A couple of months ago I got to share my feelings about “digital editions” with a room full of unsuspecting publishers at the (first ever) MagNet conference in Toronto. The title of the session was Digital Editions: New Medium for an Old Magazine? and, in preparation for the session, I really had to do some research. The thing is that the session title and description got handed to us presenters (a complaint I heard across the board from other presenters) and we had to do our best. In my case, doing the research helped me to build a more complete argument for why I feel digital editions — in the traditional meaning of the term — just aren’t a good investment for publishers. Here’s why… read more »

I saw a note from long-time friend Amanda Hickman this week announcing the release of the “Base Edition of NGO-in-a-box”. It reminded me of all the work that’s been underway (for some years now) at Tactical Tech to get the NGO-in-a-Box project up-and-running. NGO-in-a-box is probably one of the most impressively organized projects in the social-technology sector … from the NGO-in-a-Box site:

NGO-in-a-box offers a set of peer reviewed and selected Free and Open Source software (F/OSS), tailored to the needs of NGO’s. It provides them not only with software, but also with implementation scenarios and relevant materials to support this. read more »

(UPDATE: Just a quick clarification that the example below was sent to expired subscribers. So these folks had already received — and not responded to — a renewal series. That’s why I put the response in the 1 - 3% range, vs. what one might expect as part of an actual renewal series.)

Print-based magazines are constantly managing subscriber churn. Every year one group of people lets their subscription lapse, while others either renew or subscribe for the first time. Similar to almost any type of revenue-generating enterprise, the magic is keeping attrition rates low and managing the cost of acquiring new customers or keeping existing ones. E-mail marketing is one way to approach a lapsed campaign at a lower cost than a typical direct mail.

For example:

• If your publication decided to send a simple direct mail package to 2000 lapsed subscribers, you could easily invest $1000 or more on the printing, lettershop services, and postage costs.
• If that campaign delivered what I understand to be the industry average of 1%, you’d be lucky to get 20 returning subscribers.
• In this scenario, each returning subscriber came at a cost of $50.

To me, that seems like a pretty high price to pay. Though the lifetime value of that customer may work in your publication’s favour in the long run, it would certainly be nice to be able to invest less in encouraging that subscriber to come back.

Now, let’s say that your direct mail outperforms the 1% rule and gets up to 2% or 3%, reducing the cost per returned subscriber to just $25 or $16. Well now we’re talking, right? Wrong: what if you could achieve the same results for $25? Not $25 per returned subscriber — but just $25 for the whole campaign! Interested? Keep reading… read more »

It’s no secret that the software known as a Wiki has managed to change the world. The obvious examples like Wikipedia have shown that it is possible to hand over editing power to distributed teams of researchers, editors, and “gardeners” — but can any organization leverage this approach? Maybe.

Many of the organizations that I work with have asked about the potential of using a Wiki as part of their technology strategy, and eventually they ask for some good examples — not quite at the Wikipedia scale — that they can use to sell the idea to their co-workers. So, having answered that question a few times now, I thought I’d just do a short run-down here and — hopefully — keep it updated (with your help!).  read more »

Just in time for your holiday reading pleasure, Magazines Canada has published their latest set of resources for small magazines. These 11 ‘hotsheets’ cover the gamut: Blogs and Small Magazines (by yours truly), Developing Your Niche, Fundraising for Small Magazines, Online Circulation Promotions (by colleague John Spencer), Swaps and Exchanges (by friend Lisa Whittington-Hill of This Magazine), Online Editorial Features, and much more. Other authors include names like: Matt Blackett, Deborah Brewster, and Hal Niedzviecki.

I’ve only managed to skim through these and can already tell that this is an incredible collection of no-cost resources for small publishers. (Have links to other great resources for small publishers? Please post them below.)

This will be the first in what is hopefully an ongoing series of “Question of the week” posts. I get a lot of questions from clients, friends, and peers that seem to require a similar answer every time. So, in an effort to beat you to the punch (and to save myself from repetitive strain injury), I’m just going to try and post a summary of my most common answers here.

This week: Should I use XYZ company for hosting?

I get this one so often that it actually hurts (well, not really, but I feel like a painfully broken record). It usually goes something like “I just received our bill for the our Web site, and it reminded me that someone suggested such-and-such hosting. They seem like a cheaper alternative…”

Of course, in passing conversation, there’s nothing wrong with a question like that. But, when that hosting is for a values-aligned organization — an environmental group, a social-service organization, a social-mission business or social enterprise, an NGO, etc. — I feel that the decision should carry more weight. read more »

Lots of organizations seem to want to know about “Podcasting” — recording audio interviews or shows that people can listen to over the Internet and via their favourite music management software. Similar to radio shows, recorded interviews and other audio segments can provide a powerful message in a convenient delivery format that can be listen to on the way to work, or while cooking dinner. And, as someone that doesn’t have a television, it provides a connection to the kinds of media that I want to consume without all the visual clutter and advertising that comes with a TV diet. read more »

When Terry Raininger asked me to give a short presentation at a recent day-long workshop on knowledge management for non-profit organizations and environmental NGOs, I thought I was going to cover the usual stuff: event registrations, e-mail communication, etc. However, the day of the event — freshly back from Web of Change — I had just one word that was stuck in my mind: Collaboration. 

We must work together to succeed!

Mark Surman is the probably one responsible for forcing me to understand the importance of helping organizations come together around common needs, ideas, or technology; he spent the later years at Commons Group pursuing that quest, and continues to do so though the development of a global network of telecentres. And I’ve continued to follow that path in my own work by helping to convene similar conversations, including one that is exploring how independent media and progressive publications can work together. read more »

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been having a great back-and-forth with the Jon Spencer — the “data geek” of Abacus Circulation — that riffed off a few ideas provided by Steve Izma of Wilfrid Laurier University Press about the delicate balance between putting content online for free and making a living as an author or publisher.

The conversation was prompted by the upcoming New Internationalist annual general meeting (where the cooperative comes together to democratically decide on the themes for the next year’s worth of magazines); there was some indication that the question of “does putting magazine content online for free impact subscriptions?” might be raised. Jon and I both work with the New Internationalist: Jon as a circulation advisor and I as a Web strategist. So, given our different roles — and mutual interest (in seeing New Internationalist succeed) — we tackled that question together.  read more »

Several years ago, I was introduced to the organization that is now known as May First/People Link. I had just met Andrew Boyd and, at that time, he was fresh off the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) campaign. The original Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) site had been developed with the assistance of Andrew’s good friend Will who was part of the May First Technology Collective (previously known as Media Jumpstart). Since that time, I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about the work of this incredible organization, to read about its rich history, and to get to know personally one of its founding member — Josue Guillen — at Web of Change in 2004. (And, if you’re in New York, you’ll probably run into Josue — as Melanie and I did — at a rally or march) read more »