Creating Profit With Repurposed Archive Content
There is no doubt that digital age has revolutionized the way content is consumed in the magazine publishing industry. Today with the demand for fast, easy to access content, publishers are looking for innovative ways to leverage their archive in the digital environment and encourage new streams of revenue. We know that time is a valuable commodity in the publishing industry and devising new marketing campaigns can often be a lengthy and expensive task, especially for smaller publishing companies who are new to the digital space. To help you streamline your strategy, we have outlined an easy to implement digital approach that can help you increase your bottom line simply by repurposing the existing content in your already digitized archive.
There are numerous avenues for publishers to encourage revenue from their archive, such as through digital subscriptions or interactive advertising, however many do not recognize that they can also be effectively repurposing their digital magazines through a variety of lucrative avenues. Repurposing a digital archive via platforms and channels allows publishers to get extra mileage out of their content—content that takes a substantial amount of time and effort to create.
Content aggregators such as blogs, online journals, e-magazines, and information portals are always on the look out for new digital material, and besides offering their own unique content, will often also look to other publishers to contribute valuable content to their digital audience. To do this, aggregators will often procure licensed content. Content licensing is an excellent way for publishers to not only encourage new streams of revenue for their business, but to also gain greater levels of brand exposure. In a nutshell, content licensing is the act of supplying your intellectual property to a third party for an agreed upon use, in exchange for value, often a licensing fee or traffic statistics. The content you license can be anything from a single digital image to an entire issue or archive of issues.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you begin:
The revenue potential for content licensing digital material can be witnessed with brands such as National Geographic, who have begun licensing their complete digital archive to their international subsidiary magazines. The digital archive is offered as incentive for readers to sign up for a subscription and receive free access to the entire backlog of magazines, dating all the way back to the 1880s.
Publishers who are looking to leverage their existing content by entering into a licensing agreement should first evaluate their ideal target market in order to encourage a positive response from their outreach. For example, if your archive falls into the educational category then there is a good chance that schools and libraries may be interested in licensing your archive for their online information portals to offer their patrons a wealth of information through one simple, user-friendly interface. Schools, libraries, and other organizations often require multiple access points, and minimal user involvement in the authentication process. When you publish your archive online you can unlock content in accordance with an IP range or ranges, allowing you to enforce the parameters of an organization’s access. This is also beneficial for the school or library as readers can be granted seamless access without the fuss of worrying about user login details.
When entering a licensing agreement with a third party it is important to be aware of what you are getting into before you commit to anything. Both parties should be made completely aware of the requirements and expectations of the other, and lack of transparency during the negotiation process can result in you getting the shorter end of the stick. The great thing about licensing a digital archive is the many security options available for you to ensure the terms of your agreement are adhered to. We already mentioned referrer IP access, but there is an extensive range of tailored online security features which allow you to regulate who can and can not have access to your magazines, such as fixing the number of concurrent logins permitted, timed access, registration, and even the ability to integrate with a licensee’s API.
Want to explore all the different ways you can monetize your archive?
Lastly, make it easy for prospective licensees to reach out to you. Include a section on your website outlining the process for applying for a partnership and state any requirements upfront. You can link to this page directly from your digital archive to encourage click through rates. Keep a close eye on your analytics for your digital archive and use this information to reassess the value of your archive periodically and adjust your licensing fee rates accordingly.
Example of how Nat Geo advertise their licensing prospects: http://www.natgeomaps.com/content-licensing/
Want to learn more about how an app can help you increase your online profits? Click here to read how to work your archive app into your marketing profits.
