How to make Money with your Magazine
As a publisher, there are many ways to make money off your publications. Here at Joomag, we provide you with all the tools and features to create a successful and profitable online magazine. Depending on who your audience is, free and paid magazines can be both successful. Enjoy the firstof this two part series on “How to make Money with your Magazine”.
PART I: Creating A Profitable Free Magazine
FREE MAGAZINES. Most magazines have a longer shelf life than newspapers, because readers tend to identify more closely with the magazines they read. Free magazines rely on subscribers and advertisers for their success. Eventually, some of these free publications even turn to providing marketing services, giving them new revenue streams. Without a subscriber base though, it can be hard to get advertisers for your publication.
Here are some tips on how to grow your audience using Joomag:
1) Understand your target audience.
By understanding their needs, it will allow you to successfully expand your readership. Our Advanced Analytics helps you pinpoint their needs by providing demographics such as the audience’s geo-location and traffic sources. With these analytics at hand, you can decide where you can focus your marketing efforts on.
2) Use social media to your advantage.
Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are the best and biggest social media channels for audience development opportunities. For example, when you post an update on a new issue that’s out, your readers can share the issue to their chosen social media site. They can select the share buttons on the magazine’s viewer and Newsstand, or even distribute the magazine’s link. It’s great because people tend to like or share whatever peaks their interest – allowing your readers to spread the word and do the work for you.
3) Make the magazine available across multiple platforms.
These days, people are using multiple devices to access their media online. Research shows that one in five people own a smart phone with tablet adoption rates increasing twice the smart phone adoption rate was. With smartphone and tablet adoption growing rapidly, chances are many are accessing your publication through all sorts of devices. If your magazine is not available when clicked on, people won’t be coming back. *(Mobile Support is available with Gold Plans and up.)
4) Set up a subscription for your readers.
Traffic for your publication will fluctuate. And even if your issues receive a high number of viewers, they don’t equate as your subscribers. If you set a free yearly subscription for your publications, it’ll solidify your readership and make it attractive to advertisers.
When you have opened up the distribution channels for your magazine, overtime you will begin to see new readers and more subscribers for your magazine.
MAKE A MEDIA KIT.
As your magazine grows, it’s common for publishers to create Media Kits for their advertisers or sponsors. If your publication is in demand, you’ll want to have one available too. Here at Joomag, we allow you to create all sorts of publications, so you can also create your own media kit.
Generally, a kit should provide information about your readers: how your publication is compared to your competitors, how it’s distributed, a sample of the publication, and information about advertising costs (i.e. How much a quarter, half-page, full page ad costs). The easiest way you can create a media kit is by using Joomag’s cloning tool to make another copy of your magazine and then add the additional information through pages. Once the kit is done, just provide the distribution link to your advertisers and they can view it at any time.
SAMPLE OF SUCCESS.
It may seem like a lot of work but running a successful magazine is no easy task. But we do make it easier for you by giving you all the tools you need to. A free magazine can thrive utilizing the right tools and strategies. The tips I provided earlier are only a couple ways your magazines can prosper. The rest relies on keeping good practices to achieve success.
For instance, Insight Magazine is a great show-case of a successful free magazine on Joomag. It’s a free interactive magazine that is a local guide to the arts & entertainment in Calhoun County, Alabama. They have successfully utilized Joomag’s Platform for their website & social media to actively promote their guide – leading to a strong but growing subscriber base thanks to their readers.
They offer newcomers a free month of their magazines, as a way to entice them. (We even set-up the subscription website for them to use.) Theirmagazine mainly integrates local advertisements and sponsors. Most ads include hotspots, which take readers to full-sized pop-up images, media, and external links. Some pop-up content even has printing enabled to allow readers to print out any deals or coupons. If a first-time viewer likes the content they see, they’re likely to subscribe to a free yearly subscription; where they’ll be informed of new offers and events with every issue.
*Tip: Don’t be afraid to put resources into your magazine. Start learning and testing what you can do with our features. So when your readership does grow, you’ll know what to do to continue that success.
If you enjoyed this, stay tuned for “PART II: How to make a Successful Paid Magazine”. We’ll be talking about how you can sell publications and what a makes a successful magazine.