How to Start a Magazine Company Online – Sample Business Plan Template
Before you start your own magazine company online, you will need to brainstorm and look for ideas on the following-:
1. Choose a Magazine name-: What would your magazine be called? You must choose a name that would be attractive to people and compel them to buy your magazine.
2. Choose a Hot Magazine Topic
What will be the main subject of your magazine? Would it be a health magazine? Or a political magazine? Do you prefer to write about fashion or technology? Whatever topic you decide to write on, just make sure it is a topic you are very passionate about and it must have a buying audience. That way, you will be able to create interesting and engaging write-ups that would be appealing to readers compared to writing about topics you are not familiar with.
3. Determine your Audience
You also have to determine who your target audiences are. What age grade are you targeting? What gender do you want to write for? This is very important because it would determine the content of your magazine.
The topics that would look interesting to teenagers might of course not be appealing to adults. Likewise, the way you will package a ‘men’s only’ magazine would be quite different from that of a female magazine.
4. Determine your Magazine Caliber
You would also have to decide on the caliber of your magazine. Would you want your magazine to be focused on only one area such as fashion or politics or would you prefer to create a magazine that would have a little bit of this and that in it? This is something you must consider before you start your magazine business.
5. Build your content
You have to take time to build your audience. Remember that you have to get people to continually to buy your magazine and that won’t happen if your magazine is trashy and boring. Take time to research hot topics in the niche you have chosen. This can be done through search engines like Google and Bing.
6. Seek for professional help
It is important that you reach out to people who can assist you in the business. Such people may be experts in the business, content writers, publishers or influential people in your target market.
These set of people would be able to give you tips on how to run the business successfully, the challenges you may face and how to handle them and the ways through which you can promote your business.
7. Find out the cost implication
Before you start your business, it is important that you know how much it is going to cost you and see if you have the required capital or would have to resort to borrowing to augment what you already have.
The best way to find out if you have enough money to start your business is to discuss with people who have experience in the business or people who work for magazine companies such as printers, writers or financial institutions.
8. Study your competitors
You want to go into a business that is already crowded and you will like your own magazine to stand out from the crowd. Therefore, you have to spy on your competitors and see how they operate their business and what makes them successful in the business. When you know these things, you will be able to set a higher standard for your own magazine business.
9. Write a business plan for your magazine company
A business plan is a very important start-up tool for any serious businessman who wants to succeed. Your business plan contains your vision for the business and would always serve as a guide and a control mechanism for your business.
Business plans are also required by banks and financial institutions when you approach them for extra funds to finance your business. It would help to show the financial viability of the business. However, you must make sure you consult a professional to help you write your business plan if you cannot write it yourself.
10. Create a great team to work with you in the business
Writing a magazine is not as easy as it seems. There are a whole lot of technicalities involved. You will have to produce superb articles, source for good pictures and images to add up to it, print the magazine, sell and promote it and also manage your finances.
Except you are super human, you can’t handle all of this by yourself. Therefore, it is wiser for you to employ other people to help you out. You can hire different people to be in charge of various aspects of the business.
A publication manager to be in charge of everything that has to do with publishing the magazine, a sales manager to be in charge of sales and promotion of the magazine and a financial manager to handle all income and expenditure.
11. Source for magazine content
You would need writers, editors, photographers and graphic designers to help you develop content for your magazine.
One way to reduce costs at this stage is to hire freelancers instead of full-time staff. But you must make sure you select good writers who would create good content for your magazine as the success of your magazine business largely depends on your magazine content.
12. Hire a good printer
When you have created and edited all the content you want to put into your magazine, it is now time to look for a good and reputable printer who would use top quality material to print your magazine and make it look colorful and attractive.
13. Plan your magazine issues
When you have all the above factors figured out, you are ready to start your magazine company and release your first magazine issue.
Your first issue must be thoroughly planned out with only the best articles and photos. You should also determine how much you are going to be selling your magazine and how you will be releasing it. Would it be a monthly issue, weekly issue, or quarterly?
14. Collect Feedback
After your first issue, make sure you receive feedback and constructive criticisms that would help you improve on your business.
You should find out if your price is okay or if you have to reduce it to make it more affordable.What about your contents? What do people think about it? You should seek out trusted people to offer you advice on how to improve on what you are already doing.
15. Search for advertisement contracts
One major way people make money from magazines is through advertisements. After your first publication, you need to look for people to advertise in your magazine for a fee, so that you can increase your income.
Magazine publishing business is very lucrative but requires a huge capital outlay. If you do not have much money to invest, you can consider starting an online magazine which is cheaper to start and you can gradually build on that.
As a final note, i want to point out the fact that the print media business is dying; newspapers and magazines included. The future is now online. But the good news is that it cost way less to set up a magazine online than offline. To kick start your online magazine, just follow the steps above but leave out the printing aspect of it.
Rather than print hard copies, you can setup a blog cheaply and publish your magazine content. However, i will advice you spend some little time to learn how online marketing works. Your online magazine blog can also serve the purpose of receiving feedback, so that people who want to advertise can contact you.
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