If you want to grow your publishing business, achieve new milestones, and hit all your revenue targets in 2021, try these five new apps.
What are the most important parts of your tech stack? If you’re not sure of the answer, you might not be using the right technology. Cloud-based apps and platforms are one of the fastest ways to streamline operations and grow your publishing business. The best apps are set up to help publishers take control of their audience interactions and better understand reader behaviors.
Rapid acceleration within the cloud-based technology space has led to an incredible increase in the number of apps and platforms available for digital publishers. Publishers are using new technologies to uncover insights with first-party data and content analytics tools. They are also using newly-developed e-commerce apps to quickly generate more revenue and newsletter, podcasting, and paywall apps to automate some of the most tedious aspects of online publishing.
Although there are hundreds of new apps available to help grow your publishing business, we’ve taken a look at five of the most popular solutions being adopted by digital news sites and online magazine publishers in 2021.
5 Apps for Digital Publishers
1. Parse.ly
What do you know about content analytics? The topic has moved front and center in 2021, with digital publishers taking a closer look at content performance to understand content value and provide their readers with more tailored online experiences. Parse.ly is one of the most widely-used content analytics tools. The platform gives publishers access to real-time data, so they can keep a pulse on their audiences and leverage historical analysis to truly understand what content their readers want to see. Parse.ly tracks more than 30 attention metrics, and it can be used to combine those metrics with audience segmentation to track things like engagement time and social referrals. To learn more about Parse.ly, click here.
2. MonsterInsights
Digital-first publishers like BuzzFeed have been using first-party data for years. Now, smaller publishers can collect the same information using the latest batch of first-party data tools. First-party data is data that publishers collect from their own sources, such as their websites, social media pages, or reader surveys. Apps like MonsterInsights offer a way for digital publishers to collect WordPress visitor demographics so they can target their ideal audiences. Knowledge is power for digital publishers. Understanding which groups have the highest levels of engagement allows publishers to create more content aimed at readers who are most likely to convert. To learn more about MonsterInsights’ Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, click here.
3. Leaky Paywall
The fastest way to increase subscriptions is to put up a paywall. The fastest way to build a paywall is to use an app designed specifically for that purpose. Leaky Paywall is a WordPress plugin that will help you grow your publishing business. Publishers using Leaky Paywall can control and sell access to specific categories, tags, or individual articles on their websites. Custom paywall settings are also available, allowing publishers to setup metered paywalls, free registrations, and membership campaigns. To learn more about the features available with Leaky Paywall, click here.
4. Easy Digital Downloads
Retailers aren’t the only ones selling physical and virtual products on their websites these days. Local news publishers and online magazines have gotten into the e-commerce business, as well. Publishers who run their websites on the WordPress platform can use a plugin like Easy Digital Downloads to easily sell digital goods, including ebooks and digital images. Publishers can accept payments using Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, and they can create individual discount codes as a way to give away certain products to their paid subscribers. Easy Digital Downloads integrates with most of the top cloud-based apps used by digital publishers in 2021, including Mailchimp, PayPal, and Slack. To learn more about Easy Digital Downloads, click here.
5. Mailchimp
No list of the top apps to grow your publishing business would be complete without Mailchimp. Mailchimp is one of the many newsletter apps that publishers are now using to quickly generate newsletter products for their subscribers. Mailchimp is considered an all-in-one solution, meaning that publishers can manage their subscriber lists, design their newsletters, and even purchase custom domains through Mailchimp’s platform. To learn more about best practices for generating more newsletter sign ups, click here.
