Use Magazines, Blogs and Blogazines to Win Email Subscribers
Blogs and online magazines also help you win newsletter subscribers.
Win New Email Subscribers – Series Part 3
So far, we’ve examined some fantastic ways of growing your email lists. Blogs and online magazines also help you win newsletter subscribers.
You’re toying with the idea of adding a blog, magazine or blogazine to your business homepage or shop? You’re thinking of winning email subscribers with exciting posts to boost your sales and improve the image of your brand?
Inspiring blogs and online magazines turn brands into an adventure and don’t only win customers, but fans!
Fans are the most loyal customers and chances are high they become email subscribers. One post can turn up to 50% of its readers into subscribers. The In-Content-Activation, which means that people can sign up for your newsletter right in your content, is an absolute subscriber magnet.
- What are the differences?
- What are the topics?
- How do I create a post?
- How does In-Content-Activation work?
Read on and decide for yourself which way you want to go with your email marketing in the future – online magazine, corporate blog or blogazine:
Subscriber Magnets: Blog, Magazine and Blogazine
What are the differences?
One thing first, whether blog or magazine, magazine or Blogazine: their boundaries are fluid. A blogazine is all about the looks, which is why it’s given its layout by a professional graphic designer. Blogs and magazines put their content in focus – they can easily be set up in WordPress.
Most of the time, only one or, at the max, two authors work on a blog. Bloggers share their own opinion in their blogs. A blog may be personal, spontaneous, direct, and subjective. Bloggers often publish new blog posts at least once a month or weekly. They don’t follow a certain format: short posts, teasers, poems or pictures and quotes – there are no limits. Nevertheless, the corporate blog will always maintain a certain form.
In an online magazine – whether for shops or companies – new articles appear more frequently; it is also more varied. It offers a wide range of topics and tries to be objective, balanced and correct – which does not mean that they don’t express an opinion from time to time. But it is marked in journalistic tradition. Readers expect complete articles that have been proofread. Freelance authors are led by an editor-in-chief, depending on the scope of the project, for a consistent style in text and layout.
A blogazine is a blog that has the layout and design of a glossy magazine. Each post has its design – it’s a collection of art. The design corresponds with the content. All posts are short and individual. The images fill the screen and they have a hidden navigation. There’s no WordPress theme for this design quality. Many online magazines like to call themselves blogazine to express their closeness to the print magazine. However, they often do not meet the relevant design specifications and are simply just magazines.
Strictly speaking, a blogazine is the medium of designers, artists, gallerists, architects, interior designers, fashion designers and the arts and crafts. So art, fashion, cosmetics, interior design from object armchairs to juice squeezer – think of Philippe Starck’s “Juicy Salif” – can be optimally staged in a blogazine. For all those who celebrate exceptional design with their brand, the blogazine is the number one subscriber magnet.
The magazine is the medium of trade. An online magazine gives you the optimal opportunity to market your products and promotions with matching posts. Similar to the blogazine, it contains powerful images, however, it focuses more on the actual content. The posts primarily serve the reader! Secondly, they promote sales. Beauty Bay gives skincare tips and recommends products for your daily beauty routine that win new subscribers:
The magazine ends, the blog begins. The Decathlon Play Blog shows that there are no clear boundaries:
The corporate blog stands out from the magazine in terms of design. It is the medium of service providers: After all, an opinion on current topics can be expressed here and thus an expertise can be given, for example as a doctor, lawyer, financial or tax advisor.
But also tips, recipes and instructions from personal trainers, nutrition and life advisors, hobbies and professional cooks, DIYers and DIYers are gratefully accepted. You can basically talk about any popular and inspiring topic in your blog.
Subscriber Magnets: Blog, Magazine and Blogazine
What are the topics?
Fully committed to design, the content and periodicity of a blogazine is based on the work of its publisher. This means: If you are a furniture designer and have created an exceptional masterpiece, this forms your new blogazine post. Trade fairs are an excellent time to publish news.
Whether cars, fashion, furniture, kitchen utensils, TVs or industrial design – where extraordinary design is presented, it’s best to stage it in a blogazine.
Tip: if possible, publish new posts on a regular basis. If new products – and thus new content – are created at regular intervals, your blogazine will most likely become a customer and subscriber magnet.
A blogazine focuses on design, magazines and blogs on content. Interesting, captivating experience reports, expert tips, tricks or hacks, instructions, recipes, workshops or coaching sessions, interviews with industry giants, celebrities or influencers, sneak peeks or previews of industry events and innovations, hip, cult, seasonal or crazy stuff – the important thing is that your reader likes it. Readers expect more depth in a corporate blog or magazine, though, than in a simple store magazine or blog.
