Niche magazine publishers have a built-in advantage over publishers of mass-appeal magazines: Their readers aren’t just mildly interested in the content they offer. They’re passionate!
Niche magazines address specific professions and industries as well as hobbyists, enthusiasts, activists, and artists. This built-in niche audience is eager for news, information, tips, and insights that help them learn and grow. Niche magazines reach fans who don’t just engage but who also live their involvement in a subject.
Connection is key
For magazines that reach out to these highly targeted audiences, creating an ongoing flow of communication — more than just the publication of articles — is essential. To do that, magazine publishers can use the principles and methods of niche marketing, which rely not just on spreading a message as broadly as possible — but rather on creating connected relationships with audience members.
Six Principles to guide relationship building
In today’s connected world, there are many methods for connecting with readers.
1. Email:
Email is easy to use and reasonably inexpensive. It can be used to spread relevant, current news and information. And email lists can be segmented to further target your audience, and emails are easy to personalize.
2. Newsletters:
- Dedicated emails focus on a single thing — an upcoming event, new product, or announcement.
- Digest emails are simple newsletters consisting of lists with links — events, products, news items, or the table of contents for the next magazine issue.
- Welcome emails let new members, subscribers, or event registrants know their actions have been successfully completed.
- Lead-nurturing emails introduce potential subscribers to magazines or products and explain how they can benefit them.
- Anniversary emails are opportunities to connect with readers on their birthdays or recognize the anniversary dates of their subscriptions or memberships.
3. Content marketing:
Use multiple content forms, including blogs, live events, webinars, video, and online learning, to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. To be effective, you need to create a comprehensive strategy in which the elements complement each other and create a cohesive whole. For example, a blog can point to a webinar that expands on the blog topic or high-quality branded (but not promotional) content can create new revenue streams.
4. Visual Marketing:
You have only to look at the popularity of platforms such as YouTube and Facebook to see the effectiveness of visually connecting with your audience. Infographics, memes, screen shots, and videos are more likely to create the impacts that engage your readers instantly.
5. Influencer Marketing:
Industry spokespeople, experts, and those who have large social media followings can enhance your niche marketing efforts. Their endorsements can inspire trust and credibility for your publication. Their support leads to sharing of your content on social media, increasing the reach of your content.
6. Mobile marketing:
If you can’t reach your readers or potential readers on their mobile devices, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Make sure your website and digital edition offer an optimal experience for mobile users, email newsletters are easily read, pop-ups are disabled for mobile readers, and visuals are sized for small screens.
Niche publishers have an automatic connection to their specific audiences. But that’s not enough.
Readers want easy access to content whenever and wherever they are. Meet them there. Use the latest methods and technologies to create connected relationships and engage, interact with, and retain loyal readers.
(Editor’s note: This is an edited version of the original post on www.sheridan.com.)
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More about Susan: Susan Parente is the Publications Marketing Manager at Sheridan, a print and publishing services company that serves magazine, journal, and book publishers as well as catalogers. Susan is passionate about all things print, her canine “kids”, cooking, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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Niche Media has the best events, education, and training in media! Our super niched-out events & content give target-audience publishers in the B2C, hobbyist, B2B, city & regional, and association markets the tools they need to build revenue, audience, and more.
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