Email, Web or Social – Which Should You Focus on Most?

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 … passing website visitors. They don’t help you sell more magazine subscriptions or memberships online, since they don’t typically represent your prime audience. So who is your prime audience? The folks who like you enough to subscribe to your free email newsletter!

But what about social media?

We love social media for its search optimization benefits, but we’ve not seen it work as a primary revenue-driver for publishers.

The publishers who use email newsletters—such as Country Living, Harvard University, Yankee Publishing and all of our content partners—know a consumer publication can generate about $7 per subscriber, per year, selling subscriptions, advertising and ancillary products. From Twitter and Facebook followers? Less than $1. And those numbers are lower for B2B.

Email newsletters work incredibly well, plus it’s what you’re good at! You have content to publish, content to recycle, and content to market. An email newsletter is the one place where, if a user wants to see it, they will; Unlike most of the other social networks who are all prioritizing content in user feeds according to their own algorithms.

Websites and social media simply can’t help you build the type of relationship with your audience that keeps them truly engaged and loyal the way content-driven email newsletters can. They’re free, daily, user-friendly, highly-targeted and personally-delivered love letters to your subscribers.

If consumers are passionate about something, they want the newsletter that talks to them about it every day.

To learn more about building an audience for the smallest investment while increasing subscription sales, download How to Increase Your Audience and Decrease Your Marketing Budget today. It’s FREE to download and will show audience development techniques that reduce costs while increasing revenue. Download it today.

If you want to talk more about everything you’ve read, or how to apply it to your own business, schedule a call to talk with a member of our executive team.