Publishing's Holiday Secrets for Success: The Ulterior Motive

With the holidays looming, everyone is aflutter making plans to work on initiatives that meet year-end goals and drive phenomenal holiday results. For many publishers, gifting of subscriptions has been a long-standing tradition, not to mention a key source of revenue. But gifting isn’t the only driver of holiday sales for publishers.

Publishing has an ulterior motive. And that ulterior motive helps drive big money. Interested in knowing what a few of the secrets to success are? Keep reading.

Secret No. 1: Getting out gets people in. Publishing offers the reader a chance to escape and get away from it all. Despite all of the holiday buzz, there are still people who, for various reasons, just wish the holidays would end. For those people, having the opportunity to purchase a publication that allows them to escape into a world of gorgeous images and articles is a great route of escape. Many publication sales are sold to the intended reader.

Secret No. 2: Gift guides work overtime. If a publisher doesn’t produce a standalone gift guide, in most cases they are producing gift recommendations inside current issues. Gift guides sell! For those people who love to look at a trusted expert (aka the editor of their favorite magazine), they will buy, and with digital magazines, they will buy right from the URL. The smartest publishers are doing affiliate sales through gift guide links, in addition to leveraging gift guides as an intro sell into a full subscription post holiday.

Secret No. 3: Impulse. People travel during the holidays and stand in a lot of lines. People need publications at their fingers while they are waiting and traveling. A secret to publishing success is offering people the ability to buy single issues immediately. It’s an impulse buy. Digital makes this very easy- but this strategy is still effective even in print. Putting a single issue in front of where a customer is walking or standing can bring big bucks during the holidays.

If your holiday strategy doesn’t include this variation on your thinking, and gets to the ulterior motive, you might just have unlocked a few ways to drive extra money to the bottom line and delight customers. Make sure you have a view of how your plans will play into people’s hearts and minds this holiday season.

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