Introduction
What if you pour your heart and soul into publishing your magazine and it still doesn’t help you hit your financial goals? That is one of the top concerns I hear about self-publishing a magazine. Here I’m going to break down how to publish your own magazine and do it profitably. So that you can get your message out and build a business that you love.
In this article, I’m gonna cover the three most important strategies in magazine publishing for profit:
- Determining your business model, your revenue model.
- Mapping out your marketing magazine funnel.
- Determining your publishing schedule for consistency.
let’s see it one by one in briefly.
Magazine Revenue Model
Point number one, determining your magazine revenue model. This is key. This is actually the first thing you should do before you start working on the actual magazine itself, which determines how you’re planning to make money. Now, one little caution that I’ll give you here is that if you’re purely planning on using ad revenue or selling advertising in your magazine as your main revenue model, that might not be the best way to go and here’s why.
Advertisers are looking for one thing when they determine to run ads in a magazine, they’re actually looking for eyeballs. That’s what they’re buying. They’re buying the number of subscribers that you have. If your magazine is brand new and you don’t have a subscriber list, it will be very difficult for you to attract advertisers who are willing to pay you money because you don’t have the eyeballs yet to give them their value.
Also Read: How to make money by Instagram in Hindi
So if you’re planning to rely on ad revenue only, you’re missing the boat. There are lots of other ways to build a magazine business profitably. Let me give you a few ideas. So for example, with my magazine “Boss Women Rock,” one of the revenue models that I have here is that I actually offer a virtual mastermind for entrepreneurs. I also have available one-on-one coaching. I sell products, I’m a professional speaker, and I offer consulting services. Other ideas that you might consider are having your own events and workshops or retreats for your readers, or you could even create your very own professional association around your magazine of like-minded readers.
Memberships and membership communities are also great ways to monetize your magazine. I especially love brand deals which help me give sponsors who are giving me services in kind, meaning in trade instead of giving me revenue. I really love working with sponsors and brand deals to give them exposure in my magazine in exchange for services that I would normally purchase for myself. This might include event space for workshops. It might include photography services. It might include access to services like private jets.
It might include wardrobe for my speaking engagements, hairstyling services, makeup services, lots of different services that I could trade in exchange for exposure in my magazine. Those are just some additional ways to monetize your magazine and make it profitable without relying on advertising.
Magazine Marketing Funnel
Aspect number two is mapping out your magazine marketing funnel. This is so key. So once you have determined your revenue plan and know how you’re going to make income and profit on the back end of your magazine process, the second thing is to figure out how you’re going to get the word out. How are you going to create awareness around your magazine? How are you going to turn that awareness into leads, into subscribers? Are you considering giving away your magazine for free in exchange for an email address to build your email list? Or are you planning to monetize your magazine and actually sell it? The key question here is where’s the traffic going to come from? And how are you going to move that traffic into a conversion?
And conversion is someone that actually says, yes, I see your social media post and I’m interested in subscribing and I want to sign up and become a member of your tribe. Then from that point on, how do you move them from becoming a magazine subscriber into actually buying something that’s from your revenue plan? What is your process there? Becoming an instant media mogul with your very own magazine is really exciting. It’s a really fun, impactful way of getting your message out there. But most importantly, it does need to be looked at as a business model, as a revenue-building and a revenue-generating aspect of your business and not just a project. This is the key to making this whole process work. This leads me to the third aspect which is determining your publishing schedule.
Publishing Calendar
If you do a magazine, which I highly recommend that you do ’cause they’re a really great way to grow your business, you must commit to your readers and to your subscribers to publish regularly. Just like if you were going to launch a podcast, you wouldn’t just do one episode, you would do multiple episodes. The same thing with your magazine, you’ll want to make sure that you have a consistent publishing schedule. Are you going to publish twice a year, are you going to publish quarterly, or are you going to publish monthly? That is a key question that needs to be determined in advance so that you can build that promise into your marketing.
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Question
The question that I have for you for this week is, what is your favorite magazine that you have ever purchased or subscribed to? Leave it down in a comment below. I’m just curious to see what kind of magazines you’re already reading. My favorite magazine is “Magnolia Journal,” which is published by Joanna Gaines from the TV show “Fixer Upper.” I just think she’s precious, she’s a brilliant designer. I love all of her ideas. I’ve stolen some of her ideas and borrowed some of her ideas when I redecorated my house, but I love “Magnolia Journal.”
So which magazine do you love and which magazine inspires you? Leave it in a comment down below. All right, so just a quick recap, we talked about the three most important aspects of publishing a magazine and doing it profitably. Number one is knowing what your revenue model is. Number two is determining what your marketing magazine funnel process is going to be.
What is that journey going to be from creating awareness all the way to leads and conversions? And then number three, what is your publishing schedule? This is an important part of maintaining consistency and delivering on your brand promise.
Conclusion
Now, determining your profit model for your magazine is really important, but there are other key concepts to magazine publishing also, including using a magazine to build your authority. I’ve used a magazine to build my authority and land lucrative speaking engagements, radio interviews, podcast interviews, and even interviews on local television.
So I hope you enjoyed this article.
