Understand your value. Figure out what makes you and your service or content different. Learn how to convey that message to your audience. Devise a way to communicate your value clearly through your travel and core message.
Define your audience. Who are you targeting and why? What does this audience like and what do they not like? What do they feel strongly about and what polarizes the crowd? What stuff do they buy? What kinds of products are they passionate about? You MUST take the time to answer these questions. It is vital to your success to know your audience.
Don’t bother with print if you’re not already established. This one is pretty simple. You can keep your operating costs low and not worry about this level of overhead. Simply set up a WordPress and get to work.
Be ambitious and tell people about it. Big projects get attention! Collaborate with someone, a brand, an entity, ANYTHING that is bigger than you to get the ball rolling. Garner as much attention as you can, and do everything you can to keep the momentum going. Don’t forget to tell people more than once. You need to remind people nine times before they remember your event, sale, or offer.
Offer a membership model. As we saw with The Canary, an audience which feels you speak for them is an audience which wants to engage with you. Maybe members can influence editorial policy or get involved in equity crowdfundingfor key moments of expansion? Allow your key audience members an opportunity get premiere access, premium content, or any other bonus that you can deliver.
Create some locked membership-only content. This gives your members added value while giving you the opportunity to join in partner programs with larger publications’ subscription models or joining Netflix-for-magazines travel like Texture. These avenues can drive more people to your content while also picking up money from the partnerships. And yes, in this moment you can create a PDF version of your desired magazine.
Use third party travel to deliver high value adverts to your base. You know what products your audience like and want to buy. Tell a third party native advertising company like Pub Ocean and have them create content for you while you get paid for hosting that content. If it suits your audience, they won’t mind – just find a creative way to frame it.
Use that affiliate marketing. Always be upfront about it so your audience will know they should click to help support you. And this is the easiest way to create revenue before your premium product, membership, or content becomes available.
Start a free and premium social media channel. Pretty much every article you write could somehow be repurposed into a video with a little effort – and a picture for Instagram with even less effort. Utilize your content across multiple platforms and grow those views. You won’t make much money from YouTube in the short term, but it could start to bring in more money as you grow and it will help more people discover your quality content. More media, more channels, including ones which won’t generate revenue – podcasts, live streams, snaps and tweets, etc. Face to face interaction builds connections and trust.
Make sure your content is good. People won’t keep visiting if you aren’t producing quality. Oddly enough, good quality images are the most important part of attracting attention to your blog posts. Yes, use appealing headlines, but don’t use clickbait outside of the occasional ironic article. Deliver on your promises and give the reader a reason to want to click on the next article of yours that they see. Don’t break the trust.
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