5 Ways to Brand Your Editors

May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment


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Don’t make your editors mysterious! Encourage them to be a face for your publication.

Your editors are already building engagement (or should be), but can they also build your brand? YES!

A brand isn’t a brand until you add a personality to the mix. Otherwise it’s a simple physical representation of your product or service. “Face” editors who are willing – and able – to travel, speak publicly, visit news sources in person, go to trade shows, moderate panels and events, and even give keynote speeches, are worth their weight in gold.

A well known editor drives industry prestige, can make your publication seem “bigger” than it is, can impact digital ad sales and sponsorships, and have a huge impact on your publication. How do you get them started? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audience Development, Featured, Publishing Management Tagged With: , , ,

Niche Your Niche: Small Magazines Find New Revenue Streams by looking Within

May 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment


Niche magazines know their niche. But most successful ones don’t just rely on what THEY think they know–they ask their readers what they want.

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Niche your Niche! Here’s one real-world example on how a small magazine looked within and found great success.

Thriving niche magazines are also constantly searching for new ways to meet the needs of their evolving audience. These ideas have to make financial sense and make the readers happy a the same time.

How do you benefit your niche community AND create an additional revenue stream at the same time? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audience Development, Publishing Management Tagged With: , , ,

How the SF Giants and Baseball Can Make You A Better Niche Publisher

May 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment


Every other Friday the Niche Media HQ gods let me write about any random thing I want to write about.

Carl and Sophie at the game

Raving fans Grand Poobah Carl and daughter Sophie having fun at AT&T ballpark.

So today you are lucky I am NOT writing about my new clams and mussels with linguine recipe, which I am also very excited about.

I went to a San Francisco Giants game on Wednesday, as almost three years ago I swore I would pay attention to and adore this team as part of my wedding vows.

It has occurred to me that baseball could be like running a niche magazine. I know it sounds like I’ve been brainwashed by Carl B. Landau, but bear with me:

It’s about teamwork, accomplishing goals and ultimately being successful, right?

Here’s 7 things I learn at SF Giants’ baseball games that could apply to Niche Publishing:

  • Stop. Take a deep breath. Observe those around you, including your competition.
  • Be enthusiastic about your team—buy the hat, wear the t-shirt! (Being a raving fan is really fun, too.)
  • Continually evaluate, play by play, what you are about to do, what you can do, what you ended up doing and how you can do it better next time. (Or become a cool radio announcer like Kruk.)
  • Share a hot dog. Well, at least invite a prospect or colleague to lunch once in a while.
  • Make sure you have a Pablo and a Pence on your ad sales team.  That’s all I’m sayin’.
  • Don’t skip spring training! Dedicate time every year to building your team’s skills.
  • Celebrate the home runs. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Ad Sales, Audience Development, Featured, Publishing Management Tagged With: , ,

The Mobile Imperative: What Magazine Publishers can do TODAY to Optimize for Mobile

May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment


Eric Shanfelt

Eric Shanfelt, Sr. VP of eMedia at HarperCollins

50% of emails are read on mobile devices and 35% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. These numbers are only going to grow, but is your publishing business optimized for this change? What does it mean to be mobile-optimized? Do you just need an app to be mobile-ready? We recently checked in with Eric Shanfelt, Senior VP of eMedia for the Christian publishing division of HarperCollins and a Niche Digital Conference speaker this fall, and we asked him to tell us why a mobile strategy is so important for niche publishers, how mobile impacts readership and revenue for their magazines, and what they can do NOW to be mobile-friendly:

NICHE: What are three things publishers can do right now to become more mobile-optimized?

Eric Shanfelt: The easiest thing niche publishers can do is to make sure their key employees—including their CEO and higher level decision makers—use a mobile device regularly. They especially should use their mobile devices to view their own website and emails…..this will really open their eyes! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Online Revenue, Publishing Management Tagged With: , ,

3 MORE Things You’re Not Doing with Social Media (That You Actually Already Do)

May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment


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Make social media for your magazine a breeze by incorporating what you already do.

Where do you fit in THE TIME to create more content AND use it to engage readers via social media?

I gave you three ways to do just that with things you and your editors already do in my previous post: 3 Things You’re Not Doing with Social Media (That You’re Actually Doing).

Here are 3 MORE existing content sources that you can draw upon to engage readers, re-purpose content, and give your publication a personal touch:

1) Share your readers’ content.

You’re already on Facebook, on Twitter, on Pinterest. Re-tweet, re-post/”like”, and re-pin your readers’ content. Then guess what? THEY will turn around and re-tweet, re-post, and re-pin THAT interaction. Convert your readers into advocates for you and your publication.