Store magazine and blogs make you want to find out what’s new, trends, experiences, recipes, hairstyles, styles, looks, travel and of course products.
Fashion promotes the latest styles and must have pieces just like in this example on H&M:
Furniture and interior design magazines become inspirational:
Sports and lifestyle brands often set up cooperations with influencers to promote their tips and products, as in this example on myprotein:
Influencers are a good way to go, as product recommendations and experiences by real people with a fanbase are much more believable and more organic.
There are infinite possibilities to inspire potential customers with articles, interviews, tutorials and the like and to win newsletter subscribers. Print magazines, trade fairs, social media channels and competitors are an infinite source of inspiration.
The corporate magazine – be it a customer magazine or a B2B edition – may go deeper into the topic, but it doesn’t have to. It is a customer loyalty tool and serves more for image cultivation than for sales. The articles are there to arouse interest in the brand, win fans and serve them.
Contents are determined by the industry. What is the current topic in the respective area? What is being publicly discussed? Are there opinions from insiders or industry leaders?
Product improvements and launches as well as sneak peeks on innovations are always worth a contribution. Thus, a corporate magazine is always used for public relations.
If the corporate magazine serves PR, image and customer care of companies, the corporate blog is the expertise of the individual and small business that has become text.
Here’s an example of a corporate blog with industry-related content:
Service providers take a stand on current topics and trends. They give expert tips, keep customers up to date with updates or provide active support with a coaching blog.
There are endless possibilities to support patients, clients, customers and members with expertise. Just think about what you would be most interested in if you were your current client. The PTDC has published an expert contribution on personal training:
What concerns your business and is currently being discussed in the media or in the industry? Are there any new healing methods for which you would like to inform patients about their advantages and risks? Are there financial investments that promise a higher return? Are there changes in the law that affect your clients?
Or do you provide special services that nobody else offers but you? Write about the advantages of your unique services. Don’t be afraid to write posts about your company’s innovations, benefits or events. Maintain a best-practice or case-study blog, if this is of interest to your customers. Even a PR blog is legitimate, as long as it’s interesting.
If you want to win not only customers but fans, you have to convince in terms of content – whether through learning effects or originality.
A great source of inspiration are blog directories such as trusted-blogs.com
Here you will find hundreds of blogs and thousands of blog posts for each industry.
Subscriber Magnets: Blog, Magazine and Blogazine
How do I write a post?
Good news: Your blog doesn’t have to be a lot of work – or at least no extra work. Blog and newsletter can be identical. If magazine and blog posts are captivating, readers will like to receive exactly these posts by subscription.
Your post only has 10 seconds to convince your readers!
Reading from a screen is exhausting. It takes a quarter more time. Therefore 80% of all users read selectively, i.e. they only skim over a text. They do not read word by word and sentence by sentence.
A distinction is made between readers who are specifically looking for information and readers who simply drop by. The information seekers scan your contribution for emotive words that they have entered in their Google search. If these so-called keywords appear in headlines, links or captions, the reader continues reading. Others, on the other hand, react more strongly to images and graphics in order to quickly grasp what a post is about.
Selective reading – what does this mean for your magazine or blog post:
- Create added value!
“Content is king!“ This means: The information value for your readers is in the foreground. Self-advertising is created by the quality of your contributions. Thus, the corporate blog proves your expertise and the shop magazine convinces through originality.
- Create a topic list.
In order to publish regularly, a list of topics for half a year in advance is useful. As with a to-do list, you can then process the contributions. Is there a current topic coming up in between? No problem! Just delete or move a post from your topic list.
- Only one topic for your blog
Especially store magazines and blogs tempt to include products in a post where they do not fit. This confuses readers. In the case of specialist articles, the temptation is again great to go too far. For example, a contribution on tetanus vaccination is not an article on vaccine fatigue in general. Stay with the topic and your readers.
- The best thing comes first
You have little time to convince site visitors. The competition is big and only one click away. That’s why for online contributions, the best, the essence, comes first, so that the information value of your text is immediately apparent. Headlines, introduction and pictures must show the essence of your contribution at a glance.
- Structure your post
- Headline and cover image form the focus.
- The introduction serves as a summary and appetizer of the content.
- Structure your text in small paragraphs. Each paragraph only deals with one sub-topic and has a meaningful headline.
- Images and videos support passages of the text.
- A list of bullet points summarizes the most important points at the end.
- If the text has several pages, you need a chapter navigation below your introduction.
- Don’t forget to include a signup option for your newsletter! There are numerous possibilities for in-content-activation – more on that in the next chapter.
- It’s all about the headlines!
