Who worries most about the money in their bank account? The person with three jobs, or the person with one? You can get fired, laid off, or your industry could go out of business overnight in one job, but it’s unlikely to happen in all three. And that’s exactly why, when running a magazine business, you can’t keep all of your revenue eggs in one basket, either.
Let me recall a story that explains why.
There I was, getting my hair cut at the village barbershop. The barber was a thirty-something woman who was new to the shop.
While making small talk, she came to the inevitable question, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a magazine publishing consultant,” I said automatically, having answered the question that way many times over the past few decades.
She paused thoughtfully, and then commented with some concern. “I imagine that’s a pretty tough business these days.”
“It can be very tough,” I replied, now engaging fully. “Especially if you don’t understand how to manage all of the magazine media platforms that have exploded into the market.”
For the next 20 minutes, we went on to have a lovely conversation about her magazine media habits. She subscribes to and enjoys a number of special interest magazines about cooking, travel, and quilting. And she interacts with these brands and others in print, on her tablet, on the web, and with social media. She subscribes to a number of email newsletters related to magazine brands, including one I had helped launch a few years ago.
As she was finishing my haircut, she looked in the mirror and smiled saying, “I guess the magazine business isn’t what it used to be.”
Perhaps a bigger understatement has never been made.
If you’re thinking about expanding your legacy magazine business, the answer you’ve been searching for is “yes, you should.” No great investor keeps a portfolio of one stock, or even one category of stock. You need to diversify your revenue streams, and the best way to do that is to create new digital products, both subscription and pay-as-you-go, both sponsor-driven and user-driven.
Over the past two decades, our team has guided the transformation of more than 300 magazine and newsletter brands into niche media empires. In every case, we dramatically expanded the number of revenue generation systems in their media mix. While the process is complicated, it’s not rocket science. It simply requires a methodical approach to adding each new revenue generation system to the organization’s larger integrated business model.. Schedule a 30-minute call with our consulting team to ask your most pressing questions.