2) Share the Web.

You’re already a website visitor. A news browser. A pic clicker. Share what you like. It doesn’t have to be related to your publication, or even your pub’s area of interest. See a funny someEcard? Tweet it. Post an interesting news article on Facebook. Pin a cool photo. Don’t be afraid to give your magazine’s social media presence some personality! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audience Development, e-Newsletters, Featured, Online Revenue, Publishing Management, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Digital Media Mashup: News You Can Use for Your Niche Magazine!

May 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment


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We snagged some digital media updates for you.

Digital relates to just about ALL niche publications these days, doesn’t it?

Here are some recent Digital Media Updates for your niche magazine, all in one handy place in case you have been too crazy busy to do anything else except make phone calls, return one zillion emails and try to tackle that ever-growing “TO-DO” pile on your desk:

MEDIA NEWS:

The Association of Magazine Media Moves Closer to Adopting Digital Standards
Good E-Reader (blog)
The Association of Magazine Media and the Alliance for Audited Media want to facilitate a better road-map for digital publishers to produce more big data. They are making in-roads to adopt a series of standardizations for capturing user metrics and to implement a series of steps to attract advertisers.

Mag Bag: MAZ Gives Publishers Usage Data
MediaPost Communications [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Online Revenue, Publishing Management, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

A Small – But Mighty – Nonprofit’s Publication Hits the Big Time with a New Subscription Plan

May 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment


BibArc

With Mequoda’s digital publishing know-how, this small nonprofit found new revenue in its publications.

One of several Mequoda Group nonprofit clients, The Biblical Archaeology Society was founded in 1974 as a nondenominational, educational organization dedicated to the study of archaeology in the Bible lands. In the 21st century, Mequoda has guided it to a brilliant strategy for monetizing its content online and generating entirely new revenues.

How? The Biblical Archaeological Society now offers not one, but two digital subscriptions. One is for its legacy print publication, Biblical Archaeology Review. And they manage to sell a healthy number of online magazine subscriptions at $19.95 for six issues per year.

The other subscription is for their massive library, including more than 6,600 articles from 35 years of Biblical Archaeology Review. The library even includes articles from two magazines they no longer even publish: 20 years’ worth of Bible Review and eight years of Archaeology Odyssey. That makes for a truly valuable product that appeals to researchers, scholars, archaeologists and Bible history aficionados. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Online Revenue, Publishing Management Tagged With: , , , ,

Master Your Magazine’s Financials! Our 7-Part Cost Management Series Summed Up

May 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment


Is carefully examining and monitoring a magazine’s financial operation the FUN part of publishing? Probably not—at least for most of us.

financial-success

Jim’s 7 part-financial series will help you keep your biz profitable and on track.

But really knowing your numbers and understanding how they interplay will help you survive and thrive in today’s ever-changing publishing landscape.

By now you have most likely read our financial guru’s previous posts in our 7-part financial series. Jim Zielinski has shown you how to evaluate where your magazine is now and what important steps you can take to reduce costs and improve the bottom line for your business. We’d love to hear from publishers what other tactics they have used to reduce costs and make more efficient and profitable magazines. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Publishing Management Tagged With: , ,

3 Things Your Magazine is Not Doing with Social Media (That You Actually Already Do!)

April 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment


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3 easy ways to share with your readers
–that you actually are already doing!

You are the editor of a small-to-medium-sized publication with a limited staff.

You are already stretched thin filling the magazine.

Then came your website.

Then came Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. And more. Using these social media outlets takes time, attention, and content.

“Where am I going to find the content?” you ask. “Where am I going to find the time to post it?”

Surprise! You’re already doing it! Here’s three easy ways to integrate what you already do with your magazine’s social media: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audience Development, Featured, Publishing Management, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

How Niche Magazine Publishers can Evaluate and Manage Organizational Costs

April 24, 2013 By 1 Comment


The thing about niche magazine publishers is that they usually don’t know many other niche magazine publishers. That makes managinID-10093044g organizational expenses and setting budget goals challenging – there isn’t someone else to compare yourself with. How much should you be spending on editorial or overhead? Are there easy ways to bring down other major expenses? Does it all make your head throb?

Never fear! Here’s 5 ideas from Jim Zielinski to get your started measuring and managing organizational expenses:

1.  Editorial: It’s about more than ad/editorial ratios! You also have to look at your editorial costs on their own. A good guideline is at least 100 editorial pages per editor per year with a cost of about $1000 per page.  That is the cost for a real life B2B magazine and also has editors committing about 20% of their time to on-line activities. If you are below this benchmark, take a hard look at your editorial process. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Publishing Management Tagged With: , ,
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