• Here Are the Top 10 Marketing Content Types (With Examples)

Content marketing can be accomplished through various channels and diverse types of content. The content marketing type you choose to employ should depend on your audience’s preferences. For example, your product or service might be best showcased through blog articles, videos, or a how-to guide. We can’t say exactly which content type would best suit your brand’s needs or best hit the metrics of your specific content marketing analytics — that will come through trial and error. We can, however, describe the top types of content that users want to see from brands they support.

• Publishers: How to Develop Effective Retention Strategies

Keeping customers – subscribers, advertisers or both – seems like common sense, but many businesses instinctively spend more time developing new business than nurturing existing customers… The need for effective retention strategies has been thrown into the spotlight for publishers dealing with subscription drop offs following the highs of the pandemic’s stay-at-home shopping sprees. Current record growth in advertising revenues could morph into a similar slump as the cost of living crisis bites harder and marketing budgets tighten in line with consumer spending.

• FTC to Revamp Digital Advertising Guidance

The Federal Trade Commission plans a “start-to-finish reboot” to its guidance for digital advertisers, the agency said Friday. The agency last issued updated guidance for online disclosures in 2013, when it recommended that marketers make sure all terms, conditions and disclaimers were available to people who accessed ads on small mobile screens. Lesley Fair, a senior attorney with the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, stated Friday: “It’s time for a start-to-finish reboot, given the major changes in advertising tactics and techniques that marketers use.”

• 6 Ways to Capitalize on a Challenging Publishing Environment

As was the case for many companies around the world, the coronavirus pandemic brought a plethora of unforeseen professional challenges. For the publishing industry in particular, these challenges included a significant decrease in revenue from advertising and subscriptions, as well as a lack of opportunity for new advertising partnerships. As publishers have persevered through many other changes and challenges over the years, I have no doubt we will continue to do so now. To help, I’ve compiled six tips to help you emerge even stronger than before.

• Bad Sender Reputation? Here’s How to Check Yours and Ultimately Fix It

Common mistakes can hurt your email sender reputation. If you receive too many spam complaints, your reputation goes down. If you send unsolicited emails after buying an email list, your reputation goes down. If you fall into a spam trap or honeypot scam, your reputation goes down. Between sender reputation, sender scores, email deliverability, and IP reputation, it’s a lot to consider in a single marketing strategy. Here are a few basics on how to improve your email sender reputation.

• ‘More than 60% of readers do not return’: What Publishers Can Do to Stem the Tide and Boost Engagement

45% of readers who load an article will leave within the first 15 seconds and more than 60% will not return, according to a new Chartbeat whitepaper.  “The Essential Engagement KPIs for Optimizing Conversion Rates,” delves into the importance of developing an effective audience engagement strategy, the essential KPIs for tracking it, and how publishers can use the measurements to build strategies that will optimize conversion rates.

• The Rundown: Google’s Marketing Live Announcements Signal Strategic Priorities

The flagship Google Marketing Live conference is underway this week in which the ad industry’s largest name typically showcases its wares. This year’s installment is taking place as lawmakers and potential interlopers dial up the pressure. Renewed offerings in the retail media sector, not to mention the upcoming formal introduction of ad units in its TikTok-rival YouTube Shorts, point to growing competition in the sector while last week’s Digital Advertising Act underlines external tensions.

• Everything You Need to Know to Start a Magazine Podcast

Since 2004, podcasts audiences have flourished. There are more than 2 million podcasts with 48 million+ episodes, which provide content targeted at a wide range of audiences. Additionally, there are an estimated 120 million podcast listeners in America, which makes podcasts a desirable advertising channel. Moreover, publishers have an advantage because magazine content seamlessly converts to podcast material. Whether the podcast features interviews with notable community leaders or recaps on city-famous events, this content is engaging.

• 8 Quick Tips for a Perfect Mobile-Friendly Landing Page

With over half of users visiting via mobile devices, your ability to optimize your content for smaller screens is a crucial part of your digital marketing strategy. Otherwise, you’ll lose out on potential conversions, because your landing pages are hard to navigate and/or slower on cell phones and tablets. In this article, we’re going to focus on why you need to optimize landing pages for mobile and how to create the perfect landing page with industry best practices.

