Build your multiplatform magazine marketing team that can grow an audience and subscribers at the same time
Publishers have been making organizational changes to deal with the realities of the modern marketplace, and while we find there are six organizational teams – management, content, marketing, revenue, operations, and systems – today let’s review modern marketing teams.
Your multiplatform magazine marketing team plays a vital role in doing two critical things in any Mequoda system: building an audience and growing a subscription base.
Your Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for managing and expanding the size and profitability of marketing efforts, mainly by making greater use of marketing techniques, both on and off the web. The CMO will also be responsible for analyzing results of marketing efforts to guide the way to continued return on investment. In addition, the CMO leads the marketing team in continuing to build an audience for the publisher’s products.
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A key member of the marketing team is the audience development editor. This person is responsible for generating the free content that will reside on the portal and will be used to attract an audience through search. He or she also works with the other members of the editorial team to ensure that the content they generate supports the organization’s search engine goals.
The marketing team is responsible for building an audience through organic search by populating and overseeing the portal. The portal is packed full of search-optimized free content that will draw people to the website. Once there, visitors will be offered a free report, or white paper, in exchange for their email address.
Your marketing team helps keep that flow moving by contributing key content and ensuring that the free reports are aligned with the topics featured on your portal.
How this all works within a multiplatform magazine organization
If you’re new to Mequoda, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with Green Gardens Network (GGN), our composite case study, and CEO Rose Harper, the embodiment of all our clients whose “example” we use as a teaching tool without revealing real publishers’ names or data.
At the Green Gardens portal, when a user lands on a story about types of roses, they are also offered a free report on growing roses.
The marketing team will also develop the efforts on additional outside channels – such as social media campaigns, content syndication, TV networks, radio, or public speaking. All of these channels can be used to drive traffic to the portal and increase email subscribers.
Once an email address is captured, the marketing team will be charged with keeping those users engaged. A steady stream of excellent content, sent daily, will keep email subscribers on the hook and keep the publisher top of mind when it comes time to buy.
Your marketing team is responsible for all these activities that are designed to grow your audience and keep them engaged.
In addition, the marketing team has primary responsibility for selling directory listings and subscriptions. Smart publishers provide some directory listings for free, but offer paid listings for those service providers who want to enhance their listings with longer descriptions, photos or video. The marketing team creates and executes an integrated marketing plan that will use direct mail, email, text ads, and other channels to increase paid subscriptions.
For Rose Harper, the Green Gardens CMO will be building her audience first by focusing on search engines. Optimizing the content on her free portal is a tremendous driver of traffic, and will bring many new potential subscribers to her website.
We will also leverage her presence in social media by posting content on Facebook and Pinterest. Both are highly visual mediums and she can leverage her great photography to drive more people to her free portal.
We also believe Rose has a real opportunity to syndicate her content. Many newspapers and websites are looking for great sources of content, and Rose can use her expertise to publish in these channels and drive more traffic.
Rose should also continue to use newsstands to distribute her magazine. Newsstand sales are not a big driver of revenue, but they can be great for keeping your brand top of mind and for continuing to drive people to your website.
The marketing team will also be calling product and service providers to populate the Green Gardens directory. Upselling these providers into enhanced listings will drive some revenue in addition to providing a reader service.
Gaining additional subscriptions will require an integrated marketing plan that is part of the organization’s overall revenue strategy … a topic I’ll cover next week as part of this series.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll dive into all of the different organizational teams that make a successful multiplatform magazine media company. If you’d like to talk more about building yours, schedule a time to chat with us.
