Making the Most of Magazine Circulation and Distribution
Distribution of magazines begins with a great relationship with your distributor
Making the most of magazine circulation and distribution begins with understanding what you want from your magazine and understanding the process of business magazine circulation. It is more than just crunching some magazine circulation figures and hiring a distributor. You need to understand the services you want, the type of publication you have and how much money you have to spend.If you need magazine circulation and distribution services for your new business publication, work with professionals to ensure that your magazine reaches as many hands as possible. While there are many software programs and do-it-yourself solutions available for distributing your publication, the legal, financial and logistic issues associated with the magazine circulation process are complex and best left to the experts. If you are trying to absorb a lot of magazine circulation data, but are not sure what choices to make, consider:
- Work with consultants to get industry-specific magazine distribution information.
- Decide on the services you need so that you can develop a good relationship with your distributor.
- Research digital magazine distribution companies as a way to save money on circulation costs.
Hire a consultant to get specific magazine circulation information
A consultant conversant in the circulation of magazines can be one of the best investments you make. Consultants charge by the hour, so a relatively inexpensive few hours can teach you a great deal about the issues that need to be considered for your magazine's success, such as method of distribution, postal considerations, scope of the distribution and other factors.
Try: Erazmus has a useful page explaining how circulation consultants work. Masten Publishing Systems provides a useful article on why and how to hire a magazine circulation consultant.
Determine what services you need from magazine distributors
Distribution of a magazine can include door-to-door selling, negotiating with retailers and local businesses to stock your magazine, postage costs, labeling costs, delivery costs to retailers or businesses and other related expenses. Before you speak with magazine distribution professionals, you need to decide which of these services you do and do not need.
Try: MagazineLaunch.com has a handy guide on setting up a distribution system. MagazinePublisher.com provides a guide outlining the various things to be done to distribute a magazine. This is a great place to look if you need to determine what services you might need from a distributor.
Consider digital magazine circulation companies
One potential way to save money on magazine circulations is to distribute your publication digitally. This helps you reduce mailing and labeling costs, but it can create additional costs if your magazine is not already in digital form and will need to be converted. Although this form of distribution is far simpler (just press a button to send your latest edition to your list of subscribers), the competition among digital editions is fierce and some marketing experts claim that a printed page is more advantageous from a marketing perspective because customers can retain the printed page easily.
Try: Publishing Business Group provides a useful article about digital magazine editions, which is a good resource for understanding this medium. Pressmart digitizes content and distributes it through online channels. Their website has a useful video tutorial of how the process works.
- Making the most of magazine circulation and distribution means utilizing free resources to boost your circulation numbers. Free newsletters, inserts and other marketing efforts, for example, can boost your circulation numbers.
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