• How Publishers Are Future Proofing Their Commerce Offerings for Post-Pandemic Consumers

Amid Digiday Media’s first Commerce Week, publishers gathered virtually on Thursday to hear from one another on their commerce strategies. Execs from Vice, Vox Media, Leaf Group and BuzzFeed joined panel discussions to chat about how — with shoppers at home during the pandemic — they expanded their offerings and where they’re making investments to future proof that side of their businesses. Here are five takeaways from the event.

• ‘Astronomical growth over the last 2 years’: Publishers Prioritizing Digital Transformation

The majority of the publishers surveyed by WAN-IFRA for its World Press Trends Outlook 2021-2022 report are “decisively upbeat about their companies’ future prospects,” says Teemu Henriksson, Research Editor, WAN-IFRA.  81.8% of the 162 publishers from 58 countries say they are optimistic about their business outlook this year. The figure reduces slightly to 78.8% when they are asked to rate their prospects for the next three years.

• What’s Your Mix of Six? Alternative Revenue Streams in Digital Publishing

Nowadays, no single revenue stream is enough to sustain, let alone grow, a digital publication. Instead, online publishers are relying on a combination of revenue streams to ensure they can bring in sufficient capital. While there are numerous potential revenue sources, most companies will find success by creating their own “mix of six” streams that are suited for their individual publications. In the world of digital publishing, there are so many ways to monetize your content that it can be overwhelming. Here’s a simple breakdown comparing potential sources of revenue between print and digital publications in 2022.

• Changing the Subject: The Best Free Tools for Email Subject Lines

If you want your email to be opened, first and foremost you need the best email marketing tools. Digital marketing tools for effective email subject lines are huge time-savers. The subject line is the first thing your recipients see, and it’s what determines if they’ll click to view more. Mirabel’s Marketing Manager rounds up the top free email marketing tools for the best subject lines. From testing to generating, here are our top picks from around the internet.

• Print Newspapers Lead the Publisher Cost Crunch

In the latest wessendenbriefing distributed to senior publishing executives, the challenges confronting print newspapers is laid bare, with surging commodity inflation a clear and present danger. This is overlaid with problems in physical logistics, energy and staff costs – all of which are combining to create to create a perfect storm for the industry. On top of the aforementioned challenges, the print newspaper industry is also coming under renewed pressure from the environmental movement for its lack of green credentials (although, as the wessendenbriefing notes, ‘true end-to-end assessments are much more complex than many suggest’).

• Google’s Latest Privacy Tool Is Also a Useful Feature to Bolster Ad Performance

Google is set to launch a new tool to help users better manage the types of ads they see and precisely who’s behind them, in a move it hopes will placate the privacy and transparency lobby. Dubbed My Ad Center, the upcoming feature will let users of the online giant’s search engine, Discovery tool, and YouTube customize their ad experience on those properties in a variety of ways.

• 6 Ways to Perfect Your Territory and Account Management Strategy

The territory fight: It’s the bane of every publisher and sales manager’s existence. All managers in the publishing industry have to deal with it, but there aren’t many who like to, and for good reason! The best sales reps are notoriously competitive, testing even the best manager’s patience from the very beginning, which is why having good account management rules is important. The challenge is that if your rules are too strict, you won’t get the level of competition necessary to maximize your sales revenue, and if your rules are too relaxed, it turns into a free-for-all where sales reps are often pitted against each other. Then, frequent disputes arise, which wear thin on managers and impact your sales team’s morale. As any publisher knows, it’s not a small issue.

• Deeper Intelligence: How an Analytical CRM Can Benefit Your Business

Every successful business utilizes a CRM to ensure that their strategies are based on relevant prospect, customer, and employee data. Each business requires a different strategy from the next, which makes determining which CRM to use a battle in and of itself. When figuring out how a CRM will benefit your business, you need to compare the different options and see which of these best suits your goals. This blog will help you identify the three main types of CRMs and what you should consider when deciding which is best for your business.

• ‘Building a path to audience loyalty’: Why Publishers Need to Focus on Increasing Engaged Time

Engagement is on the rise, according to Chartbeat’s global audience insights from the first quarter of 2022… “Our recent analysis of audience data from the past three years found that outside of Q2 2020, engagement has not been keeping pace with traffic,” notes Neary. “With many regions seeing incremental increases in engagement last quarter, it will be important to build on this momentum with strategies for increasing engaged time even further.”

