How to sell magazine subscriptions online — THE WEEK Magazine example
CASE HISTORY
If you saw this article in The New York Times, Small but Feisty, THE WEEK Grows as Other Magazines Lag, you may be wondering, What’s THE WEEK’s secret to increasing subscription sales?
It starts, of course, with first-rate content. THE WEEK’s promise is on its cover: The best of the U.S. and international media. And it delivers: All you need to know about everything that matters. All in less than an hour. With minimal advertising and maximum insight.
One of THE WEEK’s marketing secrets deploys an idea we advanced some ten years ago and have proven in practice:
a) Create a web page that offers useful information drawn from your editorial content. A specific item that answers a direct question or solves a specific problem.
b) Let that information demonstrate your magazine’s value.
c) Then seize that marketing moment of truth to make an immediate free trial subscription offer.
For example, when a rash of tornadoes were in the news, THE WEEK ran “A guide to nature’s most violent storms.”
Working with Sara O’Connor and Chris Curth of THE WEEK, we placed a key section of that article at the top of this specially-designed web page. And so when online readers searched “tornadoes,” THE WEEK naturally ranked high. In addition, THE WEEK supplemented organic traffic to their dedicated web page with sponsored text links.
The result: An informative web page that works like a powerful funnel cloud. At the top, “all you need to know” about tornadoes draws high-value prospects into a vortex that, in turn, spins out sold subscribers a moment later.
