MOTIONS r 2019 BY ISSUU
Decembe
IMAGE CREDIT: QUEST MAGAZINE COVER IMAGE CREDITS: VETER MAGAZINE, SISTERMAG, ROSE & IVY JOURNAL
MASTHEAD & CONTRIBUTORS MEGAN BREUKELMAN EDITOR
WILLIAM SMIAROWSKI CONTRIBUTOR
NICOLAS BORBOLLA CONTRIBUTOR
KATHERINE QUILLES CONTRIBUTOR
SERINA NGUYEN CONTRIBUTOR
SPECIAL THANKS TO JOE HYRKIN JOHN STURINO MEGHAN COLE
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A Word from Meghan Cole, Product Marketing Strategist at Issuu We find ourselves at the beginning of the holiday season. The final push before the new year. For some, it’s a time to reflect on the culmination of your efforts-- a cause for celebration and relaxation. But in the eyes of a marketer, the job is never done. Holiday marketing campaigns are in full swing, strategies laid out for undoubtedly the busiest season for promotions. Sales have been steadily increasing even before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which begs the question: is your team prepared to take advantage of every opportunity this season? At Issuu, we’re aware of the challenges that marketers face during the holiday season, and we’ve prepared the tools to drive
sales and engagement. With features like shopping links, video embeds, and Stories for social, marketers are simplifying their holiday marketing with all of these tools in one place. We’re proud to offer an advanced array of content marketing tools to allow marketers to distribute branded materials. While the job of a marketer is never done, we at Issuu are more excited than ever to provide new solutions for the job. The power of storytelling on Issuu is the perfect addition to the holiday season. Let your audience get better acquainted with your brand’s story with an experience optimized for the digital landscape. Tell your story this holiday season.
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CONTENT CALENDAR IDEAS
IMAGE CREDIT: SANTA BARBARA LIFE & STYLE, TESCO MAGAZINE, ROSE & IVY, THE FRESH EDIT,
DECEMBER 2 0 19 CONTENT CALENDAR IDEAS 4
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RESOLUTIONS A new year, to many, feels like a fresh start. Use New Years resolutions as a pull in your marketing calendar to help people with their goals for 2020. Perhaps you’ve got ways for your audience to better themselves, or something that they’d like to do this coming year.
USING ISSUU FOR SOCIAL Fill up your November 2019 content calendar with content from the Issuu Story Cloud. The Issuu Story Cloud is a suite of integrated digital publishing products. Tap the power of the Issuu Story Cloud to create and share content to your website, on your blog or as Instagram Stories, Stories on Facebook, Snapchat Stories and more. Using the Issuu Story Cloud to distribute your content will allow you to reach a global audience with design-forward assets and digital content. Ready to get started? Head over to the Issuu Creator Hub to see how Issuu can best serve your brand.
TRENDING Blues, silvers, golds Hot chocolate The Holidays New Years Eve Cool weather Home decor ideas Baking, cookies, pies New Years Resolutions
H O L I DAY S I N D E C E M B E R ‘19 IN DECEMBER, the holiday season is in full swing. As things wind down for the year, they’re booming on the flip side for brands and businesses. Tailor your brand’s content to take advantage of the most festive time of year, when your audience is at its most cheerful (and willing to buy into your brand).
National Pie Day (December 1) Cyber Monday (December 2) Human Rights Day (December 10) Winter Solstice (December 21) Chanukah Begins (December 23) Christmas Eve (December 24) Christmas (December 25) New Years Eve (December 31)
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CONTENT MARKETING
How to Create a Holiday Catalog for Your Brand THE BASICS OF CREATING A HOLIDAY CATALOG
The holidays are fast approaching. It’s time to get your customers ready for it. Is your holiday marketing strategy ready for the rush? It’s time to get your digital holiday catalog together for the season. Promoting your brand digitally is a huge key to holiday season success. Consumers are combing social media and the web trying to figure out exactly what to get for their loved ones. The more visibility your brand has, the better. But we’re not talking about just a post here or there–– we’re talking about a clean, concise catalog of what your brand has to offer.
DOES MY BRAND NEED A HOLIDAY CATALOG?
From major retailers to one-person shops, holiday catalogs are a staple for businesses of all sizes. Having a collection of the best of your brand, all in one place, gives shoppers a handy guidebook to what your brand has to offer. It’s professional, it’s helpful and it gives your consumers more.
