In our opinion, there are two primary keys to the $46 million dollar success of America’s Test Kitchen. One is research. ATK uses research to find the best recipes and cooking equipment. It uses research to test its findings with its customers. And it uses research to find out how successfully its customers use its
Category: Multiplatform Publishing Strategy
Multiplatform Publishing Strategy posts focus on how publishers successfully distribute and monetize their content across multiple platforms, including memberships, events, clubs and sponsorships.
Today we bring a job posting from Vicon Publishing.
Vicon is looking for an Online Editor to work with the Editorial Director in creating website content. Candidate must be a detail-oriented self-starter who is comfortable in the decision-making role, but also willing to take direction and suggestion from others within the company.
If you, or someone you
Last time we profiled author-turned-publisher Tim Carter, he was selling about 400 ebooks and 200 checklists monthly, ranging in price from $6.95 to $47. This was roughly equivalent to nearly $1,000 in daily sales of downloadable content. His websites were generating more than a million dollars in annual advertising revenue using the Google AdSense program
When I interviewed Chris Kimball for Subscription Marketing in the late 90s, he told me an amazing thing about his business. At the time, he had 250,000 subscribers to Cook’s Illustrated. He also had 65,000 subscribers to the Cook’s Illustrated Annuals—the six issues plus an index in a hard cover binding.
When I inquired about how
University Health Publishing Group, LLC has received the 2006 Mequoda Publisher of the Year Award for its exemplary reorganization and management, using the Mequoda System.
If you take a close look at the Media Pyramid, you’ll notice we list subscriptions and products as two different things. When we say products, we are referring to non-renewal products: books, eBooks, CD-ROMs, DVDs and other one-shots. If you question the value of one-shot products sold online, try this simple test…
“The Internet and its potential really spoke to me,” says visionary publisher Rodney Friedman. “The librarians caught onto it first. They were using it as a tool very early on. I just thought the Internet offered so much more.”
Indeed. Mr. Friedman, a seasoned veteran of both print and online publishing, has experienced a professional life
Publishing companies customarily operate a single website, with free content organized into various product or service areas.
The Mequoda System of content management advocates breaking up the single website into a Mequoda Internet Hub and several independent, yet interrelated, Mequoda Marketing Satellite sites.
The 2006 Mequoda Summit, our third, was the best yet.
Enthusiastic participants traveled to Waltham, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston) from all over the U.S and from as far away as the United Kingdom, Germany and China to attend.
We extend our sincere thanks to all who attended, participated and those who provided us with feedback.
There were
Launching a co-registration campaign is not difficult. The publisher supplies their co-registration partner with his company’s logotype (60 x 120 pixels) and about 10-20 words of concisely written web advertising copy.
Use both as part of an effective internet marketing strategy
A client we had’s highest source of revenue (about $27 over 12 months) was from subscribers acquired through pay-per-click advertising. That’s because about a third of the subscribers acquired through pay-per-click purchased on their first visit to the publisher’s website.
Add value to your internet marketing strategy with co-reg leads
Co-reg names, once considered by some publishers to be of little value, can be surprisingly profitable over time, as we will illustrate.
Co-registration is the absolute cheapest source of active email subscribers available anywhere for your Mequoda System website network editorial hub. Of course, the success of
Note from Kim: In the spirit of today’s opening of the Mequoda Summit, I thought I’d allow my friend and business associate Uli Raible from German publisher VNR to share the thoughts that are going through his mind as he prepares to attend the Mequoda Summit.
Internet marketing strategy using co-registration
A co-registration website publisher specializes in acquiring and reselling the names and email addresses of Internet users who have expressed an interest in receiving information on a specific topic.
With the Mequoda Summit less than a week away, I’ve been thinking about how to kick things off on Thursday morning. With dozens of publishers, marketers, editors and designers flying thousands of miles to meet and discuss how we will make the transition from old media to new media, from single platform publishing to multi-platform
Interweave Press, LLC increases its footprint in the beading and jewelry markets with its acquisition of sixty year-old Lapidary Journal as well as Step by Step Beads, Step by Step Wire Jewelry, Colored Stone magazine, and related events for jewelry making and beading enthusiasts.
