It’s impossible to deny that we’re in the digital age. Technology has changed the way we communicate with one another, find information, and experience the world. It makes sense that it’s changed publishing, too. Print magazines can still be successful, but there are a lot of publishers who are now turning to the advantages of digital publishing instead.
Look at Condé Nast, who ended the print edition of Teen Vogue to go 100% digital. The publisher also reduced the number of print issues for many of its popular magazines.
There are a ton of reasons to go digital, but you might still be wondering how it would benefit you. Read on to learn more about some of the biggest advantages of digital publishing.
Cut Costs
Cutting costs is one of the most obvious advantages of digital publishing. Think about how much money gets spent on producing print editions: paper costs, paying printers, and shipping your publications. It all adds up!
When your publication is digital, none of that is an issue anymore. You’ll still have overhead costs, of course — digital can’t make magazine production completely free — but they’ll be significantly reduced.
It’s much cheaper to pay for web hosting services than it is to ship thousands of magazines across the country. You can put the money you save back into the business to help it grow even more.
Go Green
It’s pretty clear that we’ve got to do something about all the waste we create as humans. We like to think that we have unlimited landfill space, but that’s definitely not the case.
You can do your part to help Mother Earth by going digital. Without creating a print edition regularly, you’ll save tons of paper from getting thrown away.
Think of how much paper you need to send a magazine into circulation. When you choose to distribute content digitally instead of in print, you’re saving reams of paper.
Reach A Wider Audience
One of the other advantages of digital publishing is the number of people you can reach. With print publications, your circulation is limited. Production and shipping costs determine how many people you’re going to be able to reach.
Plus, your print run gives you a pretty good estimate of how many people are going to get the chance to interact with your content.
With digital, your audience is virtually unlimited. Local magazines can reach people from a different region of the country. National publications can expand their reach worldwide.
Digital helps to make this happen at a much lower cost to you.
Learn About Your Readers
Of course, no matter what the size of your audience is, you’re going to want to learn more about your readers. Who’s consuming the content that you put out? What are they most interested in learning more about?
You could pull demographic information from the data you collect as a print publication — like the geographic locations of your readers, for example. Digital publishing, on the other hand, makes it incredibly easy to access valuable information.
Demographic information isn’t the only data that you can collect digitally. Wondering which articles people are gravitating towards?
You can take a look at your website analytics to see which headlines got more clicks than others. Then, you can tailor your content so that it’s something people want to read.
The same thing gets applied to advertising data. If you study what people click on most often, that will give you valuable information about what they’re interested in.
Easier Advertising Revenue
Think of all the legwork you have to do to earn advertising money for a print publication. How many people do you have dedicated to just contacting potential advertisers to sell ad space?
Anyone who’s tried to sell ads in a print publication knows how difficult it can be. Digital publications make advertising much easier. You’re able to use the data you collect to make your sales pitch much easier since they’ll be more likely to buy ad space if they know exactly who will see their ad.
You can also sit back and let Google do all the hard work for you. Services like AdSense will automatically place ads that are tailored to each unique website visitor. Once it’s installed, you can watch the money roll in!
Flexible Content Choices
With print, you’re limited in the type of content you can provide. Photos and text are really the only things that you can offer. With digital publications, though, you can play around and get creative.
Most people are aware of the emphasis that’s getting placed on video lately, but that’s not the only digital-only content you can provide. Would your audience enjoy an interactive poll? Can they hover over certain words or phrases to learn more?
If you have younger readers, can you create games that can be played in your publication? If you can create it, you can include it in a digital publication. The possibilities are endless.
Increase Digital Sales
Do you sell or promote items in your publication? Think about all the steps that have to happen for someone to buy a product featured in a print publication.
Let’s say it’s a coat. Once the reader has seen the product, they’re likely going to turn away from the print publication, go to Google, and look up the clothing company. Then they’ll browse through the website looking for the coat they want.
Assuming they don’t get distracted and click away, they’ll find the coat then click “buy.”
Now let’s compare that to the steps if you optimized a digital publication. As long as you’ve added a link to the product, all a reader has to do is click it and they’re taken straight to the page where they can buy it.
Adding click through links to each product will make it much easier for the reader to locate and buy what they want, increasing your sales.
Use The Advantages Of Digital Publishing
There’s no need to wait — start getting all the advantages of digital publishing today. If you’re not sure how to get started, don’t worry. We can help.
MagLoft is the perfect digital publishing platform for people of all levels of technical knowledge. All you have to do is add your content and we’ll take care of the rest. See how we can help you create fantastic digital publications.
