Using magazine content to sell subscriptions online

Magazines have plenty of content, and most can do a better job of using it! Offering a nicely re-packaged piece of formerly published material to your social media followers, your website visitors, your email prospect list is the recipe for selling more subscriptions.

Here are some tips to get started:

Use analytics to uncover the most consumed topics on your website as a place to start brainstorming download ideas

Create downloadable products for those topics — these do not have to be book-sized publications. Sometimes valuable content can be a few pages, or a few articles, even a valuable checklist.

Remember that you are not trying to sell subscriptions directly from these free downloads, but that you are gathering email addresses for future promotions.

That said, don’t hesitate to sell subscriptions from inside the free download, and in the email that you send the link to the download.

Off the downloads on your website, social media, and in email promotions.

Keep testing to find the “secret sauce” — try to build up a library of easy-to-update or evergreen topics to promote over and over again.

Realize that your numbers may be small at first, so don’t expect thousands or orders to pour in. However, with discipline, careful testing, and keeping at it, after a year or so of testing this should yield a significant source of new subscriptions.

Here is an example of an exit pop promoting a successful lead magnet produced by Birdwatcher’s Digest from articles published in their magazine earlier in the year.