Checking in on the magazine strategy fueling digital publishers’ latest efforts
There are core tenets to magazine strategy, but it’s also mutable, malleable, and always evolving. We make it our business to not only develop our own best practices, but also to monitor the trends taking shape in the digital publishing business and pass them on to you.
Email marketing is among our favorites in magazine strategy – we’ve been preaching it as part of the Mequoda Method since we started – and it’s making a major comeback. Meanwhile, measurement and viewability are currently huge considerations for both digital advertisers and publishers, and the Alliance for Audited Media has announced new tools to help all parties.
And, finally, the big question for everybody: how to monetize content. We have our proven approach, but it’s always interesting to see how others arrive at solutions.
MediaPost is on top of these developments and others in recent articles. Let’s see what they have for us to start the week!
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Email Marketing Gaining Even More Popularity as Magazine Strategy
While some may view email newsletter marketing as old-fashioned, many more digital publishers are gravitating toward it as a way to attract and convert readers, reports MediaPost. And for anyone wondering, it works. Just ask a Mequoda Member.
“Publishers are increasingly relying on email marketing to recruit readers to their Web sites, and new research from The Relevancy Group reveals that 41% of publishers use email marketing to drive more than a quarter of their total revenue. Revenue generated by email in the publishing industry is almost twice the average for general marketers, according to the study. Twenty-four percent of marketers attributed email to driving more than a quarter of overall revenue – significantly lower that the publishing industry’s 41%,” Jess Nelson writes.
“The publishing industry also sees higher email engagement rates. Seventy-six percent of marketers responded that they saw open rates north of 20%, while 80% of marketers in the publishing industry said the same. … Einstein recommends that publishers focus on the following six areas to optimize their email marketing campaigns: optimizing at the top of the funnel, showcasing highly relevant content, operating mobile-first, A/B testing, multichannel integration and identifying and leveraging key market influencers.”
New York Times Company Digital Marketing Plan Includes HelloSociety
The Times continues marching toward its stated goal of doubling digital revenue to $800 million by 2020, in this case by acquiring a major digital native agency, MediaPost reports.
“The new acquisition will be integrated with NYTCO’s T Brand Studio, its in-house branded content outfit, in order to make it easier for NYT advertisers to conceive, create and execute influencer campaigns as part of broader branded content efforts,” Erik Sass writes.
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“HelloSociety’s influencer network model has a strong visual component, according to NYTCO executive vice-president and chief revenue officer Meredith Kopit Levien, who hinted at the company’s strategic approach to advertising in years to come: ‘We believe the best digital advertising will increasingly take the shape of high-quality visual programming, and we are building out T Brand Studio’s services and capabilities to deliver on that promise.'”
AAM Releases New Products
The Alliance for Audited Media has announced three new products to help digital publishers with magazine strategy, according to MediaPost.
“Brand View is AAM’s online platform, in which publishers can showcase cross-channel distribution and audience metrics from multiple third parties to thousands of media buyers. The customizable template incorporates graphics and video and will be available to AAM clients later this spring. Available now, the Site Certifier is a verification tool to weed out bot-generated or fake traffic resulting in automated page views. This tool can filter out invalid traffic from Web site and app metrics by cross-referencing against data from Adobe and Google. Those metrics are then published monthly for prospective advertisers to see,” Sara Guaglione writes.
“Later this spring, AAM will launch a media-planning dashboard to help advertisers analyze publishing brands that have been verified using this new Web process. AAM’s Ad Block Gauge tool claims it is “the industry’s first ad-blocking detection technology available from an independent, unbiased third party” to help publishers understand ad blocking usage on their sites, per the company.”
Medium’s Movement Toward Publisher Monetization
Medium’s evolution continues, as its content monetization takes shape, MediaPost reports.
“The new monetization options will not be traditional banner ads, and will probably include strategies for sponsored content, otherwise known as native advertising,” Sass writes.
“For publishers who aren’t ready to embrace native ads, Williams also tells the BBC that Medium is considering paid content options including subscriptions, online paywalls or paid memberships.”
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To read more about magazine strategy and other industry news, visit MediaPost.
