ObjectiveIncrease offline magazine subscription by completely overhauling the site and designing one that supports monthly updates and premium subscriber content. We need to report on magazine subscriptions garnered thru the site and new site memberships.
SolutionWe created a site that has multiple privilege levels, all with the aim of increasing the demand and value of becoming a Discover Magazine subscriber. TO access the highest level of content on the site you need to be a subscriber to Discover magazine, which you can do on the site. The site allows us to collect email info from non-subscriber, to assist us in our targeted email campaigns to encourage visitors to upgrade to full subscribers.
The site also incorporates an e-postcards section that allows users to email electronic postcards to friends, and the ability to create their own 'My Discover' section allowing them to bookmark favorite articles for future viewing as well as signing up for newsletters and topic alerts. By signing up to a topic alert, for example technology, the website visitor will receive an email when new articles are posted on that topic. The site also has the ability to email articles to friends, display printer friendly version of articles, and the ability to recommend articles to fellow website visitors. We have added a Discussion Forum to the site that allows people to post comments on articles and create lively discussions. The site also has over 10 years worth of previous archived articles that are accesses thru and easy to use search form or a ‘browse’ functionality.
ResultsSite traffic increased 300% from the previous year (before the new site launched). Online subscriptions have increased 455% from the previous year. Site maintenance time reduced by 35% and site maintenance cost by 25%, sizeable taking into account expanded site content. Online subscriptions have paid for the entire site redesign in just over 8 months.
We added several customized sections to the Discover site. In order to create a better sense of community we developed an E-Postcards section as well as a Discussion Forum, where member could discuss various articles. We also built Article utilities that allow users to print, email, rank, and bookmark articles they liked.
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We were asked by Discover to design several banner advertisements to drive subscriptions, membership, as well as promote several sections of the site, such as E-Postcards. We are continually updating and adding banners to the site to promote discover as well as affiliate partners.
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The discover.com site is one of the most heavily trafficked sites we’ve ever built and hosted. We provided the best solution to fit the needs of this site, while taking all necessary security measures as well.
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One of the most important aspects of the site is the subscription registration feature. This allows the public and members to subscribe to the print version of discover magazine as well as unlock all restricted areas of the site. We also included the ability to for non magazine subscribers to purchase individual articles.
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We customized our content management system to allow for several new features. One is an advanced reporting tool, that tracks membership, subscriptions,
traffic statistics and more We also customized the system to allow for versioning and scheduled publishing/un-publishing. These are important features that allow discover to “go live” with entire sections at off-peak hours automatically.
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