New subscribers: Digital Marketing strategy for Publishers

1. Customer profiling, database and journeys

The start of any digital marketing strategy begins with understanding your customers. The first step is to build customer profiles that include their common demographics, browsing habits, content preferences – basically everything you need to be able to tailor your digital marketing campaigns.

These profiles are formed ideally through surveys or interviews but can also come from your customer-facing team. You should then have a subscriber management system and/or a customer relationship management solution (CRM). The point is to have a database system that covers both potential subscribers that you will focus your outreach campaigns to, and your existing subscriber base to whom you will continue to delight through your content, promotions, loyalty rewards and the like.

With profiles and databases covered, you can then design customer journeys, or the path it takes for potential subscribers to find their way and be convinced into becoming a paid subscriber. It can be something like so:

Profile: DIY Gary > Organic Search for “easy DIY zen garden” > Clicks our free website blog on “10 Steps to Building an Easy DIY Zen Garden” > Pop-up DIY tips newsletter subscription > register in the CRM for marketing automation campaign

With a deeper understanding of your subscribers and potential readers, you then need to have something to entice your digital audience. The best way is to offer a free glimpse into what you have to offer. Here are some ideas:

• A blog section
• Digests or clipped articles from current issues
• Special reports or supplements
• Free issue/subscription promotions
• Limited access sections in the digital magazine app
• Time-limited email series
• Access to old issues

The challenge when implementing these is to provide enough value for your potential audience to not just have an idea of what they could obtain once they are full subscribers, but to not give them too much that your actual subscription becomes less worth it because of all the free content you are giving away.

You still need to create a clear distinction on the greater added value of your digital magazine subscription.

What do your readers think about podcasts? Perhaps your magazine is educational, so a free online course (either through an email course series or a video course) would be very effective in drawing audiences. Or maybe they really like long-form articles. These are the kinds of thoughts that will pop up when coming up with a content strategy.

You also need to decide on your marketing channels. For sure, you need to have a website and social media presence. The difference from publisher to publisher, magazine to magazine, is what are the keywords and topic areas to focus on through search engine optimisation and what social media platform to engage your audiences in.

Most likely, the website will serve as your delivery channel for your content such as blogs, landing pages for your promotions or to house forms that will collect your email newsletter subscriptions. Social media channels will be a way for you to engage with both current subscribers and promote your content to potential subscribers. For these two activities, you’ll be needing a social media marketing or management tool and a content management system.

Then, you have email marketing. Using the contacts you’ve gathered using your content and promotions as a magnet and your CRM as your database, you can schedule a chain of automated but tailored emails to these potential subscribers. Here, you’ll be looking for a marketing automation software solution.

Finally, you should also look at activities revolving around your digital magazine or publication app. Well-crafted and timely push notifications help ensure retention and continuous engagement of your readers. You should also consider your app store optimisation and advertising in your digital marketing activities.