Who me? A Publisher?

When I started looking at the various products and services that our firm would offer, I always knew that with-in a few years we would need a print publication to help drive traffic to our website. It never occurred to me that we start with an eMagazine. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be the perfect way for us to help educate small business owners and entreprenuers. Unlike blogging, this more traditional medium has the potential to be a huge money maker for our firm as well. By starting it online, we will be able to sign up subscribers, use it as a give away and make the transition to a physical piece, with advertisers, once we had the subscriber base. It is also a great tool for us to use to keep our name in front of existing customers (because let's face it... retention is much cheaper than acqusition).

Once the decision was made, I had to figure out what to do about content. I knew that I would not be able to write an entire magazine every month and we couldn't afford to hire writers in the beginning. That is when I realized that, again, I was not using all of my resources. I hooked up with Susie Hale (Publisher of Frog Pond http://www.frogpond.com/) and struck a deal where I can utilize her huge database of articles as content. Now I am confident that our first issue is going to be a huge success and am looking forward to seeing our first release in June.

This is simply one more weapon in our branding arsenal, but no less important than the media kits, websites and ads we intend to run. They all work together to get our name out their and educate our target audience about how we can provide the best solution for them.