The Publish platform has been developed in close collaboration with news and magazine publishers. Our mission has been to create an affordable suite of digital tools to ensure our customers thrive online. 

1. The Paywall

Whether you’re a paid or free publication, the Publish paywall is a super powerful piece of publishing technology. It has all the tools to build a robust premium content strategy without the heavy price tag of other leading paywall solutions.

Many of our customers use traditional subscriptions such as monthly or annual plans. But we also offer metered subscriptions – where the customer can purchase a number of articles. Then there’s “freemium” plans, a strategy of offering some free content in exchange for a reader’s email address. The platform also supports multi-user plans and donations. 

Another great feature is the ability to easily activate free trials on your plans, as a way of enticing potential subscribers. And for publishers with e-newsletters, our paywall can automatically add new subscribers to your MailChimp list.

The Publish paywall packs a punch and can be the key pillar of your online content business.

2. The Ad Manager
The in-built display ad manager is another powerful tool, allowing you to take full control over your ad slots. Simply load a picture into the associated ad slot and away you go. Or drop in a piece of code from your preferred third-party ad platform such as Google Ad Manager.

The Ad Manager allows you to target ads depending on device. Importantly, it’s also super simple to target ads based on sections of the site. This is great for your sales team, enabling them to offer a more targeted audience to advertisers. It also means an advertiser has the option to “own” whole sections of the website.

Let’s say the local shoe shop is having a sale on football boots. You could easily restrict their ads to only show on the football news section. This scales up your digital assets every time you add a new section, as well as giving the advertiser quality views.

Likewise, the concept of sponsored content is more attractive if you can guarantee to the advertiser that the article will be accompanied by only their company’s branding. 

3. The Business Directory
Readers come to your website because you are a trusted source of information, and this reputation extends to your advertisers. It’s these reasons which make a business directory such a winning revenue-generator.

If you already have a print directory or a roster of advertisers from various industries, it’s a straightforward upsell for your sales team. For the advertisers, it’s a no-brainer to pay a relatively small fee for visibility across their community’s trusted platforms.

We recommend charging businesses in your area or sector a reasonable annual fee, ideally set up to automatically recur with the advertiser’s consent. Here’s a live example of a terrific directory full of local businesses.

4. Real Estate Listings
Partnerships with real estate agents have long provided key revenue streams for magazines and newspapers in print, and online should be no different. The Publish platform comes with ready-made property listings so you can publish elegant real estate ads sponsored by your local agents. 

We recommend creating a real estate section on your website and offering “Feature Properties” content in prime position on the home page. On top of this, agents can have their own branded landing pages on your site to house their latest listings as well as any written content they wish to contribute.

Our property listings are professionally designed layouts that rival major real estate platforms.

5. Digital Screens
Imagine being able to instantly publish breaking news to a network of digital screens around your local area? Pagemasters Publish has this functionality built into our premium plans – allowing an ever-updating slideshow of your latest content on display.

Local sports results can be beamed instantly to a flatscreen TV on the wall of the pub – pushed by a journalist on their mobile at the sportsground. Your best photography and content can be splashed around town in waiting rooms, schools and lobbies.

And the best thing? These screens don’t just display your content, they can carry advertising – yet another digital asset for your sales team, and one that we believe will present a significant opportunity for media businesses in the next decade. 

All it requires is a smart TV and participating businesses who want to associate their business with your vital community content. Great for brand awareness, great for connecting with businesses, great for advertisers.