How to make money from your magazine on the web

How Trade Magazine Publishers Can Combine Print and Online Offerings to Increase Advertising Revenue

I find it amusing that there is still so much discussion among publishers about "how to make money from online publishing". Some experts are even predicting the end of the "free content" advertising supported web site and trying to work out ways of charging users. Yet trade publishers have been using and understanding the "free content model" for decades! And it's almost as if the Internet was invented for it!

If you think of trade publishing in relation to the Internet in cold, logical terms, you may start wondering why on earth anyone is still printing and mailing magazines at all! The internet does the job so much better for readers and advertisers, and for a tiny fraction of the cost.

But for the time being, trade magazines do exist, and will continue to do so, although their importance and relevance will peter out over time. The key to success now for trade magazine publishers is to use the Internet to leverage revenues, expand their titles' values and serve both readers and advertisers better by focusing on the basics and using BOTH print and Internet channels to support each other.

But first, get focused! As a trade publisher what is it you do? And what's your value to the outside world? Well, you do two things that are of value: First, you provide important and relevant information to a specified audience; and second, you generate revenue from potential product/service providers to this audience by offering them an opportunity and environment in which to reach them. How you do this is up to you and largely irrelevant so long as you do it effectively. Traditionally, we obtain or build a mailing list of "subscribers", sell advertising, print a magazine and post it to them. Since we are really just bringing buyers and sellers together, in the last twenty or so years lots of trade publishers have realised there are other ways of doing this and started Conference/Trade Show divisions. And now there's the Internet - just another channel! But one which directly threatens the print method...

As a trade publisher, however, if you keep your focus on what it is you do, you can pick, choose and combine your methods of delivery as you please, for maximum effect and maximum value. And by combining your channels during this current period of transition from print to online delivery, you can avoid many of the pitfalls of a)The doomed who stick to print and b)The over-optimistic who thought, wrongly, that you can make money from a web site alone.

So, if print is doomed, why don't web sites work in isolation? The main reason is credibility, both with readers and advertisers, and also many of the decision-makers in industry have yet to make the transition online themselves. I've lost count of the number of CEOs I've met in the last year, especially in industry, who won't have a computer on their desk and get their secretaries to print out emails on paper for them to read! They still read their trade magazines.... But a younger generation is shooting rapidly up the ranks, and these guys can't function without their laptop and Blackberry, and wouldn't dream of making a company purchase without checking things out on the web first. And they're already involved in the decision-making process.

So we've established, that at least for a few years to come, the best strategy is to have both a printed magazine and a trade portal/web site. But let's get down to the nitty gritty, what can you do with this strategy to increase revenues now?

By getting an information portal/web site up and running you've already bolstered your print magazine, added vital value to your readers, and future-proofed your business. And if you wanted to sell your title, you've just added a whole heap of value to it and can therefore demand a better price. But you can also enjoy some immediate benefits in the form of instantly increased advertising revenue. And here's how:

For a start, forget about banner ads. Selling ad space on a trade magazine is probably one of the toughest jobs on the planet. The only thing that's harder, is trying to sell a banner ad on a web site. It's everybody's idea of hell! Clients don't understand it, click through rates are abysmal, there's no value - it's an impossible sell. And one of the big reasons why web sites don't work in isolation. So, you don't do it.

Once again, we need to get back to basics, here. Try not to think about selling space - what you're selling here is an opportunity to reach a valuable audience - both your magazine readers and your web site visitors. And with your web site, you're suddenly expanding that opportunity exponentially! And this is where you need to starting thinking laterally and using your web site to create an incredibly valuable "bundle" of communications services that work much, much better than a simple print ad...

First, let's look at what your web site can do for your advertisers above and beyond any leads the might get from a simple print ad:

1. Expanded exposure (and over a longer period). Let's say you've got a client who would normally buy a half page ad, and would normally be looking for a sixth to an eighth of editorial and a free colour sep to go with it. With your web site, you can now offer the same deal, but the editorial can be expanded online to the full press release (not just the sixth or eighth "news story"), plus a full expansion of the ad to an offer page, plus an online enquiry (sent to you and them unlike your reader reply card that just goes to you and then is passed on to them), plus a direct link to their web site, plus added background information linked and published on the web site...plus, plus, plus - all at no cost to you....Plus it's then archived and always available so it lasts for ever! Readers can search for it any time online using your keyword search engine or your reader enquiry number search.

2. Direct traffic for their own web site. All ads and editorial can link directly to their web site (beats getting an enquiry back and posting out an expensive brochure)

3. Faster and higher response levels. Responses are usually fairly instant. When faced with a choice of filling out a reader reply card, posting it to you, and then the details sent on the to advertiser, reader replies can be picked up online, stored in your database, while the lead is emailed instantly to the advertiser. Saves you time and money, speeds up the response, and - amazingly and automatically - your database system starts storing reader information and an enquiry history! How valuable will that become over time!

4. Email marketing. If you haven't already done so, read our article on email marketing. Encourage your readers/site visitors to sign up to your news alert system and monthly newsletter, and you can then offer your advertisers a wide range of opportunities to reach their target market via email. Astonishing value to advertisers!

Now, for the all important pitch. Incredible value in their own right the online benefits above are, they can be difficult to sell on their own. However, when combined with your offline print ads, colour seps and reader offers, they can form part of an expanded "solutions bundle". Suddenly, you're not simply selling space in a print magazine (which has been discounted so steeply you've forgotten what it says on your rate card!), but you're offering your advertiser a sophisticated communications solution which gives them multiple communications routes with exciting opportunities. Now, pricing is in your hands! Suddenly, you have room for negotiation and leverage. With a simple ad, you have only one way to go - down. Now, you can start to add or remove features depending on how much the advertisers wants to spend.

If your advertiser is stalling, you suddenly have the choice to offer an online benefit to tip him over the edge. She's not spending enough - well you can never increase your ad rates, but you can offer an online package along with the ad for an incremental increase in spend. Revenues go up!

Initially, you'll be looking at increasing each advertiser's spend 10 - 30% in a way which was simply not open to you before. What's more, as advertisers start seeing the demonstrable benefits of online promotion, they'll start placing higher value on it giving you the possibility of increasing revenues even further. And unlike printed media, additional advertisers do not increase your costs - you never have to add new sections or increase your pagination!

Oh, and there's one final benefit that I almost forgot to mention - a massive boost in cashflow. But that can be the subject of a future article.