nextstepsmarketing.com

    June 16th, 2010

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How to Create a Cost-Effective iPad-Ready Digimag: 5 Tips to Get You Started

Finally, we’ve found a way to monetize digital content—in fact, Wired’s iPad version sold as much as an issue’s newsstand sales--in only nine days! Here are 5 tips to creating your own cost-effective iPad-ready digimag.

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A New Twist On A Traditionally "Soft Offer" Perennial Mailer

Like most direct mail formats the double postcard has fallen in and out of favor over the years.

On the upside, they are cheap (as far as direct mail goes) and they are
easy to get together from a copy and design perspective. On the downside, there’s not a lot of “real estate” for positioning your publication or product and the pay-up is notoriously low as the format basically guarantees orders without payment.

This “5 x 7” triple postcard format addressed both of these problems nicely.
The BRE is held in place with removable glue and in a previous test we saw a respectably high cash with order percentage and in the overall pay-up rate.

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Double Your Single Copy Sales!

As noted above, Chris Anderson, of Wired announced last week that the Wired iPad edition app sold close to 73,000 downloads in the first nine days since it launched and it will beat newsstand sales. Mr. Anderson stated that Wired's newsstand sales average in the mid-80,000s monthly. The app retails at $4.99 and the app spent the first five days in the No. 1 paid app slot.

This evidence indicates that the iPad will have a significant impact on single copy sales. While it is important to note is that the Wired audience are primarily early adopters and very tech savvy, it indicates that if other magazines see even a fraction of this growth, it will result in additional single copy sales. Keep in mind another reason that Wired is doing so well is their additional rich media elements offered in their iPad version. Just converting your existing print to digital will not be enough to capture a bigger audience. The question remains if it will cannibalize existing sales or actually significantly add to overall single copy sales. We will keep a close eye on this and report in future issues.