Don Nicholas Managing Partner
Mequoda Group, LLC

Workshop Title: Internet Marketing for Publishers—How to Run an Effective Internet Marketing System

Description: In the Internet Marketing for Publishers workshop, Don Nicholas will introduce you and your team to the Mequoda Best Practices—a revolutionary information marketing system for creating and running a network of successful media websites.

This workshop explores the requirements and parameters for starting and running your own Mequoda Marketing System to sell more of your existing information products and create new, unique online revenue sources.

The Mequoda Marketing System is a two-step program that methodically attracts new customers, captures email addresses and builds customer relationships.

It supports a robust multi-channel database marketing program that includes 27 paid and free media sources that any publisher can use to drive people to its all-important Mequoda Internet Hub.

Once names are gathered, successful publishers use six database marketing distribution channels—links, promotional email, editorial email, direct mail, phone and fax—to contact the people in the database and drive them to one of the company’s marketing satellites to be monetized.

Answers to your most pressing questions about online marketing

How do you convert subscribers to a free email newsletter into paying customers?

We've studied successful Mequoda Marketing Systems that have email subscriber files with a circulation of just a few thousand people, as well as files as large as eight million. And we've seen annual spending per email subscriber that ranges from $8 per subscriber to a high of $180 per subscriber per year.

In the Internet Marketing for Publishers Workshop, Don reveals just how the best Internet marketers maximize conversion rates and monetize their free email subscribers for the highest possible profits.

Don also reports on how to create website system architecture, design and set-up to:

• attract media users searching for information on a specific topic
• capture email addresses using free premiums and floaters
• implement up sell order flows and rapid conversion landing pages

In the Internet Marketing for Publishers Workshop, Don will also explain:

• how to use subscription premiums as catalysts for your customer acquisition campaign
• how to create different kinds of website pages and optimize them for the search engines
• how to create a series of both free and premium reports to increase circulation and profits

Plus, you'll learn the details of how some of the most successful online publishers:

• use both paid and earned media sources to build email circulation
• monetize customer relationships using five separate channels of communication
• measure the key metrics of their online enterprise with an integrated budgeting and forecasting tool

Workshop outline and agenda

This workshop can be customized to address your specific concerns and requirements. In general, Internet Marketing for Publishers—How to Run an Effective Internet Marketing System is presented in the following format.

Morning: Three-hour tutorial encompassing Internet Marketing for Publishers lecture and discussion

In the morning session, Don will detail the four phases of launching and operating a successful Mequoda Marketing System. In this fast-paced presentation, Don uses our very own Mequoda Website Network to illustrate the Mequoda Marketing System components.

The Mequoda Website Network is a living laboratory used to explore and document best practices for online publishing using the Mequoda Marketing System. The complexity of the Mequoda Marketing System gives those who master it a significant competitive advantage in starting and running an online publishing business.

Phase 1: System Architecture, Design & Set-Up

To start a fully optimized Mequoda Marketing System, you will need an Internet Hub with strong attraction and conversion architecture, one or more high-frequency email newsletters to acquire and build loyal customer relationships, email newsletter subscription premiums that act as catalysts to grow your email list and an online publishing team dedicated to maximizing your two key metrics (email circulation and revenue per email subscriber).

Phase 2: Using Earned Media to Build Email Circulation

While there are more than a dozen earned media sources that have been documented by the Mequoda Research Team, Don will focus on four for this presentation—website organic conversion architecture, internal print media merchandising, external public relations and search engine optimization. The goal for each new subscriber acquisition program is to get a prospective email newsletter to the site, to a rapid conversion landing page, then through the email opt-in process, and ideally to complete an up sell order flow for a paid information product.

Phase 3: Using Paid Media to Build Email Circulation

Paid media programs offer the Mequoda Marketing System operator the opportunity for quick results with a reasonable ROI. Each of these programs involves finding and buying traffic by spending money to buy advertising, leads or lists. While there are more than a dozen paid sources that can be used to successfully drive website traffic, build email circulation and sell information products, Don will concentrate on four—pay per click advertising (PPC), email advertising, website advertising and direct mail.

Phase 4: Building Customer Loyalty & Monetizing Customer Relationships

The real pay-off in a Mequoda Marketing System comes over time as system operators communicate with email subscribers about offers for paid information products. Don will explain the five primary channels of communication between the online publisher and their users that result in information products being sold, including editorial email, promotional email, direct mail, telemarketing and fax.

Afternoon: Three-hour interactive, applying Internet Marketing for Publishers to your business

In the afternoon session, Don will lead an interactive Q&A devoted to how you can start and run your own Mequoda Internet marketing system. This is a "blue sky" meeting that uses a series of exercises to get you to tell him the optimal specifications for your system—the parameters that will leverage your brand, content, media relationships, staffing plus other relevant brand and organizational resources.

Topics range from search engine optimization, to developing new products, to reorganizing staff for online publishing. Together you will create the outline and step-by-step action items for an Internet marketing campaign to build website traffic, email circulation, and sell one or more information products.

Objectives and outcomes

1. Establish target audience needs, editorial topics, selectivity and formats.

2. Explore and quantify brand and topic related website traffic and search activity.

3. Define Mequoda rapid conversion architecture including up sell order flows.

4. Define Mequoda organic conversion architecture and supporting elements.

5. Establish email newsletter and email promotion contact frequency.

6. Reviews and select earned media campaign sources for launch.

7. Review and select paid media campaign sources for launch.

8. Review and set staffing and support requirements.

9. Review Mequoda Internet marketing model forecasting methodology.

Who should attend

Publishers, editors, journalists, copywriters, circulation directors, website architects, usability engineers, creative directors and others responsible for website design, website content, Internet strategy and online marketing will all benefit from participating in this workshop.

Pricing details

The price for the Internet Marketing for Publishers workshop within the United States is $7,200 plus travel expenses. Please call us for international pricing.

Price includes a digital site license to duplicate both the PowerPoint presentation and the companion course book and notebook, for distribution to your staff.

Accepted forms of payment

• Check in U.S. dollars

• Bank transfer

• Credit card number sent by mail, fax, or phone (VISA, MasterCard, American Express)

• Purchase order, followed by payment in one of these forms.

We can also mail, email, or fax you a paper invoice that you can provide to your accounting department to initiate payment.

To learn more

If you are interested in additional information or would like to schedule this workshop, please contact Julie Ottomano, Client Services Manager, Mequoda Group, LLC, 508.435.1005, or click the link below.

Where do you want to go next?

Contact Us

About Mequoda—Who we are, where we've been, what we do

About Don Nicholas—Profile of Mequoda's Chief Information Architect

Sample Don's Presentation—See a representative video clip from a Mequoda workshop