In digital marketing, you might have been told "free" is a dirty word. In subject lines, it could get you blacklisted (it won't) or in social media, it's over-used (free
Most of the subscription business model facts you usually hear likely pertain to percentages and numbers that don't apply to you and instead reflect someone else's business. But the ten facts below
These days, when people talk about newsletter best practices, they’re usually referring to free email newsletters, used as a marketing tool to drive inbound traffic to websites. But because some
Magazines are designed to be read from front to back. They have covers and a table of contents. Magazines are arranged in a series of articles. Portals are not meant
“Our global audience is not interested in another local news source...Our signature journalism is the biggest draw.” These were the words of a former associate managing editor at The New
From time to time, it’s a good idea to sit down and think about the value proposition you provide prospective buyers in your subscription marketing efforts. When you are running a
In our last Mequoda Magazine Consumer Study, we discovered that out of all the paid types of magazine content available online, adults in the US pay for news, most. If
When walking in to a massive library or bookstore, it's hard to decide what to look at without becoming instantly overwhelmed by all the possibilities. The same goes for an
“I simply don't understand the opportunity,” one veteran magazine publisher told me at a recent industry conference. “My magazines are sponsor-driven. My issue archive includes hundreds of back issues. I
We often hear about predictions for digital magazines; how they will grow, the revenue generation expected throughout the industry and the time frames associated with these numbers.
These predictions are important,
Are you still selling your magazine on one platform? Sure, print magazines smell good and even look good on a coffee table, but the most successful subscription and membership marketers we
One of the biggest moving targets in Mequoda best practices is the metered paywall.
The biggest question we get is, how much free content is enough? And you have to be
Last week I was emailing back and forth with my friend and colleague Jack Edmonston, who often sends interesting news my way with some thoughts to pontificate on. This time
In theory, it should be very easy to use basic subscription marketing principles and write a direct mail campaign for content that already exists, rather than content that does not.
Twenty years ago, “above the fold” only referred to the upper half portion of a newspaper. Now, above the fold can be applied to many things, especially a website or
In the past we have reviewed how to use the concepts of Six Sigma in subscription marketing and testing and then creative offer testing for subscription pricing. We have shared the success
Did you know that a sunflower is not just one flower, but more than a thousand small flowers, all stuck together on one head and a single stalk? Even what
Few things fascinate subscription website publishers more than the relationship between cost and revenue for the various operational centers inside their business. We have long known for instance, that editorial
If magazine libraries and magazine memberships are being combined with magazine subscriptions to transform the publishing industry into a growth medium, magazine libraries are the nexus of this trend.
In this
In the words of David Ogilvy, "a good advertisement is one that sells the product without drawing attention to itself." And when selling a web magazine, one of the best
If you're a publisher, or are selling a subscription-based information product, it's likely that at some point you'll be looking for a new membership site developer. We know this because
A magazine membership includes two components; a magazine subscription and a magazine library.
Magazine subscriptions, of course, are quite familiar to you if you are a magazine publishing company— they
We've discussed how savvy publishers are combining their legacy magazine subscriptions with magazine libraries to create magazine memberships using the Internet.
Now we'll we take a look at how publishers can use contrast pricing and
Headlines have been brimming lately with news publishers like The New York Times, The Guardian and Wired taking back their profits with paywalls and paid content. The New York Times
In recent years, publishers have been testing paywall pricing, and for good reason. Hearst, for example, tested a paywall that changed based on what the reader was consuming. Instead of
Would you like to triple the response to your current email promotions and sales pages? Because that's exactly what we're seeing happen when publishers stop promoting their magazines and start
Unlike most other marketers, those in subscription marketing can sell the same product at different prices each time it’s purchased. Our customers buy a new subscription from us at one
We are big proponents of both web magazines and web libraries, plus various collections and special issues that can be derived from them to create robust membership products.
We recently had the privilege
If you’re making plans for your own digital publication, it behooves you to also plan how to make money from it with strategic digital magazine marketing.
After all, buying a list
Some of your customers will want one of your products, and others will want more. But how many will buy the first and never return, and how can you generate
It’s amazing to look back to just a year or so ago, when digital magazines were still something of a novelty. Today, it’s a given that print publishers will soon
While the challenge of choosing the right subscription and single copy pricing strategy is not new to magazine publishers, it’s virgin territory for most subscription website publishers and many publishers
A web magazine library is an archive of your content going back many years, likely since the beginning. When done right, you can upsell a substantial number of would-be magazine
As you know, having an online portal for your information is essential for growth. Using the web to publish and distribute content and not just serve as an extension of
If you’re a publisher who maintains multiple websites, making the correct choice of a subscription management system is one of the most important decisions you'll make, because doing it over
When you think of the top magazine companies, you probably imagine Time, Cosmopolitan, or Better Homes & Gardens. If you publish a magazine, try to instead think of the magazine
“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving,” said David Ogilvy, known as “The Father of Advertising” the “Original Mad Man”.
Even our best-performing publishing partners—who publish on
Think selling magazines is hard? Look at Netflix. They've been able to get customers to pay $9+ per month as a membership website for over a decade. And Disney+ recently
At Mequoda, we’ve crunched the numbers and discovered how beautifully email newsletters work to drive revenue. It’s not the traffic that comes to your site, which is the prevailing view
Improving email revenue? I certainly didn't learn that one in school, and you probably didn't either. In fact, in four years of journalism school, I never even had a single
An effective technique in information marketing is "self-liquidating premiums"—having the value of the premiums exceed the entire purchase price.
For example, let's assume you have a product, perhaps a downloadable ebook,
Online magazine design has taken a number of steps forward in recent years, starting with the launch of the first-ever web magazine in 2014 called I Like Crochet. An online
In the past, we have reviewed how to use the concepts of Six Sigma in subscription marketing and testing and then creative offer testing for subscription pricing.
We shared a story
At Mequoda, we have the privilege of marketing more than 200 premium subscription products including magazines, newsletters, and memberships that spark a myriad of ideas on how to create value.
You may be sitting on three significant hidden assets that you can use to build your email marketing lists quickly
Do you realize that you might be sitting on a few
When we look at the most successful multiplatform publishers we know intimately, like our publishing partners and close colleagues, we are usually able to determine what sets them apart from
Your membership website is made up of a variety of parts. To accomplish the goals of increasing your audience, revenues, and profits, all of those parts need to talk to
This week we're focusing on engagement, in How Can Engagement (E) Be Improved? The ‘E’ in the Mequoda Method's ACEM, is really about retention, and the idea that if you’re