• Google Responsive Ads Go Vertical Automatically

Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) will undergo a major transformation in the second half of 2022 — connecting creativity and advertising — to provide a better mobile offering for advertisers. It’s part of Google’s strategy to bring more creativity and automation into advertising. With responsive display ads, marketers upload images, headlines, logos, videos and descriptions. The platform automatically generates ad combinations for websites, apps, YouTube, and Gmail.

• No More Cookies: How You’ll Be Able to Survive Without These Dying Tracking Tools

Renewed privacy concerns are inviting not only deeper, scrutinizing looks at tracking techniques, but sweeping changes by tech companies who essentially hold the keys to the toolbox. In this blog, we’ll look at some of the modern, more common tracking practices, the takeaway if these techniques are ultimately taken away, and what those working in the publishing industry can do to craft and execute even more effective outreach plans in their wake.

• 11 Ways to Create Effective Landing Page Forms

Your form’s design and layout directly impact whether or not your website visitors will convert on your landing page offer. Because these forms are the final step before conversion, it’s important to create a form that’s easy and straightforward. Mirabel’s Marketing Manager will explain landing page form best practices and cover what to include in terms of form fields, structure, and landing page design. Ultimately, you’ll learn how to create an effective landing page form and how to ensure an easy, intuitive user experience for your website visitors.

• ‘You’ve go to bring mobile front and center’: Powerful New Targeting and Measurement Solutions for Publishers in a Post-Cookie World

The value of mobility data is driven by the idea that the mix of mobile apps on a device and how frequently they are used are a strong representation of their general interests and behaviors … Knowing the kind of apps a specific target group uses and at what times would let marketers form more effective partnerships and serve highly targeted content at the right time. “Mobility data enables us to dig deeper into segments,” says Mike Peralta, VP, and GM of Marketing Solutions. “While most people could guess that users of apps like American Eagle, Nike, or Poshmark skew female and younger, with mobility data, we can obtain more interesting insights.”

• The Ad Industry Pursues a Global Framework to Navigate Diverse Privacy Laws

Amid mounting privacy laws and the internet’s largest platforms implementing strict data curbs, internal discussions within the IAB Tech Lab aim to establish an accountability framework to help members better coordinate their policies across the globe. Growing demands for better data protection have created the sternest headwinds the online ad industry has ever faced as governments crackdown on clandestine data flows, resulting in a regulatory minefield most companies find challenging to navigate.

• How a Video Content Strategy Can Benefit Publishers

It’s no secret that generational differences affect the way audiences interpret and absorb information. Social media platforms continue to evolve, and so do the perspectives of users who continue to find new ways to satisfy their needs for both entertainment and connection. This blog post will explain the increasing shift to video content in publishing and explore some examples of publications that have proven to be experts at connecting with audiences through video.

 

• Break Through the Internet: How to Create a Blog Conversion Strategy

By prioritizing blog conversions within your content marketing strategy, you could be racking up high-quality leads and, eventually, quantifiable sales results. By optimizing your blog for conversions, you could also stay ahead of the competition. While there’s no one-strategy-fits-all model for increased conversion rates, Mirabel’s Marketing Manager will dive into key conversion metrics, how to optimize your blog for a high conversion rate, and more.

• 50 Ways to Make Media Pay: Other Established and Emerging Ideas

In this blog, we explore examples of well worn wider business practices that can support revenue growth and new income streams, as well as look at areas that are growing in popularity. Some of these emerging ideas are newer than others, but as publishers look to reduce advertising dependency, so a number of older ideas are being looked at again, or benefitting from more effort and resources being allocated to them.

• Publishers Seek Reader Payments Without the Pressure of a Paywall

Business publisher Quartz has joined the likes of Vox and The Guardian in moving to a membership model, backed by the belief that readers will want to support the missions and journalism of the respective publishers enough to pay them without the pressure of a paywall. And Vice News plans to add a tip jar to gather reader donations this year. But can publishers still grow direct reader revenue without a paywall?

• Talk of the Town: How to Use Events as a Supplemental Revenue Source

Hosting events is a way to supplement magazine advertising revenue. Additionally, events can increase your brand awareness and gain customer responses on how to improve your product. Events are costly but can reap huge benefits for both your magazine and your advertisers. Follow these steps to help your event be as successful as possible.

 

• Why Your Email Sender Reputation Matters, Especially Now

It’s easy to avoid common email deliverability problems, but coming back from a poor sender reputation is tricky. It’s a longer-term process that requires an organic increase in email deliverability. Take a few email marketing strategies from Mirabel’s Marketing Manager on how to improve your email deliverability and sender reputation.