How many people does it take to run a publishing website? The answer varies widely from none to 75 across the several dozen website publishers I’ve spoken with over the past three weeks.
None is the answer given by publishers who treat their website as something their team can do in their “spare time.”One savvy editor
Call it damage control, call it public relations. Keeping tabs on what others say about you and your organization is crucial.
I introduce to you Google Alert. Google Alert is a service that monitors Google’s pages (and the entire Web) for your interests, and emails you when a new result pops up. They call themselves the
Whether you call it co-registration, co-reg, co-operative registration or third-party lead generation, it’s a proven method of securing new leads for your paid publication, provided you have a robust free email newsletter.
Co-registration is a process of acquiring permission-based leads or subscribers to an online publication.
Publishers should be using the retail channel—online, offline, or both—and their products sold at retail should, at a minimum, mention a companion website on the package. Even better, the product should contain an incentive to go to the website.
When selling a product through the retail channel, always give buyers your URL and a reason to visit to your website. Include, for example, an offer—either implied or overt—that encourages, requests, or requires the buyer to go to your site, a particular landing page, or an exclusive URL.
Making money online by broadening retail distribution channels
Online sales represented a tiny 2.2 percent of total retail sales in the first quarter of 2006. That means publishers who want to prosper selling ancillary products to consumers should look to broaden their retail distribution channels rather than simply posting additional product offers on their e-commerce websites.
A question we’re often asked is whether the Internet is best used as a product platform or a marketing channel. And the answer, of course, is that it’s both. But most publishers have been very confused about the difference.
Our estimation is that in 2006, publishers should be generating at least 30 percent of their total
Yesterday, we presented the Website Design for Publishers and Authors Bootcamp here in Germany. We spent the first part of the day talking about the different Mequoda Website Archetypes and the Mequoda Media Pyramid. The second part of the day was spent talking about the 14 website design guidelines and reviewing some good (and not-so-good)
At dinner last night with VNR CEO Helmut Graf, Don and I learned that VNR is on path to generate €110 million this year and is expected to grow that number to €120 next year. I believe their growth is due in large part to Helmut Graf’s management style, which we define as true Strategic
I’m writing from my hotel suite in Bonn, Germany where I’m preparing to present 3 Mequoda Bootcamps to German publisher Verlag Norman Rentrop with Don this week.
This is the second time Don and I have presented our content in Europe this year–in late June we had the pleasure of speaking at the SIPA UK conference
Bristol, RI August 10, 2006 – Publishing luminaries from the B2B and B2C sector will gather in Boston on September 14 & 15, 2006, to share tips, techniques and secrets for transforming their single media brands into niche media empires at the third annual Mequoda Summit.
Key metrics are numbers that, when multiplied together, determine costs or revenues generated and their respective effect on profit and loss. For websites, some metrics are more important than others, depending on the site’s business model. Knowing which key metrics to use can be confusing—many site owners find themselves paying attention to the wrong ones.
I turned 50 this past December. We were about halfway thru the process of designing, testing, writing and coding Johns Hopkins Health Alerts and the 29 marketing websites that surround it form the Johns Hopkins Health Network. Stuart Jordan, who is COO for Johns Hopkins Health Alerts and its parent, University Health Publishing, gave me
The major differentiation between the Internet marketing strategy of the Mequoda System and that of traditional publishing models is the use of free content to drive online traffic. By offering free content (e.g., email newsletter subscriptions, HTML webpage access, eBooks or eReports, blogs or Web feeds) through a variety of free and/or paid media sources,
Usability and design are two key factors in publishing great websites. You can have a clear strategy and great content, but if your site is unusable and unattractive, it will be difficult for users to find what they’re looking for, difficult for you to get users to do what you want them to do, and
Customer-driven content management will be common in the very near future, allowing a diverse community of online users to engage, and be engaged, in many different ways compared to simply subscribing to a magazine or buying a book. The resulting environment will be much bigger and more sophisticated than in the past. People instinctively want
Some publishers are mistakenly content with creating a single corporate website that integrates all of its various business units, resulting in an incredibly complicated “uber-site.”
Consider building a Mequoda Website Network, which comprises multiple websites—each with its own URL, separate purpose, and unique functionality—that all serve the same audience with a variety of informational and retail
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.”
