"We've used Mequoda's strategies and techniques to sell thousands of books, videos, and subscriptions."
- Charlie Spahr, Executive Director, The American Ceramic Society
A publisher’s minimum information unit (MIU) is the bedrock on which the best subscription business models are built. Any online publisher who doesn’t bother to understand and identify their MIU will fumble trying to build a successful subscription website.
In this week’s Freebie Friday spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman & CEO of Mequoda, explains why using monthly pricing to accommodate a user’s desire to sample, is just one key to selling more subscriptions. From there you can download How to Use Contrast Pricing to Increase Subscription Revenue to learn more about pricing your print and digital magazine subscriptions.
If you think that your website should be the main driver of your revenue, think again. Email subscribers are responsible for between 60 and 80% of all digital revenue generation, while passing website visitors and social followers make up the balance.
Over and over again, we’ve found that passing website visitors don’t immediately turn into buyers. They simply remain
The most effective blow-in cards of the 21st century aren’t made of cardstock, they’re digital. And since offering a sample of your magazine is less effort for the user when it’s done online, you have more opportunities.
In this week’s Freebie Friday spotlight, Don Nicholas, Chairman & CEO of Mequoda, explains why using monthly pricing to accommodate a user’s desire to sample, is just one key to selling more subscriptions. From there you can download How to Use Contrast Pricing to Increase Subscription Revenue to learn more about pricing your print and digital magazine subscriptions.
Why would you give away content for free, in order to make money? Sounds crazy, but that’s how the smartest publishers we know have grown at an exponential speed.
Selling magazine subscriptions is part of a four-step process that begins with giving away free content.
By giving away free content, like downloadable reports, you can build new relationships
If you could, you’d hire a professional email subject line writer. You would, because you depend on your email list to sell magazine subscriptions or ads to advertisers, so smashing together 50-100 characters on the fly every day is a stinky approach to accomplishing those goals.
Have you ever received one of those birthday cards in the mail from one of your “funny” friends, where you open the envelope and glitter basically falls everywhere?
That’s close to how customers have always felt about magazine blow-in cards that try to sell magazine subscriptions. Maybe the cards don’t nestle themselves into the cracks of your hardwood floors to remind you forever of the hilarity, but they do fall over the floor whenever an innocent reader opens your magazine in the magazine aisle at Barnes & Noble or the end cap at the grocery store.
Several years ago, we were working with consultant Mark Young on some strategic issues for a joint investing publisher client. Mark said to me, “Don, you’re always giving examples of the perfect Mequoda operators, but does this work for other kinds of companies other than consumer magazine companies?”
As you may have noticed, Mequoda is a firm believer in the power of email newsletters as a marketing channel – so much so that a Mequoda subscription website is built specifically to give away content and harvest email addresses, rather than sell magazine subscriptions.
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
With all the talk about tablets and digital magazines these days, it’s tempting to think of the desktop or laptop, and the website you worked so hard to establish back when those were your only options for publishing on the Internet, as buggy whips – soon to be obsolete.
After all, our 2013 Mequoda Tablet Study found that a full 55% of respondents own or have access to a tablet. Yes, that means you’d better be building a digital edition of your publication.
Bristol, RI – September 29, 2009 – Get the latest Twitter advice in a new FREE special report from the Mequoda Group, a company that provides best practices for online publishers and marketers. In it they explain how a social networking and micro-blogging service can promote your digital publication and be a significant source of new email subscribers.
Don Peschke, founder of August Home Publishing, discusses how his company is meeting its mission of “surrounding our customers with service”
"We've used Mequoda's strategies and techniques to sell thousands of books, videos, and subscriptions."
- Charlie Spahr, Executive Director, The American Ceramic Society
"We have used the Mequoda Method to deliver a real-time online magazine that features individual issues and our amazing archive of premium content."
- Paul Belliveau, Vice President New Media and Production, Yankee Publishing
“We’ve used these techniques to boost sales of our higher-priced products, and dramatically increase our multiplatform subscription revenues.”
- Susan Laden, Publisher, Biblical Archaeology Society
"Adoption of the Mequoda Method has produced three benefits for us. First, we are seeing sustained growth in subscription revenue. Second, we monetized a content archive with two decades of news and information. Three, our new customers have immediate access to the content they seek."
- Robert Michel, Founder, The Dark Intelligence Group
"We have used the Mequoda Method to increase our revenue by more than 60% while completely eliminating direct mail from our marketing mix. Unsurprisingly, this has allowed us to dramatically increase profitability and our ability to fund our mission-driven programs."
- Gail Odeneal, Director of Marketing, Program on Negotiation Harvard Law School
"We have used the Mequoda Method to create two successful online magazines that generate subscription revenues that are completely independent of our advertising driven legacy business model."
- Stuart Hochwert, Founder and CEO, Prime Publishing
"We know there’s demand for individual subscriptions based on our limited marketing efforts, but we needed the resources of a top-tier marketing organization to effectively and aggressively scale our individual subscriptions business. Mequoda has the best business processes we’ve seen for getting the job done."
- Hampton Stephens, Publisher, World Politics Review
"Mequoda’s knowledge of the fundamental practices and technologies at the core of the media business is unsurpassed by any other group of consultants I know. If you’re in the media industry, Mequoda would be a valuable ally."
- Bryan Welch, Publisher
“The team I worked with at Interweave successfully transitioned a leading print enthusiast media business into the digital age. The folks at Mequoda were an important part of this team and the company’s most valued strategic advisor. We could not have done it without them.”
- Clay Hall, Former CEO, Interweave
"With more than 3.2 million monthly unique visitors, Mother Earth News has increased its revenues 39X over the past 10 years, using these strategies.”
- Bill Uhler, Publisher, Ogden Publications