• ‘There is no slowing down’: Exponential Growth in Digital Advertising, IAB Report Shows

Total U.S. digital ad revenue for 2021 came to $189B – a 50B jump in a single year, and at 35.4%, the highest YoY growth since 2006, according to the latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report by IAB and PwC. The increase is 3x compared to the previous year’s 12.2%, and twice that of 2018-19.

• Google’s Privacy Sandbox Plans Include Separate Vetting for Third-Party Code

Apple and Google, the duopoly controlling the $133 billion-per-year mobile app market, typically differ when policing their respective ecosystems; the iPhone-maker is rigid in its controls while the latter typically favors open sourcing. However, the pressing need for more innovative security controls has prompted some to think their policies may soon overlap when it comes to policing third-party code on publishers’ apps.

• The Best Magazine Software for Publishers in 2022

When it comes to magazine media and digital publications, reliable software tools are a necessity. From publishing CRM and magazine design, to circulation and subscription management, this ultimate guide to magazine software is an overview of the most popular software tools in the publishing industry.

• If You Build It: How to Set Up and Strengthen Your Email Marketing List

When carried out effectively, email marketing is one of the most lucrative digital marketing strategies. It offers low costs and a high return on investment (ROI), proving to be a vital asset to your marketing plan and overall company growth. The most important thing to consider, however, is who you’re sending your email marketing campaigns to. Whether it’s your target audience, form-filled leads, or existing customers, an email list is crucial to your success.

• Why Email Advertising Innovation Has Stalled, and How Publishers Can Move Forward

Email has struggled to shine commercially as part of a product mix. For many publishers, it is still an incremental revenue stream providing just a small percentage of inventory. This in turn means it isn’t in line for as much attention and innovation as other areas of the business. Now, however, email is beginning to be seen as a more powerful product in its own right.

• WTF Is the Digital Markets Act?

The value of data has been clear in our digital economy for a long time. UK mathematician Clive Humby described it as the new oil back in 2006. But he qualified his description, saying: “Like oil, data is valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used.” More publishers are collecting increasing amounts of data to grow their audiences and support subscription and advertising sales, but without the refinement of effective data strategies, more data doesn’t guarantee better performance.

• The Highs and Lows of Publishing CRM, and How to Embrace the Complications

Sadly, magazine CRM systems are neither invincible nor undefeated. Keeping an exact score is difficult, as the CRM failure rate has been measured to be anywhere between 18% and 69% over the years … In this blog, we’re going to focus on the common complications of what can feel like an impersonal system, but should be approached as a human-first experience, not only for the customers (who come first in both spirit and also in CRM name), but for the publishing CRM users who craft and maintain that all-important relationship.

• Where the Action Is: How to Create an Effective Call-to-Action

In the Digital Age of endless choice and opportunity, a successful digital marketing campaign is incomplete without a proper call-to-action (CTA). In fact, 47 percent of websites have a clear CTA that takes readers 3 seconds or less to see.  A CTA moves your audience forward. If they feel confident in the product or service you offer as their solution, they’ll want to know the next step.

• In Graphic Detail: What Trends We Can See From Publisher 2021 Earnings Reports

The pandemic’s first year turned the publishing industry on its head, forcing executives to not only halt certain businesses, but to look for new revenue opportunities in an attempt to mitigate some of the impact.  In the second year, however, publishers seemed to have a better grasp on our new reality and saw some businesses come back online, working in conjunction with the primary businesses that kept their companies afloat — and in some cases growing.

• How Publishers Can Build Effective Data Strategies

The value of data has been clear in our digital economy for a long time. UK mathematician Clive Humby described it as the new oil back in 2006. But he qualified his description, saying: “Like oil, data is valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used.” More publishers are collecting increasing amounts of data to grow their audiences and support subscription and advertising sales, but without the refinement of effective data strategies, more data doesn’t guarantee better performance.

• So Happy Together: The Must-Have Integrations Your CRM Needs

CRM stands for customer relationship management, and in publishing or any other industry, it’s capable of streamlining any number of activities and interactions that take place between your company and your potential and current customers. Ideally, a CRM should complete and streamline tasks in the natural environment you’re already comfortable working in, then have the fruits of that labor appear in the shared system for all team members to access.