Bristol, RI – November 17, 2004 – With the holidays fast approaching, IMR’s Usability Expert Roxanne O’Connell thought it would be suitable and enjoyable to navigate cooking websites. She was determined to find out how a publication could manage to charge money for something that is abundantly offered for free on the Internet.
What should you consider when starting a subscription-driven or membership website?
The answers are not always obvious, even to a seasoned print or electronic publisher. Starting a new website is very different from running an existing property. Over the past 10 years, my partners and I have worked on over 100 successful website startups, as well as several that were not successful.
Subscription site success is heavily dependent on email. Subscription publishers use email to keep members informed about timely information, new site content, and upcoming events.
There’s only one problem: the email must go through—but often doesn’t!
For a newspaper with only a third of the circulation of The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution does an excellent job of keeping their website easily searchable and user-friendly. The New York Times’ nytimes.com and The Washington Post’s washingtonpost.com tied for a close second, while The Philadelphia Inquirer’s philly.com came in last place.
With more than $40 million in annual online print sales, The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.com wins the IMR Marketing Excellence Award 2004 for Selling Print Newspaper Subscriptions Online.
Amazon affiliate Bookreporter.com has won the IMR Business Strategy Award 2004 for using best strategies and practices to make money selling other people’s books online. The other top 9 sites rated in the study do well, but would do far better if they followed a few simple rules.
Bristol, RI – September 23, 2004 – With larger magazine publishing companies falling to the wayside, the Imagineers at Disney Publishing’s Discover.com have been awarded the IMR Usability Excellence Award 2004 for Best Consumer Magazine Website.
Digital Media Advisors (DMA) announced today the launch of their first online publication, Internet Media Review: The Journal of Online Bristol, RI – September 14, 2004 – Marketing & Publishing. IMR’s mission is to help print and electronic publishers understand and profit from the best practices used by the Internet’s most successful online publishers.
Consumer magazine websites are as diverse in content and execution as the magazines they represent. Some offer robust content and interactive functionality that begin to take advantage of the promise of online publishing, while some… do not.
Domains, IP addresses, host names, sites, and URLs have always been the source of misconceptions, even among advanced Internet users.
SmartWhois is a great starting point for an online investigation.
What is the difference between a domain name and host name? What do those numeric IP addresses mean? How can I learn who owns a domain? Can I trace a user by IP address?
You need not spend a lot of money to market your subscription website, but you will need to follow these steps if you hope to have critical and financial success.
Magazine publishers, book publishers and membership website publishers are re-inventing the revenue models for cross-selling information.
A recent article in Community, the quarterly newsletter of Barnes & Noble Booksellers, explains how a simple “get-to-know-you” meeting between the editors of Good Housekeeping and the magazine’s new book publishing partner, Sterling, led to a great book idea.
“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
