Note: this article was written back in 2005. Seems to be valid today.
Old style communication: the hardcopy
Who could consider printed magazines as an additional revenue flow or a brand awareness activity? Hardware shops. Online portals. Community forums. Could be anybody with a strong message to the market.
If you are into publishing printed magazines, there are 2 main revenues flows to be considered:
- Readers subscription
- Advertising pages
How to increase readers subscription revenues
Let’s consider you have a magazine on architecture.
The basic way to have a growing revenue from your magazine is to cash more money from your readers. While increasing the magazine cost is not an option, we might think at the following steps to reach more readers:
Think about the places your readers are more likely to be. Make sure your magazine can be found there.
- At hardware shops
- At banks, trying to get a loan
- At Real Estate companies
- At construction companies
- At the city hall, for getting the construction approval
- In train stations, or any place that is usually crowded, like bus stations, or even hospitals
- Hotels. A free copy of the magazine might be available for the travelers
- Architecture companies and associations
- Is it summer? your clients are probably having a vacation right now. Place your magazine in their hotels
- Construction conferences and events
- Any place where potential future home owners might be
- On the Internet. Are you having an online version of the magazine? make one, and sale the subscription for the online version
Analyze who else could be selling or freely distributing your magazine. Make bundle or distribution contracts.
- Other publications with related readers. Make a bundle with them
- Hardware shops could be offering your magazine to the current clients
- Schools and architecture related Universities
- Libraries
- Passenger transportation companies – give their clients an extra service to the travelers – in trains, busses or maybe airplanes.
- Your advertisers, paying big money for their promos, are willing to distribute the magazine – to make the most of the investment in advertising. Why not send a copy to their sub-distributors/resellers?
What would make your magazine more interesting?
- Discount coupons for the manufacturers products
- Included Cd’s with the electronic format of your content
- Contests with prizes and competitions
- Make targeted discounts. For example, dentists might be willing to buy your subscription to have your magazine in the waiting room. Why not to have a special discount for them?
- Children are an important source for future revenues. Why not include some pages to be drawn by them? The parents will be “forced” to buy the next issue 🙂
- Why not organize a drawing contest for the children? The most interesting building would be featured in the next magazine.
How to increase revenues from advertisers
First of all, the advertisers will need to find out that you have a large number of targeted readers that could buy their products. Make sure you have the media kit to present who is reading your magazine. How can you have your advertisers pay more money?
- Propose them to make contests
- Make some supplemental pages to be added to your regular magazine. Sometimes you could include some flyers to present only their products – in a separate envelope coming with the magazine
- Include a CD with their company/products presentation with the magazine
- Put them on the cover
- Publish dedicated issues for them. Like “August is the X Manufacturer month”
- Organize events for them. Exhibitions, press releases, conferences
- Make an online version of the magazine and put their adds on the site
- Make contracts with advertising companies
- Make contracts with ads designers and branding/image companies
- Publish case studies from the manufacturers