Question
How should one market a new offline magazine or publication?
Answer
By creating a site to give away the sample PDF of the first issue free, for those who sign up for your email list. SEO it to death for your target market, and promote it like crazy.
This should not be the general online version of the magazine (if you have one). It should be a dedicated 1-page landing page with an email sign up form to receive occasional selections from the magazine, and the download for the free sample copy.
You then use the emails you collect to run a very high quality permission-marketing newsletter. Send the best selections from the magazine, and promote a full subscription in each e-newsletter.
There are various other strategies and tactics you can use depending on your market, but this is a basic bread-and-butter piece of all of them.
But overall, I still have to ask. Why on EARTH would you do this in 2011? There are almost no good reasons to launch a magazine offline these days, besides self-indulgence.
The only reason I can think of is that you are doing something where unbelievable layout and glossiness matter. Like a landscape photography magazine in a large format.
This should not be the general online version of the magazine (if you have one). It should be a dedicated 1-page landing page with an email sign up form to receive occasional selections from the magazine, and the download for the free sample copy.
You then use the emails you collect to run a very high quality permission-marketing newsletter. Send the best selections from the magazine, and promote a full subscription in each e-newsletter.
There are various other strategies and tactics you can use depending on your market, but this is a basic bread-and-butter piece of all of them.
But overall, I still have to ask. Why on EARTH would you do this in 2011? There are almost no good reasons to launch a magazine offline these days, besides self-indulgence.
The only reason I can think of is that you are doing something where unbelievable layout and glossiness matter. Like a landscape photography magazine in a large format.