Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Live Coverage: Mequoda Summit Session 2 – Using New Media to Expand Your Brand

• April 9, 2008

How the Web’s Top Publishers are Using New Media to Build Loyal Customer Relationships

This session is based is the strategy of expanding your brand by distributing your content and repurposing via many platforms. The reason why new media is so beneficial to us is that it enables us to generate revenue by simply recycling existing content.

What is a Minimum Information Unit?
A minimum information unit is where your content comes from. If you are a knitting magazine who redistributes your content online, then your minimum information unit might be a pattern. Ask yourself where your content originates (not necessarily where it’s published first) to find out what your Minimum Information Unit is.

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Don recommended that publishers ask themselves:

  • What is my Minimum Information Unit?
  • Is my MIU evergreen or perishable?
  • What does my MIU’s lifecycle look like?
  • How to make as many as I can with as much repurposing as possible?

Example: You publish an interview with a well-known celebrity. You print the interview in your blog, but since you recorded it, you then offer it as a podcast. Another example is that you publish a report, then decide to turn it into a webinar.

This podcast, could be free and sponsor-driven or could be sold on iTunes for $1.99. Your webinar could be a paid add-on for your report, or it could be repurposed even further and turned into a video seminar on DVD and sold with or separate from the report.

Don covered case studies on America’s Test Kitchen, FDA News, The Goals Guy, Early to Rise, Knitting Daily, and Mequoda Daily. Below, Don describes the lifecycles of each of these publishers. They don’t necessarily include all of their platforms, but the repurposed content:

America’s Test Kitchen:
Recipe > Magazines > Books > TV Show > Website > Membership Website

FDA News:
Tip > Digital Event > Encore Performance > CD > Management Report

The Goals Guy:
Idea > Consulting > Live Events > CDs > Seminars On-Demand > Books > Reports > Website

Early to Rise:
Idea > Books > Website > Email > Trading Services > Live Events

Knitting Daily:
Pattern > Magazines > Books > Website > Email

Mequoda Daily:
Concepts > Consulting > Live Events > Webinars > DVDs > Reports > Books > Website & Email

Don noted how America’s Test Kitchen repurposes their magazine and book content for television and DVDs as well as though email. To boot, about 25% of their magazine subscribers still opt into a separate subscription to a once-a-year collection that includes all of the content from that year.

If that’s not impressive enough, they also repurpose their television content into a video on-demand membership website which features clips from the TV show. Don notes that “more pages drives more links, which drives more audience” which is the downfall of America’s Test Kitchen being that much of their content is behind a firewall including many recipes that need an email address to access.

Towards the end of the session, a mass debate erupted about membership websites and downloadable PDFs. One attendee asked about security of online PDFs and worried that users may pass them along via email. Don commented that 0% is not your toleration for pass-alongs, it’s more like 5%. This is because you don’t mind a few people passing along once in a while as long as there is a link to your website and promotions for other products in that PDF. Another attendee noted that publishers can password-protect their content and limit opens by IP address if you want to be a stickler.

The debate about membership websites came down to the fact that they perform well for some publishers and less well for others. Publishers like FDAnews who have current information that is needed on a daily or weekly basis makes sense, while membership website with a collection of books may not be cohesive enough for some viewers, especially in the B2B space where prices are high and users are more likely to want instant gratification buying your books as a one-off deal.

Mequoda Summit Coverage

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