Having a digital magazine app, while definitely a big boost, is not a one-off solution that would ensure the success of your publication. Instead, you should think of it as a key pillar that works with other channels to ensure maximum coverage of the publication’s audience.
In this blog, we’re going to take a look at some of the digital channels that you should use in conjunction with having a digital magazine app.
Website
If you have a digital magazine app, you should also have a website to help promote your digital magazine app online. If you only have the app, then that means you only have the limited capabilities that are allowed for your app store page which means limited screenshots, videos, and text content.
With a website, you have a potential to capture audiences that are searching for your magazine or publications similar to yours. Through a search engine optimised web presence, you can attract potential readers online and provide a possible first point of contact for those wanting to learn more about your publication.
Do you want to increase your readers’ engagement?
Download our free guide and learn all the tactics to stay on top.
The endless possibilities provided by a website such as a way to collect email subscribers, publish blogs and news pieces, have a readers forum, and more basically extends the reach and methods of engagement of your digital magazine with your audience.
Pro Tip: Smart Content
Consider using “smart content” on your website. These are pages on your website that are displayed differently depending on the visitor’s user profile. This means you can tailor how each visitor sees different articles, pricing pages, your homepage, and more depending on their tracked behaviour.
Social Media
Another channel not to be ignored is social media. Depending on the audience that your publication focuses on, there are many social media platforms to choose from. It mostly depends on your specific audience and which social media platforms they frequent.
But remember that it’s not as simple as posting a link of your digital magazine app and hoping your followers click on the link. You need to create some tailored content for each platform.
For example, your posts on Instagram could include highly attractive or engaging images or videos, but during the gap until your publication is released, you could consider crafting Instagram Stories that have nothing to do at all with your latest issue but will be interesting for your audience.
Pro Tip: Contests and Giveaways
Social media influencers, as an interactive way to generate engagement with their audience, regularly run contests with winners receiving a giveaway. It’s a common way to increase likes, comments, and follows. The key is to provide a prize that’s valuable to the audience. Easily it can be a free year’s worth of subscription or it can be products valued by your audience.
It’s almost 2020, and still email shows no sign of losing users. Email remains an essential mode of communication both for personal and professional use. But with it being such a personal medium, it’s vital to have a certain strategy rather than just simply sending the same email to everyone.
At the very least, you will need two different emails, one for your subscribers and another for your potential paid subscribers. For existing subscribers, you need to make sure that they are always informed about new issues as well as keep them engaged with interesting content such as special offers, events, or online content related to their topic of interest.
For potential subscribers, you should use email as a way to entice them with freely available content. This can be some old magazine articles made freely available on your website or perhaps a sample or condensed version of articles in your latest issue.
Pro Tip: Behaviour-based automated emails
Through a marketing automation software, combined with a segmented customer relationship management (CRM) database, you can craft and program a tailored set of emails that are sent based on their past behaviour such as prefered topics read, content types or even article length. Email is a personal medium. Make sure you treat each message as a privilege for them to be read.
Ads and others
While not really a channel per-se, it deserves a mention because of how powerful it can be. Each of the three channels mentioned can support ads to help extend your reach, yes even for email! Just look at Gmail ads as an example. The key here is to ensure that you are only showing ads to those who are interested in what you are offering.
Aside from these key channels, there are also others such as syndicating your articles on other online websites that have a similar audience, creating videos out of the interviews or quotes, podcasts and more.
Pro Tip: Cross-Promotion
Finding synergies and collaborations with other businesses (even if they’re outside the publishing industry) can help you expand your reach to a wider audience. Find a news or lifestyle website that can syndicate your content. Or perhaps strike a deal with a telecom that provides your issues for free along with a mobile subscription.
The importance of an integrated strategy
If you do have multiple channels, another thing not to miss to ensure that you cross promote throughout all of them. Finally, ensure that you have a strategy for each of them. Reusing the same messages across channels is somewhat similar to finding an automatically posted Facebook post from the original Twitter or Instagram – it feels forced, the message doesn’t fit, nor the tone and it just doesn’t leave a good impression.
An app cannot live on its own. You need to promote it in other digital channels to ensure that your digital publication reaches as many potential readers as you can.
