Tracking…How am I doing?

Marcus Grimm, our Director of Marketing, often says, "A website is your page view tool, but your digital magazine is your engagement tool."  How can you tell if he’s right or if he’s wrong?  Simple, analyze your tracking.  In doing so, you’ll probably find the following to be true:  more people will visit your website than will visit your digital magazine (i.e. 2 different reading experiences); readers will spend MORE time with your content inside your digital magazine than your website; readers will click-through your digital magazine at a MUCH higher rate than your website.

Understanding that your digital magazine is your engagement tool is key, but what does your Nxtbook tracking tell you about how your readers are engaging and interacting with your content?  In analyzing reader behavior inside of the digital edition, engagement can be measured in many ways:

• Average Visit Length:  A measure of the amount of time your readers are spending inside your digital magazine with your content.  For the purpose of basic comparison, in 2009, readers spent more than 5 minutes inside of all Nxtbooks.

• Average Pages Viewed/Visit:  A measure of how many pages of content your readers are consuming per visit.  For the purpose of basic comparison, in 2009, readers consumed over 17 pages per visit for all Nxtbooks.

• Click-Through Rates:  A measure of the level of interaction your readers have with your content (i.e. clicking on the URL links).  To calculate your click-through rate, take your total (page) clicks divided by your unique visits.  Due to the many variables (ad creative, call to action, circulation strategies, etc…) that affect how readers click, we don’t calculate an average click-through rate across all Nxtbooks.  However, your click-through rates inside your digital magazine should be much higher than those from your website.

If you would like us to perform an analysis of your tracking data, please feel free to contact your Account Management Team.

Show Me the Money

At last count, about 40% of our Publishers were monetizing their Nxtbook in some way.  If you’re among them…GREAT!  If not, we’ll try to help get you there now!  According to a recent survey of our customers, single-issue sponsorship packages have been sold for as little as $1000 to as much as $50,000.  Sounds like some nice ROI a $250 investment!

But why would an advertiser want to sponsor an issue your Nxtbook?  The simple answer is the sponsorship package (done right) is a GREAT opportunity for them to showcase their brand and offer a targeted, personal message to your readers in an exclusive way!  Outside of extending their message to your Nxtbook audience, Advertisers also using them for unique co-branding opportunities (i.e. they want to be linked to your featured editorial stories), to generate leads (i.e. "visit our booth at the upcoming show"), product launches or demonstrations (i.e. using Rich Media to bring their message to life) and much more.

If your advertiser asks, "can’t I achieve some of these objective within my ad already inside the Nxtbook?"; it’s a "Yes, But…" answer.  You can certainly enhance any creative in a Nxtbook with Rich Media (Audio, Video, etc…) and Flash Animation, but the sponsorship areas typically achieve 5x the number of click-throughs over ANY other single ad inside the Nxtbook (assuming the creative is engaging and their "call to action" is clear).

Our sponsorship bundle gives you up to 3 areas to create a program for your advertisers.  To make things more efficient for you and your advertisers, we have standardized on IAB specs for the sponsorship areas within the Nxtbook.  In most cases, we can accomodate custom sizes but certain changes might result in less real estate for the Nxtbook itself (see examples below for specific sizes and additional considerations).  Now, let’s take a closer-look at the various sponsorship areas (soon to be 9 spots) inside of the Nxtbook and how they can be utilized: 

• Nxtbook Loader – The area displayed on the computer screen when the Nxtbook is loading.  It’s an ideal spot to insert a logo for quick (think seconds) branding opportunity.  Ideally, the logo should be supplied as an EPS file for maximum clarity.

• Left of Cover area – The PREMIUM sponsorship position that’s visible when your Nxtbook opens (or anytime the reader returns to the cover spread).  To quote one of our Sales Directors, "Think of it as your print’s Back Cover on steroids!"  You can enhance the position even more by utilizing Audio, Video or Flash Animation (additional charges may apply).  The IAB spec for this area is the Large Pop-Up (550 pixels Wide x 480 pixels High), but you can mirror it after your Cover Page size too.  Ideally, we recommend a size that’s a slightly smaller footprint than your Cover to make them both standout.    

• Skyscrapers – The positions to the Left or Right of the Nxtbook that remain visible throughout the reading experience.  The IAB size for these spots are 120 pixels Wide x 600 pixels High.

• Full Banners – The positions Above or Below the Nxtbook that remain visible throughout the reading experience.  The IAB size for these spots are 468 pixels Wide x 60 pixels High.

