Know What You Want at the Outset
During SIPA’s free-for-members Webinar last week—titled Going Mobile for Publishers: Developing a Content-Delivery System for an Increasingly Portable World (and now posted on our Website!)—Andy Swindler and Joanne Valentino waxed technologically about the realities of going mobile. Swindler and his Astek team have worked with Valentino’s group, The Medical Letter, to format their publications for mobile. The fact that this was a true case study made it invaluable. Swindler will be following up and answering further questions on mobile during SIPA’s weekly Wednesday TwitterChat, taking place at noon (Eastern time) tomorrow. To participate, just log onto your preferred Twitter client and search for the hashtag #NicheInfo. Just make sure you include the hashtag in your tweets as well so others can see their conversation! (We use TweetChat.com.)
There are a lot of choices right now when it comes to developing apps for mobile, Valentino said. Prices can range from $2500 per platform to more than $35000. She spent a great deal of time looking for the right vendor. (She first met Swindler when sitting next to him at a SIPA Conference last year.) But once she made the decision, things progressed quickly. They signed a contract in January, began work in February, and are now close for the approval process in the app store. “We did lose time because people changed the spec document,” Valentino said. “It’s better to start by knowing exactly what you want.”
“Joanne hit it right on the head,” Swindler said. “We know plans can change but try as much as possible to know what you want” at the outset. He said they built all four apps [iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry] simultaneously, but “may have gotten one done sooner if we did one at a time.”
Valentino said that the 30% that Apple now takes from subscriptions weighed very much on her mind. “Originally when we designed that app, we had several links that led to our renewal page,” she said. “But then we had to go back to drawing board and remove the links. That was the safer thing to do if we’re not prepared to share revenue.”
Swindler acknowledged that Valentino preferred to play it safe with Apple, and recommended Google Checkout as a possible alternative. “There are some opportunities to manage subscriptions through that,” he said.
While valuable Webinars such as this one are specific member benefits, tomorrow’s TwitterChat is open to members and nonmembers alike. Many important issues were raised at last Wednesday’s TwitterChat, red-carpet premiere. Platforms were much the talk of the hour. It became quickly apparent that direct mail lives. Denise Elliott from Kiplinger wrote that almost all of their renewals still come through the mail. Lindsay Konzak of Gale Media wrote that multi-platforms are the big issue right now for them. “Our customers want it on multi plats for free but it costs us lots to produce it.”
The use of videos also came up. Media Briefing wrote: “We think of our YouTube channel as a marketing opportunity and also when we post [videos] on the site and Facebook.” Matt Salt, SIPA’s executive director, wrote that SIPA does that for pre-event chats with speakers and that “…every and post is a chance to mention relevant events/products.”
With its TwitterChats, Webinars, marketer and publisher dinners and roundtables—there’s a Washington, D.C., Chapter Publishers Dinner on Nov. 2–SIPAlert Daily articles, monthly Hotline newsletter, UK Publishing and Marketing Summit (Jan. 25, 2012), SIPA Munich 2012 and Annual Marketing Conference in Miami (Dec. 7-9), SIPA is doing everything it can to reach its audience wherever and whenever they want to be reached. Please join our conversations when you can. They become that much better and beneficial to all when more people are participating.
“We know we have to go mobile but what are we really trying to accomplish?” Swindler asked during last week’s Webinar. Tweet in tomorrow for some more answers.
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SIPA Weekly TwitterChat
Wednesday, Oct. 26, 12–1 p.m. Eastern time
Log onto your preferred Twitter client and search for
the hashtag #NicheInfo. You then can join the conversation
from there (just make sure you include the hashtag in
your tweets as well so others can see their conversation)!
Get more answers to your mobile questions.
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