Does the title bring the topic to the point? Does it arouse the reader’s interest? Do the subtitles convey an image of the content and essence of the text? Do readers grasp in ten seconds what it is all about? Check these questions before you publish your post.
- Avoid text only!
Nothing scares off readers as much as a plain text page. Per page, 300 to 400 words are optimal – preferably in several paragraphs, but none of them should exceed six lines. Leave space between paragraphs and choose a large line spacing for an attractive typeface.
- Lots of beautiful and colorful images!
Images contribute to the understanding of the text. They create moods and are the center of your post. Whether you want to sell products or convince with expert knowledge, always use a large key visual as a hanger and support text statements with quickly understandable graphics and matching images.
- Speak a clear language.
Formulate short, understandable sentences. Use active verbs. Use words with few syllables. Avoid foreign and filler words, abbreviations and passive constructions.
- Answer relevant questions.
Corporate blogs and magazine should care a great deal about journalistic quality and give answers to all important questions:
– Who? What? When?
– Why?
– How?
- Pay attention to spelling and grammar.
Spelling mistakes leave a bad impression. They seem dubious and have no place in a corporate blog or a shop magazine. Always have texts proofread by third parties.
So much for the dos and don’ts of blog and magazine posts. As far as Blogazine is concerned, the picture dominates here. Products are staged as “heroes”. Articles are extremely short and convey the most important product information in a maximum of 400 characters. The intro explains the inspiration of the designer or design brand and summarizes the exposés.
Subscriber Magnets: Blog, Magazine and Blogazine
How does In-Content-Activation work?
With a registration rate of up to 50%, in-content activation is one of the most successful tools for address acquisition. However, the information value of the contribution is very important:
Fascinate readers, win subscribers!
7 Ways to do In-Content-Activation:
1. The Newsletter Button right beneath the headlineor next to the social media buttons: It gives interested parties the opportunity to read the article later on by subscription. Especially professional articles are often researched in advance and read later. And you know: the best comes first!
2. The link in the chapter navigation works just like the newsletter button next to the social media button. Here’s an example from sumo.com:
According to SUMO, 73% of all visitors have subscribed.
This example was about a podcast subscription. But your newsletter can benefit from a subscription link in the chapter navigation just as much.
3. The link in the text: If additional tips, coaching, recipes, instructions and more are teased in the newsletter subscription to match the blog or magazine article, readers can hardly resist.
An example: A nutrition expert describes the advantages of a diet in his blog. You are enthusiastic, everything sounds easy and you always wanted to lose a few pounds. But now you are missing a concrete instruction, for example a recipe book. If a cookbook on dieting is now raffled off among all newsletter subscribers in the blog itself and the link in the text leads directly to the signup form – who will definitely register for the newsletter? Definitely you!
The text may contain further links. For example, elsewhere in the text there may be a reference to profit as a newsletter subscriber from the experiences of successful diet participants. Another reason to subscribe. Furthermore, a mental diet coaching could be offered – again one more reason for the newsletter subscription.
You understand what makes in-content activation so successful? Your blog or magazine post arouses a need and the newsletter subscription satisfies this need.
4. The CTA button in the text is even more effective in comparison to the link. In order not to disturb the reading flow of your readers, integrate the button as supplementary content. A call-to-action button with the text “Win recipe book!” placed prominently but not disturbingly will be clicked on even more often than the link.
5. The signup box at the bottom can’t be missing. It can repeatedly offer the newsletter subscription or ask the reader’s opinion on the article as a “survey”. Here, a checkbox to click on is sufficient to activate the newsletter subscription.
Keep in mind: You can’t pre-check this box according to GDPR!
6. The catch line at the end is an alternative to the signup box. It activates with emphasis. It’s either a quality promise as in this example by Paul Jarvis…
… or it toys around with the fear of missing out, captivating 2 million readers, on Leo Babauta:
7. The Content Upgrade:In-content activation works best if the newsletter subscription promises a content upgrade! If, as described above, the diet blog is supplemented by a cookbook, experience reports or mental coaching, this added value attracts more subscribers! More content means more work, but it also means more newsletter subscribers.
Do not hesitate to apply several activations at the same time. Three activations per post are allowed. It is important that they disturb the reading flow the least.
Remember to use the newsletter subscription form on your blog, magazine and blogazine pages. Best place it at the end of the posts.
Your Own Blog or Magazine: Real Subscription Magnets
Your own blog or online magazine can be implemented technically quickly and easily. But that is less than half the battle – good and above all authentic content is much more important.
The good news: You are a specialist in your field. Share your expertise! What may not be special to you, can be valuable news for your customers.
You want to create your own blog or magazine right now or use in-content activations in your blog, magazine or blogazine posts?
We’d be happy if you did! Good luck and enjoy!
