Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Best Way Increase Subscriptions For Digital Mag?

Posted by Anonymous on 3/13/2009 at 6:03 PM ET 125 Points
My company puts out a digital business magazine that caters to C-level executives of small- and mid-sized businesses.

We are trying to increase our audience by a considerable amount in a short period of time. We have access to 100K emails through various partners, and will arrange to send each individual and email asking them to Opt In for a free subscription.

After an initial trial, we've determined that people who do not know our publication really need to see it before signing up (which only requires email address, title, company, and zip code). However, we don't know how to best get our information in front of them.

Here are our options for getting a sample of the magazine in front of people:

1. Email with a link to the sample magazine (with free subscription on the site)
2. Attachment with the sample magazine (with link to the free subscription site)
3. Formatted email containing the sample magazine (with link to the free subscription site)
4. All of the above (Problem: since we are using channel partners email systems, there are various formats that would require specially formatted emails if they were to contain the sample magazine itself)

What is the best way to minimize obstacles for the potential reader, increase exposure to the sample magazine, and maximize opt ins for the free subscription?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Linda Whitehead on 3/13/2009 at 6:19 PM Accepted
    For the last year and a half I was involved in driving opt-in registration to a niche market publication we were producing in-house. From the list of recommendations you provided, I would opt for the first-having a link to the sample magazine. You will undoubtedly have technical issues with the other options when you have many partners involved.
    To increase registration, you may want to provide an additional incentive-some sort of free tool, a whitepaper, something that provides added value.
    Make sure that in the email, you clearly communicate the benefits of the magazine to the target audience, include some testimonials if possible, perhaps a teaser from a compelling article and the incentive loud and clear.
    You might want to consider posting the offer/link to sample magazine on your partner sites and obviously your own.
    In addition, if you have a blog you should definitely promote registration there. If you don't have a blog you should probably launch one that houses some of the content from your magazine.
    Is it also possible that you do a temporary Google ad if you need to push for high conversion in a short period?
    Hopefully this helps.
  • Posted by michael on 3/13/2009 at 6:44 PM Member
    I would always go with an intro e-mail and a link to the website for a free issue.

    Depending on your partners, it may be better for them to do it. You can always pay them based on open ratios

    Michael
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 3/13/2009 at 9:28 PM Member
    Email a link, with different landing pages based on the list segmentation (to get some analytic information).

    Attachments are problematic - you may fill up the user's email box, or have a spam filter flag it. Ditto with a formatted email and sample magazine.

    If possible, give the titles of the lead articles to give people an idea of the content of your magazine.
  • Posted by Neil on 3/14/2009 at 8:11 PM Accepted
    If you have a partner that has direct permission to email the target audience then email is a good option. Email risks annoying them if they have not opted in to receive emails from you.

    But keep in mind if the partner has the permission then it is the partner that should send the email and it should come from them not you. If you do not have permission it is very likely the recipient will perceive the email as spam and that risks alienating the very people you want to get as customers.

    You may already be aware of all this but I thought it worth mentioning. I work for an email service provider so have to deal with these sorts of issues pretty often.
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