The world of publishing is moving faster than ever before which is why it pays to put yourself in the mind of your readers. While we all love the feel of print in our hands, is there room for a digital bedfellow in the relationship? Let’s take a look at a few of the options…

Your readers love to have access

Queuing for a printed copy at the newsagents or hearing it land on your doormat is something we’ve all grown up with. In the digital age, there is also room for another way to connect with your readership.

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Digital magazine publication offers instant access which could help you grow in a number of new directions and speed up content distribution:

• Instant Access: Could help your magazine publication become a new viral buy as people purchase it with a quick tap on their phone screen.
• Faster Turnarounds: Adding a seasonal feature or a special edition can be instant once you’ve created the content. This is an excellent way of bridging the gap left by printing and distribution times.
• A New Audience: While print is undoubtedly alive and well, there are plenty of younger browsers who virtually only buy digital. This can help expand the reach of your magazine publication by connecting with a new demographic.

Can digital work with print?

Absolutely! The question is not which one will triumph, but instead how can you leverage both mediums to grow your publication. Print will always look good on a coffee table, and there’s plenty of room for digital when you’re on the move. Imagine if you wanted to take your favourite copy with you but didn’t want to have to roll it up and stuff it into your bag. A digital version you could access with a quick swipe would be an ideal solution.

By producing a digital publication alongside print, you can create a dual approach that gives your customers greater choice:

• Dual Approach: Print and digital can work together to give your publication a flexible and adaptable presence in the market.
• Complimentary Advertising: You could advertise your printed editions online, and vice versa.
• Put Choice on Sale: The consumer of today loves choice more than ever before. By offering two distinct ways, they can digest your content you’ll be seen as an open and progressive publication that caters to its readers.

The art of moving online

The exciting thing about a digital magazine, as opposed to a standard website, is that your customer buys into, a much higher degree. By actually purchasing a copy of something they form a connection with your publication in a way they can’t from a website. Websites continually update and move stories down their feed as they age. A serialised edition allows the reader to feel connected and avoids the temptation to hit refresh in the hope of finding something else to read about.

Moving online is a smart move because it allows you to implement a strategy where you’re displayed both online and at the newsstand. It also allows you to expand into content you can’t offer in print, such as video, and to create greater buy-in than with a website:

• Curated Content: Your readership will feel more connected with a digital magazine than they will with a website feed. The content will feel more curated and concrete as the issue they’re reading won’t change every time they open it. That then helps you grow a whole new readership who exist in the digital sphere.
• Interactive Content: The ability to add videos to your publication is a great way to expand your reach. A popular way to do this is to add a clip from an interview that your article talks about. That is an excellent way of complimenting your print edition because it offers something extra readers can only get by reading online.
• Engaging Content: There’s also the option to add competitions or polls to your digital publication by linking to an external website. This is a far quicker way for readers to engage with your offerings than posting off an entry. Again, this is another way that digital can complement print by offering something you can’t get any other way.
• Repurposed Content: When you move online, you can consider publishing your evergreen articles on your site or on external sites. By doing this, you can monetize your old content and provide your readers with interesting articles at the same time.

Digital ties everything together

Hopefully, this article has given you plenty of food for thought when it comes to digital magazine publication. By offering multi-platform content that you can take anywhere, the idea is to tie everything together. Get the balance right, and your publication will occupy a central role in the daily activity of your readership.