Advertorial, native ad, sponsored content, custom content—tomato, tomahhhto—it's all a similar scenario: a publisher creates and/or publishes content paid for by a sponsor. Regardless of how we refer to it,
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
As we move into the brave new world of digital magazine publishing, one thing has not changed: your people are the absolute key to your success.
Over the past year and
It's hard to determine how to spend both your time, and your resources within a business. The way we look at every decision you make is this:
Is whatever you're thinking
The concept of carefully curated collections of magazine content that can be reformatted into special issues is not new to the publishing world, and was in fact a mainstay of
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
Our primary goal at Mequoda is to build the best subscription website marketing systems for publishers. We want publishers to have a system that attracts visitors, captures their email address,
Contrary to what you've probably been thinking, the ultimate digital magazine is built in a browser, not an app. That's why web magazines are skyrocketing to success because users are
Creating the best subscription website business models starts with understanding your minimum information units—both the free minimum information units you'll use to build a loyal audience and the premium minimum information
You would have to be living under a rock to have not noticed that premium membership programs for publishers are all the rage. After flirting with all forms of digital
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is what we call the process of optimizing your content and your business, for social media.
Typically, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes first. This is the process
Only five years after the advent of the tablet, strategies for successful digital magazine publishing are starting to sort themselves out and deliver measurable results. Of course at Mequoda, we're
The scenario plays over and over again: A publisher invests the time and money to build a multiplatform publishing website, only to wonder why they're not generating as much subscription
A couple of years ago, Don outlined the attributes of a premium content subscription: not a website itself, but the thing that customers buy – the content subscription.
In updating this
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
Digital magazine publishing software is important; which option are you using?
Publishers have been trying digital magazine publishing software during the last few years in hopes of creating the best digital
Isn't most content online an advertorial these days? With so much conversion architecture built into websites, aren't we always trying to convert visitors into subscribers, or get them to click
Audience development personnel have a very specific, and incredibly important job, within an organization. Writing an audience development job description and then finding the right audience development staff can mean
If you look at Shorenstein Center and Lenfest Institute's Digital Pay-Meter Playbook, you'll discover that one key metric you can measure, which identifies high-performing publishers, is your "stop rate."
Your stop rate is
Portals are seen most often because not only are they a profitable model on their own, they’re also intended to build and feed an audience for affiliated premium subscription websites.
We're all about the mighty freemium around here. Create content and give it away for free so that people know how good your premium content is – and they'll buy
A magazine membership includes two primary components; a magazine subscription and a magazine archive, or library.
Magazine subscriptions, of course, are quite familiar to you if you are a magazine
How do you usually promote a magazine? Subscription and newsstand sales are the keys to driving advertiser interest in print magazines, but how does that change in the digital world?
Blow-in
The latest publishing trend isn’t just about magazine publishing in general. It’s a digital publishing trend: Launching digital-only magazines without legacy print publications behind them.
Mequoda has a client who is
We started this year with the launch of Food Gardening Network, a digital magazine publishing system that is built to follow all of our best practices, conduct additional testing, and
Back in the 1990s, many publishers distributed their controlled-circulation or free magazine as a download from their website or something they would send out as an attachment to an email.
The revival of premium digital newsletters has unsurprisingly begun. Some of us have been expecting it for a while. We can see this re-emergence as major brands vie for position
Have you ever thought about digital magazine history? Magazines were originally invented in the 15th century, shortly after the invention of the Gutenberg press. Magazines were different from books because
Mequoda's Haven Wordpress system is a digital publishing and marketing system for subscription websites that will ultimately be one of many successful digital publishing business models deployed online that are
I continue to read with interest how free email newsletters are the hot new thing. A recent Digiday article shared that The New York Times, who has 15 million email
If you're one of the hundreds of magazine publishers who are still giving away your magazine content, it's probably time to stop and think about using that content to sell
If you're looking for new ways to increase online revenues and profits, consider learning from three publishers who we consider to be doing a great job building their multiplatform media
We currently operate more than a dozen digital magazine publishing systems in partnership with some of the country's leading content brands including Prime Publishing, Yankee Publishing, and Cabot Heritage Corporation.
A few weeks ago, I read an article from Peter Houston at What's New in Publishing that said email is the ‘Comeback King’ of digital publishing. That's a far cry
One of the most profitable subscription website business models is a magazine subscription website.
It's not because it's cheaper to build, or brings in substantially more revenue than other business models,
Publishers are embracing digital magazines because users are. And it’s true for B2C and B2B, as well as pure paid subscription, controlled circulation, or both. These publishers are taking advantage
When we talk about multiplatform publishing, some publishers think we're talking about the difference between laptops, desktops and tablets. But those are simply the devices we deliver content through.
We're talking
According to our own surveys, 42.4 percent of adults with access to the Internet subscribe to at least one digital magazine. Maintaining consumer interest over an extended period is a
We recently started working with a publisher who came to us looking to sell more magazine subscriptions. When we started talking about the importance of building their email circulation, the
As we continue to explore the evolving art and science of digital magazine publishing, I thought I'd take a few minutes today to do a deep dive into the technology
The paywall model isn't an SEO-killer, even though it's been billed as one. Technology has advanced a long way since the days when content was either locked, or unlocked. Firstly,
Over the past five years, our executive team has collaborated with publishers, both large and small, to create 35 comprehensive business plans.
Some of these plans covered the complete overhaul
One of the best ways to discover how you can create a successful digital publishing and marketing system for your publication is to look at how other similar publishers plan,
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
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
Increasing your website's Google visibility and doubling or even tripling your website traffic in 12 months is a scientific process. More than 15 years ago, we created a step-by-step program
As a publisher, you're no stranger to tiered pricing. The question is, is your highest priced tier the most purchased item, or the least? For most publishers, when they price
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
