Don Nicholas Managing Partner
Mequoda Group, LLC

Workshop Title: Making Money Online-- How to Start & Run a Successful Online Publishing Business

Description: In the Internet Strategy for Publishers workshop, Don Nicholas will introduce you and your team to the seven best practices, or organizational habits, that comprise the Mequoda Method.

The Mequoda Method is a collection of media management behaviors that when operated as a repeating cycle, create an audience-driven, continuous improvement media management system.

Proven methods for achieving success in online publishing

In this workshop, Don clears away the confusion, bringing together the proven discoveries of writers, publishers and online marketers who have succeeded at making money on the Internet.

Don will reveal how niche media online publishing companies make big money on the Internet using little-known Internet marketing and website design strategies -- and how you can do the same!

This workshop is not about unproven theory. Don will explain to you precisely how to change the way you run your company in order to succeed with online marketing.

Workshop outline and agenda

This workshop can be customized to address your specific concerns and requirements. In general, Making Money Online -- How to Start & Run a Successful Online Publishing Business is presented in the following format.

Morning: Three-hour tutorial encompassing Making Money Online lecture and discussion

In the morning session, Don will detail the seven best practices for running a successful Mequoda Marketing System and share case studies that demonstrate each best practice. He'll also share the metrics that various system operators such as The Daily Reckoning, America's Test Kitchen, The Motley Fool, Consumer Reports, Forbes and others have achieved using the system.

Note that the data we share will be sourced to Mequoda Library Case Studies and not to Mequoda Group consulting clients.

Because the program is primarily a PowerPoint presentation, it enables Don to customize the anecdotes, examples and statistics he cites so that they will be relevant to your organization.

Here's an overview of the seven Mequoda best practices you'll explore:

Best Practice #1: Managing Strategically

When running a media business, it is vital to choose and implement a strategic management system over a command and control management system. Discover why productivity in a media environment is greatly increased when a strategic management system is implemented.

Best Practice #2: Building Your Product Portfolio

The Internet provides many opportunities for information marketers to reuse, republish and recycle content. Whether you have one print magazine and are looking for additional revenue streams, or you have many products, the product portfolio provides a method for organizing your content for maximize profit.

Best Practice #3: Organizing by Brand

While most entrepreneurial publishers are sprinting into multi-platform publishing, larger publishers that are organized by platform are often lagging behind them in online revenue and multi-platform media development. Those media might include books, TV, events or other profitable brand extensions. Discover why organizing by brand is the best choice for developing and managing an innovative multiplatfrom media organization.

Best Practice #4: Simplifying Website Architecture

Once you understand the relevance and importance of organizing by brand and building a product portfolio to publishing success, the next step is to understand the relevance and importance of simplifying your website architecture by building a Mequoda Website Network. Building a website network allows you to synchronize your various online business units and make them work to maximum advantage.

Best Practice #5: Create Robust Websites

Periodical publishers have historically considered content to be disposable -- generated once for use in a magazine or book and then discarded. Learn how publishers use the Internet to recycle, reuse, republish and post lots of content, using information architecture that makes the content findable for search engines and website users. Discover 14 guidelines for user-centric, content-heavy website design that will ensure your visitors revisit again and again.

Best Practice #6: Diversifying Website Traffic

The major difference between the Mequoda Marketing System and that of traditional publishing models is the use of free content to drive online traffic. By offering free content (email newsletter subscriptions, web-page access, eReports, blogs, or RSS feeds) through a variety of free and/or paid media sources, a publisher can entice interested individuals to a website -- an Internet Hub -- where long-term relationships begin.

Best Practice #7: Managing with Metrics

Discover how to implement a metrics-driven plan for your Internet business model that will help determine direct profit and loss. Learn the key drivers behind user-driven sites and the most important profit-impacting variables that affect your website's bottom line.

Afternoon: Three-hour interactive, applying Making Money Online to your business

In the afternoon session, Don will lead an interactive Q&A devoted to creating a product portfolio and Internet hub website architecture that is appropriate for your brand and products.

Objectives and outcomes

1. Examine the most common traits of online publishing companies that have made millions on the Internet.

2. Explore the keys to maximizing profit using your existing content and knowledge-base.

3. Discover how to increase conversion rates and improve the user experience with your brand online.

4. Understand the secret strategy used by the most successful online publishers to increase sales and profits.

5. Learn how to apply user-centric guidelines to your online publishing enterprise that will create loyal customers.

6. Discover the external media sources and database marketing channels that constitute a proven Internet marketing system.

7. Understand the key drivers that affect your website's bottom line and learn how to implement a metrics-driven plan for your integrated online publishing empire.

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 Making Money Online 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