LeadGen & SEO for Magazines: Why the 2020’s Are Your Decade
Does COVID-19 have the magazine publishing industry fearful? As of late 2019, there was already talk of whether print magazines were a good business to be in. The 2020s haven’t gotten off to a great start for most magazines due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). In fact, if yours is a bigger magazine, your print edition may or may not have gone under already. If you want your magazine to stand out and succeed in today’s digital world, you need to think beyond print. Investing in SEO for lead generation and guerrilla marketing tactics can help your publication reach a wider audience and compete with larger competitors. Don’t overlook the importance of designing an SEO-friendly magazine interface for maximum online visibility and lead generation.
Many magazines require big numbers. They need lots of people to physically come into an office and do things, coordinate in real-time with advertisers too big to neglect for long. They’re not well organized, so they have to meet constantly to straighten things out.
Advertising. Writers. Designers. The culture is 100% in-office. Then, the floor drops away and employees are told to stay home. They scramble to deal with working from home, glad to have jobs, if they aren’t laid off.
The don’t use LeadGen. No lead generation tactics outside of advertising. Why? Because it’s predictable and they have loads of capital to burn. It’s all been worked out by a team of specialists lead by a Director of Markeint.
Then there’s your magazine. You’re smaller. Much smaller. You don’t have a big overhead yet. You look around. Bigger players are stumbling here and there. The playing field seems to be leveling quickly. Do you act? Or freeze up?
Even though things look bleak, and false hopes are something of a running groan right now, the truth is that nobody knows what tomorrow holds. But there are reasons to look up. The economy, for better or worse, is eager to start booming again. There is a likelihood that solutions will begin to fall into place. Is now the perfect time for fresh lead generation ideas? We think so.
One way your mag can leap ahead is by getting out in front of the big guys in SERPs – with SEO for magazines. Their ads are not running right now. That doesn’t mean you meed to run up your business credit card, however. Take a minute. Breathe. You know what to do. You just need reminding.
Look at those same search results that your main phrase would bring up if you had a million-dollar ad budget. Pretend it’s pre-virus, so you don’t get off track. That’s right. The page is clogged with competitors. Those competitors will be back. But you can get onto the first page.
Don’t Commit the Original Sin: Prioritize SEO for Lead Generation in Magazine Publishing
That’s right. SEO. I don’t mean that horrible, tacky stuff designed to grab search results in the short term only and which ends up falling down to page 100 in about 5 days or less. No. Not that stuff…
I mean the proven content marketing and lead generation-heavy content strategies that get pages and websites up high in authority and visibility over time. You can do that stuff. Like what, you ask?
1. Post that brave new content about what matters.
Qualified leads don’t come to those who offer not value or don’t write about that matters to the prospect.
2. Find other adjacent websites that are looking for things to curate on your topic.
Part of your email marketing should be about the curators. That means creating a program that addresses them.
3. Make real connections with those people, their websites, show your support, become friends of their cause.
Make it personal. And be consistent, whether you get what you wanted or not, the connections will matter over time. You reach out to 100 sites, maybe 5-10 will become a connection and the seeds will grow.
4. Use real industry analytics tools that gauge organic growth intelligently
Across search results, content topics, and social media footprint (Flip180 personally uses semrush for all of our own clients due to the wealth of insights it contains across channels). Producing marketing-qualified leads should be your first goal if you hope to produce sales-qualified leads down the funnel.
5. Get your social media on the right foot in the lull.
Let’s face it: the big guys are probably fumbling right now. Here’s your chance to finally do social media right and make it pay off on it’s own, and for your content, and yes, ultimately for your SEO for lead generation efforts as well.
Look at LeadGen with new eyes. Lead generation for magazines includes SEO, social media marketing, advertising, analytics and guerilla marketing tactics. Yes, all of that applies to your magazine. Yes, even yours.
Need more help with your Magazine’s SEO for lead generation?
I drive results for magazine publishers.
Experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in internet engineering, marketing, business development and digital publishing.
