A+ to The Economist Marketing Team
According to Folio magazine, The Economist is giving away free subs to bloggers it identifies as "influencers."
This way, when those bloggers write about something they see in The Economist, they "influence" readers to follow the links back to the magazine. And once there, those readers can be sniffed and marketed to...and sold subscriptions.
Think of the bloggers as the equivalent of Google's Ad Sense program (in this, "Content Sense"), effectively expanding The Economist's page count by having its content appearing on more pages out on the Internet. At no cost, as well.
And think of the readers coming to The Economist site as those who click Google Ad Sense keywords - but again, at no cost to the magazine.
Those smart Brits.
This way, when those bloggers write about something they see in The Economist, they "influence" readers to follow the links back to the magazine. And once there, those readers can be sniffed and marketed to...and sold subscriptions.
Think of the bloggers as the equivalent of Google's Ad Sense program (in this, "Content Sense"), effectively expanding The Economist's page count by having its content appearing on more pages out on the Internet. At no cost, as well.
And think of the readers coming to The Economist site as those who click Google Ad Sense keywords - but again, at no cost to the magazine.
Those smart Brits.
1 Comments:
Fundamentally, this doesn't seem very different to me than the comp copies that publishers send to reviewers or sample products that companies send to journalists. [Book] Publishers have been mailing books to bloggers for a few years now. Why? For the same reason they advertise: because those people are read by the public. Of course, more care is required than with mainstream media. For instance, a morning news programs won't spend time on a product simply to slam it. On the other hand, a blogger might. I suspect The Economist will experience an instance when one of their "Influencers" becomes "a snarky critic" negatively commenting on something they've published. That's all part of the checks and balances nature of the internet, I suppose.
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