just magazine, newsletter and newspaper publishers who seek custom CMS development services. Content management systems are built for most media businesses, even those who may not consider themselves in media but produce digital content regularly. The trouble with finding a content management system is that despite the word “content” in the title, rarely do out-of-the box solutions work for publishers, and rarely do even the most talented custom CMS developers understand publishing business models enough to build a system that is built to attract, capture, engage, and monetize all in the same place.   Continue

A Mequoda subscription website Portal generates value from both users and sponsors
Mequoda has guided the development of more than a 300 successful niche media websites on a wide variety of niche media topics. Our best practice is to pair a free subscription website Portal with any premium subscription business model like a magazine or newsletter.

When you charge   Continue

Dozens of tested, proven techniques for increasing your digital media revenues.
This is not the event to attend if you want to learn the latest, hottest, coolest-sounding ideas. Instead, this is the event to attend if you want to learn proven strategies with reams of data behind them. Every single strategy you’ll learn at this event can increase your revenues   Continue

I bet you have great content.

Many niche publishers do. And, at Mequoda, we are deeply appreciative of the work that independent publishers do every day. Not only that, but we also know that success in our industry isn’t about slick marketing, or vast advertising resources.
Instead, we know you can make a great deal of money   Continue

How to create new products and passive income from old products as a multiplatform publisher

One of the most interesting rodents on the planet is the grasshopper mouse, native to the US and Mexico, which has a bit of a superpower: it’s impervious to venom. Also, it’s a carnivore. So it dines on venomous centipedes, scorpions   Continue

In two short months, you could be starting a new path to profitable multiplatform publishing success. But only if you hurry and register for the Digital Revenue Summit. If you register today, you can still save $200 on your seat.   Continue

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”
Winston Churchill called it, all right.

And it strikes me that trying to succeed in the magazine publishing industry is a lot like running a war: lots of moving parts, struggling to outmaneuver the enemy – that is, the competition – and often without an end in sight.

But,   Continue

Niche publishers don’t need to fear domain extortion in the wake of brand domain availability

There’s a lot of evidence to show that the more constrained we are, the more creative we become. For example, Columbia University psychologist Patricia Stokes conducted a test on rodents, with a set who could only press a bar with their right   Continue

Subscription marketing is entering a new golden age. The trouble is, with so many new sources, niche publishers like you can’t always keep up on their own.

Legacy sources like direct mail and brick and mortar newsstands continue to decline, but no one is ready to declare them dead yet. And all these exciting new Internet   Continue

As humans we’re always in competition. We want to have a better job, a bigger bank account, a happier life, a healthier family, a cooler side hustle or better behaved dog than everyone else we know. And business it isn’t any different. We want to be the one with the original ideas, generating more revenue, and hiring more people to support a thriving business.   Continue

There I was, getting my hair cut at the village barbershop. The barber was a thirtysomething woman who was new to the shop.

While making small talk, she came to the inevitable question, “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a magazine publishing consultant,” I said automatically, having answered the question that way many times over the past   Continue

You might be surprised by the niche websites that top Alexa’s list of the highest ranking websites in the U.S.

A niche website is one that centers around a specific topic or area of interest. This doesn’t usually include general interest topics like news and politics, which everyone has a stake in, but more on the   Continue

Your subscription website publishing performance the key to doubling, or even tripling, your organization’s revenue over the next five years.   Continue

It’s time to solve the HTTP vs HTTPS debate: yes, you should update your whole site to https because Google says so
It’s the age-old question: HTTP vs HTTPS? Until now, it was optional except on credit card pages. But as you’ve probably heard, Google is ramping up its campaign to improve Internet security.

To Google, and   Continue

Want to know how publishing magazines on Kindles will boost your digital circulation? The simple answer is math: you can only sell more digital issues, not less, by adding your magazine to a new platform.

And we consider Amazon’s Kindle Newsstand to be one of the three juggernauts of digital magazine publishing channels, alongside Google Play and Apple Newsstand. In fact, it’s in second place and I’ll tell you why a little later.   Continue

Do you have a solid business plan for success in multiplatform publishing?

Unless you answered “You better believe it, pal!” to that question, I have another question for you.
How do you expect to succeed without a plan to get you there?
Of course, it’s not easy to navigate this brave new world of multiplatform publishing – at   Continue

Last year Mequoda launched seven new systems, went agile, and upgraded fulfillment options for our state-of-the-art CXMS
The history books will never look back at 2016 as an uneventful year. We elected Donald Trump as POTUS. Britain left the European Union. An ebola vaccine that’s 70-100% effective was invented. The Cubs broke their World Series curse.   Continue

Over the past two decades, the Mequoda consulting team has worked with more than 300 niche media brands to help them grow their audience, revenue and profits. Several of them have dominated their markets, and now we want to help you do the same with our Customer Experience Management System (CXMS).

We want you to succeed, so   Continue

Magazine events bring in user and sponsor revenue, and many publishers have made a profitable business model out of them.

When we talk about multiplatform publishing, it’s easy to jump right into the obvious choices: the ones with words, like books and portals and ebooks. But some of the biggest publishers I know have incorporated live   Continue

Will you prioritize upgrading the tools that will save you time, money, and your future?

“You live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.” Those are the wise words of Jessica Jackley, co-founder of   Continue

Multiplatform publishers should explore new ancillary business models in 2017

In stock investing, most long-term investors agree that you need a diversified portfolio to succeed. If one sector takes a hit for a couple years, the other sectors will keep you afloat. Over the last decade, I know more than a few publishers who would have   Continue

How to transform the way you attract, capture, engage, and monetize new visitors with a customer experience management system
Recall the first best friend you made. Maybe it was on the bus, or at an arcade, or maybe you bumped into one another at the roller skating rink.

You were instant friends. Maybe you figured that out   Continue