Mequoda Media Pyramid is the core of Mequoda System
Building a Mequoda Media Pyramid is the core of the seven Mequoda System habits—an exercise through which you dig down and determine exactly how you’re going to run your company. In a Mequoda media enterprise, the commonality is not the platform; rather, it is the expertise in,
Setting up a strategic management system simply means determining your core values, defining your vision, stating your mission and then clearly and effectively communicating those basics to everyone inside and outside your organization. Employing a strategic management system means setting clear objectives that align with your organization’s values, its vision and its mission—then supporting those
The Mequoda System is a collection of media management behaviors
When operated as a repeating cycle, creates an audience-driven, continuous-improvement media management system. To discover and document the Mequoda System, the Mequoda Research Team has studied the management strategies and habits of hundreds of successful (and not-so-successful) media organizations to arrive at seven best practices, or
More than 80 independent publishers attending this week’s MPA-IMAG Leadership Conference for Independent Publishers in New York City were thinking deeply about staffing and the challenges they face in “getting the right people on the bus.”
For publishers who embrace multi-platform, media-agnostic publishing, staffing takes on a whole new meaning. New media job descriptions are much
Job Posting from Aspire Media.
They’re looking for a VP of Consumer Marketing, someone who can provide leadership and strategic direction to managers of the company’s consumer marketing departments, which include Web marketing, circulation marketing, direct-to-consumer sales of books and consumer events
If you, or someone you know, would fit that description, please read on.
We at the Daily try our best to provide content that will be useful and educational to our readers. One way we hope to accomplish this goal is by occasionally spotlighting ads for jobs that are available in the industry. We hope that these ads help you find the appropriate people for your organization—and perhaps
Google AdWords is the #1 way to test and quickly increase targeted website traffic.
Unlike most other sources used by the Mequoda Internet Marketing System to drive targeted website traffic, Google AdWords can be turned on and off quickly, and when managed properly, produce very predictable results.
One of Google’s corporate missions is to promote the creation of original content on the Internet, so finding a revenue model for quality content was a completely aligned goal. In June 2003, Google launched its AdSense program, through which a network of online publishers makes money directly off their content. Using its proprietary software, Google
While many Internet marketing professionals ignore direct mail as a viable means to increase targeted website traffic, one newsletter publisher devised a test that shows that direct mail post cards can be a very cost-effective way to increase targeted website traffic and sell paid newsletter subscriptions.
Welcome to the new Mequoda Daily – a merger of the Mequoda Café Daily, Mequoda Research Update and Mequoda Media Advisor.
In an effort to take our own advice, we’ve reset our email contact frequency to provide you with one short, easy-to-read tip every weekday under the Mequoda Daily nameplate. Our research says you’ll think the
Unity is a not-for-profit organization based on the teachings of Jesus and the healing power of prayer. Their world headquarters in Unity Village, Missouri, provide a tranquil atmosphere for quiet meditation and a place for all people, regardless of faith or nationality, to worship.
What both types of CEOs have in common is the need for someone to execute their Internet marketing strategy on a day-to-day basis. Enter the Internet Marketing System General Manager and Publisher of your Mequoda Internet Hub.
I have been involved in Internet marketing and publishing since 1995, when I was running an agency called Blue Dolphin Direct—primarily a print direct marketing and editorial consulting firm for a variety of magazine and newsletter clients. It was during that time when the folks at Computerworld had the revolutionary idea that we could sell
How’s your Internet Publishing Strategy doing? Fifteen years after Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, most publishers are still struggling to cope with a permission marketing world where consumers have all the power.
If you’ve made the shift, congratulations and welcome to the brave new world of niche media empires, media agnostic publishing and user-centric
In a Mequoda media enterprise, the commonality is not the platform; rather, it is the expertise in, knowledge of and in-depth perspective about the subject at hand. And those capabilities can, and should, expand across several different kinds of media that are marketed to targeted, qualified prospects and distributed from a master production operation.
Strategic management treats the enterprise as an information producer, and employees are valued for their creativity. Conversely, command-and-control management (your father’s management) treats the enterprise as a machine, with employees viewed as replaceable parts.