• Toolbar (aka Microbar) – The positions to the Far Left, Center (coming soon) and Far Right of the Top Toolbar than remain visible throughout the reading experience (as long as the auto-hide toolbar feature isn’t enabled).  Yet another good spot(s) to insert a logo for a branding opportunity.

Knowing that you can use up to 3 of the 9 sponsorship areas, we have seen you selling a variety of effective sponsorship program combinations.  Currently, two of the most common ones being sold involve:

• Combo 1:  Nxtbook Loader, Left of Cover and Right Toolbar

• Combo 2:  Left of Cover, Right Skyscraper and Right Toolbar

Don’t forget, animation and rich media are excellent ways to enhance sponsorship programs (additional fees may apply).

We also have additional sponsorship opportunities available outside of the Nxtbook for RSS Feeds and Mobile Platforms.  To learn more about them and creative ways to integrate a Nxtbook sponsorship program into a larger package (i.e. email, webinars, shows, etc…), please contact your Account Management Team! 

 

Read All About It

Typically, there are 5 ways to distribute your digital publication to your readers…email campaigns, website promotion, social media postings, search engines and digital newsstands.  For the purpose of this discussion, we’ll focus on email campaigns.  In managing email campaigns for a number of our customers, we’ve uncovered some practical ways to improve upon their effectiveness.

Like many Publishers, you probably send out an email to your reader inviting them to read your digital publication.  With today’s "inbox overload" and sophisticated spam filters, the biggest obstacle you face is getting the reader to open your email.  According to some industry reports, a "good" B2B industry benchmark average email open rate is between 20%-25%.

If you’re not seeing 20% or higher open rates on your email delivery, a couple of factors come into play…subject lines and list management.  Having a simple, but engaging subject line is critically important to your email open rate’s success.  Do you know what motivates your readers?  Is this a part of your subject line?  For example, does your subject line read "Your latest digital edition of XYZ is now available"?  A subject line highlighting your featured article, "How to Stay in Business – read now in this issue of XYZ" is more likely to grab your reader’s attention and get them to open your email.  Don’t be afraid to try new approaches – test what works best for you.  Remember, even making a minor change might make an incredible difference.

If you’re satisfied with your email’s subject line and you’re open rates still aren’t meeting your expectations, list management might be another area to address.  Are you sending out too many emails to your list?  Keeping your list current and segemented are important considerations in today’s email arena.  Do you follow-up your initial blast with additional, unique re-blasts at various intervals to the audience who didn’t open the others?  Done right, this process will help increase your email open rates too. 

Getting your email opened is just the first part of this digital publication circulation strategy; having your reader click-through into the publication is the ultimate goal.  If you’re click-through rates aren’t meeting your expectation, it’s time to exam your email template.  The most effective email templates that we’ve seen follow a short & simple model:  Don’t overwhelm your audience with too much text or information; highlight 2-4 main editorial features, place them near the top and jump link them directly into your Nxtbook; make it easy (single-click access) and clear to your readers WHERE to click or how to access your Nxtbook by using our free animated GIF or highlighting a direct link (use a different font size and color) in a prominent area away from the body of your copy.  Keep in mind, anytime you require a reader to provide additional information or click more than once before granting access into any digital publication, there can be a "zero out" factor.

If you’re not currently using our email campaign services, we’d be happy to do a one-time, FREE evaluation of your email template and subject line.  For more information, please contact: Mallory Weiss, Director of Email Programs (mweiss@nxtbookmedia.com).

The Buzz

Your audiences are being fractured into many pieces…print readers, digital publication readers, website readers, mobile readers and so on…  At Nxtbook, our goal is simple:  take your PDF and publish it wherever your readers are!  From that, you get versions for PC, Mac, Linux and mobile devices like an iPhone / iTouch.  If you’re a Liberty customer, you also get a text version that works on all web browser enabled mobile devices (i.e. BlackBerry, Android, etc…) and a version for the visually impaired.  We also have the ability to deliver your content to eReaders (i.e. Amazon’s Kindle and their Kindle Store) and potentially to the new tablet devices (i.e. iPad) right out of the box! 

Another critical part to the success of our mobile strategy is the ability to deliver the proper version to your reader’s device without you having to send them a special link.  With the exception of eReader devices (lack of email capability), you can simply blast out the link to your Nxtbook and your reader will get the format specific to their device!

Bottom-line, we believe our place in the future is to ensure that we can deliver your content – seamlessly – to ALL devices!  You should be able to give us your PDF and know – confidently – that readers can find your content, regardless of their device of choice.

If you’re ready to bridge into mobile platforms, make sure to contact your Account Management Team to get started!