6 Ways To Increase Your Subscriber Base

Wed 10 Feb 2021

You know your brand, you know your magazine, content, design and market.

And if you’re partnered with ESco, you’ve got the ideal e-commerce site designed with your readers in mind – easy to navigate, clear, concise and completely in line with your brand.

But what if your subscribers aren’t growing how you’d hoped?

Thankfully there are strategies that can quickly help you amass a plethora of loyal subscribers. Let’s take a look at the top 6.

At ESco, we get as excited about subscriptions growth as you do – if you’re successful, we’re successful. If you need some help, see which of our subscription services matches your needs, here.

1. Segment your readers

If your magazine covers a wide array of topics, sometimes a generalised marketing strategy will do more harm than good to your magazine. A strategy that tries to tick everybody’s boxes will likely tick none because of the overload of information.

This is where segmentation can come into play. Narrow down the areas of your magazine, and the desired audience groups for each. Then create a separate email list that aligns with each area of your magazine. By aligning readers with their interests, it makes it easier to target potential readers and convert them into loyal subscribers.

2. Market your magazine across Social Media

Whilst social network giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter may first spring to mind - don’t neglect other platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest. Pinterest especially is designed to be visual, and if your magazine features tips, tricks, or listicles, these are especially likely to get “pinned” by members. 

The trick to make your social media marketing truly effective is in identifying which platforms are right for your brand. Spreading yourself too thinly across ineffective platforms will hinder your efforts, whereas spending time curating content for the right platforms will produce almost effortless results.

To find the right channels, research easily accessible data regarding user platforms, and align this with your magazine genre and content. Some examples to help you create this alignment could be: 

• If your magazine is a comic, visual platforms like Facebook and Instagram may be better suited for the ability to create stories, and put up albums or slides. 
• If your magazine is an interior design magazine, you may be best suited to Instagram and Pinterest because you can advertise eye catching designs and any DIY information in visual sections.
• If your magazine is a B2B title, LinkedIn may be a great place to connect your magazine with its ideal demographic.

Although you can use social media for subscriber acquisition by directly advertising your subscription offers, the best way to use that platform is to generate traffic. Create content that is relevant to your target audience so that they are intrigued by your magazine and left wanting to read more. Then, once on your website, if your website's conversion rate is optimised correctly, it has the potential to convert a larger portion of your traffic.

Make sure your website, both e-commerce and content sites, are working with you to achieve the best conversion rate. Check out ESco’s web solution services to see how we can help you be better equipped to convert web traffic and grow those sub numbers… here.

3. Get influencers involved in your magazine

So we’ve covered marketing on social media, but that’s not the only way to reach potential subscribers via social media. Influencer marketing is a growing and successful industry, set to be worth £10billion by 2022.  

Although you can use standardised influencers relevant to your niche, for example a magazine catered around fashion may reach out to a fashion influencer, another way to use influencers in the magazine industry is to reach out to contributing writers.

This tactic was surged into popularity by the magazine Relevance, which in 2015 amassed 50,000 subscribers in 6 months just by getting creative with some unique tactics. 

The magazine’s genre was marketing and so they recruited as many contributing writers from the digital marketing sphere as possible. Amazingly, their tactic had a full circle effect. Because they reached out to certain subscribers who already came with pre-existing large audiences, more prominent figures in the industry heard about the magazine and offered to write for it in order to share some thought leadership. 

That meant Relevance doubled up on the access it had to already large pools of engaged audiences, which in turn, converted to subscribers. 

Try to make a list of ideal targets your magazine could reach out to. They could be Instagram influencers, or they could just be contributing figures who may be happy to lend a hand and share their experience or wisdom. Remember, once you’ve got them on board, you’ve also got access to their audience.

See the latest client to migrate their subscriptions into ESco’s capable hands, here!

4. Make your email marketing enticing 

Email marketing is a recommended tool to build long-term relationships with your website visitors.

The first step in email marketing is to ensure that your website has a variety of different sign up forms placed in key locations so that your audience can easily sign up. Options could include exit and entry pop ups, floating or permanent forms, or even splash pages designed to capture the attention.

Remember that in order to receive your visitors’ email you must provide something of value. An example could be an offer to receive something for free, like an industry report, checklist, or guide. 

For example if you are running a fashion magazine and a visitor successfully clicks through to your website from your social media marketing, you could offer the new visitor a seasonal trends guide in exchange for them providing their email address.

This is an effective call to action because your readers ultimately care about your content, and these lead magnets are great ways to entice them into wanting to consume more and more of the content you produce. Once you’ve got them signed up to your email list, you can send further emails that advertise your magazine's amazing content, and in time, convert them to a subscriber.

Don’t forget that it’s essential to keep on producing emails and content that is relevant and insightful to your subscribers reminding them why they value your brand. Send emails regularly, but don’t send them so frequently that recipients feel as though they’re being spammed.

5. Negotiate Native Advertising

Though online paid media is a successful industry and booming business, website visitors are getting a bit fed with being continually met with disruptive adverts and banners. As of 2020, 25.8% of web users had an active ad blocker installed, and this number is expected to continue rising.

Native advertising is now increasingly becoming a popular alternative choice for paid advertisement. Native advertising works by blending in with the theme, context and style of a website so that the advert doesn’t look much like an advert at all - just an inbuilt placement on the site.

This stylistic difference means that potential subscribers won’t immediately disregard the placement on a website they frequent, and will be more likely to click through to it provided the advert is well designed and relevant.

Native advertising is also a cheaper option for digital advertising because prices can be negotiated to lower than display ad prices through creating partnerships with websites and affiliates. 

6. Optimise for the App Store

To finish, if your magazine is available in an app format, or could be transformed into an app, one key part of your digital marketing strategy should be App Store Optimisation. 

Similar to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), App Store Optimisation (ASO) helps your app reach readers and differentiate itself from the hundreds of other titles out there. 

Research from Forrester revealed that 63% of app installs are made through app store searches, which ultimately means that your audience could find your magazine’s app completely accidentally through it being recommended.

So to make the most of this traffic, where should you begin with your optimisation? Well, the basics to cover are:

1. Magazine Title

Make sure that your title is as optimised as possible for searches by including the keywords you wish to rank for where possible.

2. Keywords

Research relevant keywords that have high search volume. Sprinkle these throughout your magazine app’s description, keeping it clear, concise, and attractive.

3. Media: App Icon and Screenshots

Any visual elements in your magazine’s app store listing must be well designed, and of high quality. Blurry images or pixelation in the icon itself won’t entice downloads. It needs to look as glossy in app form as it does in digital or print. 

4. Ratings And Reviews

Though ratings and reviews are not something you can control, it’s best to be proactive in responding to both positive and negative reviews. A rating panel is commonly placed under the app name in most app store listings, so it’s the second thing your audience will see. A heap of good reviews will do you wonders, but negative reviews with no obvious resolution or response may get you a scroll past. 

These are just some of the strategies you can deploy to gain more subscribers. We at ESco have got over 35 years of experience in the publishing industry and know subscription woes and triumphs like the back of our hands. If you need some help driving those eager eyes to the pages of your deftly designed magazine, get in touch with us and ask for Alistair or Louise. We’ll be happy to lend a hand.