WHY PUBLISH A HOLIDAY CATALOG DIGITALLY?
The benefits of digital publishing for brands in 2020 are overwhelming. But one of the biggest attractions? In-publication shopping links. Your viewers can easily click through to purchase the products featured in your digital holiday catalog. Lay it out for them in an attractive booklet, and watch the sales roll in. Additionally, having a digital catalog for the holidays gives you more flexibility on sharing. Reach a global audience with the click of a button, and easily share to social media. Plus, you can break your catalog out into Stories to better target your audiences.
I’VE NEVER MADE A HOLIDAY CATALOG. HOW DO I GET STARTED?
We’ve got easy to use Adobe InDesign templates to help get you started. All you’ve got to do is fill it in with your own branding and products. It’s so simple! Once your catalog is ready to go, publish with Issuu for brand success. Packed with optimal features like seamlessly embedded video, shopping links and customizable embedding, Issuu is ready to help make your holiday marketing a success.
SHARING YOUR HOLIDAY CATALOG
Share your holiday catalog with Issuu Stories. Segment out different parts of your catalog and link your audience directly where they need to go. Or, you can publish Visual Stories of your catalog and sell your catalog items with design-forward visual assets for social.
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Staying Focused During the Holidays
The holiday season brings a time of great festivities and fun. But, it also brings heavy workloads, tight deadlines, and for many, lots of stress. To ensure you keep both work and play in order, and your self-care intact during the hecticness of the holidays, we’ve outlined 5-holiday productivity tips. Stay focused during the holidays with these tips.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE INSPIRED HOME
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Set Goals The first key to productivity during the holiday season is to set goals. Whether big or small goals, it’s important to remain honest and aware of the tasks you must complete during the busy time of year. Decide what’s important to achieve and set priorities. Set specific timeframes and deadlines for hot deliverables and your work will be buzzing to completion in no time.
Organize Your Tasks First, you must set goals. Second, you must organize yourself and your tasks in order to reach those goals. A simple to-do list and in-depth and updated calendar will work wonders to keep you organized. Additionally, communication will help ensure you’re organized this holiday season. Talk to your co-workers, talk to your clients, and talk to yourself to ensure hot items and deliverables are met in a timely manner.
Work Distraction Free To increase your holiday productivity, it’s imperative to work distraction-free. Turn off those texts, unplug from social media, and focus on what’s truly important — the work in front of you. To truly boost productivity, give your desk, home-office, and desktop a little love to. A clean workspace will not only decrease distractions, it’ll keep you organized. Thus, increasing holiday productivity.
Leverage Resources Just because it’s a hectic time of year doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help. If you feel your plate piling high, be proactive! Look to your co-workers, friends, family and more for help, advice, or just a little boost to keep you chugging along. Additionally, look to the web for helpful resources to increase your holiday productivity. For example, look to The Issuu Blog. The Issuu Blog is filled with helpful resources for businesses and brands of all types. From content marketing tactics to design tips, to general lifestyle inspiration, there’s bound to be a helpful resource for all.
Take Breaks While working away during the busy time of year, it’s important not to burn out. Thus, ensure you’re taking work breaks and recharging. Not only are work breaks essential to self-care and well being, they actually prove to increase productivity when back to hitting the grind. So, set some time for yourself. Whether it is a 15-minute coffee run or a 60-minute actual run, pick a few activities that you know will help you unwind and recharge.
How Sweet Paul Grows Brand Awareness and Profits Using Issuu Full of elegant recipes, stylish crafts, shopping tips and more, Sweet Paul magazine is a food and crafts magazine founded in 2007 by craft and food stylist Paul Lowe. In the past decade, Sweet Paul has become a top source that people around the world turn to for inspiration. The magazine can be purchased as a subscription or as individual issues for $2.99 each.
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CHALLENGES:
• Previous digital publishing and sales solution was not intuitive or user friendly • Target audience did not have the ability or technology to navigate through a clunky interface/ecosystem • Needed a beautiful digital platform to sell magazines that was not too expensive
GOALS:
• Raise brand awareness by growing social media num- bers and number of online viewers of the magazine • Secure more promotional, content and retail partnerships, influencer deals and advertisers • Turn digital sales of the magazines into a recurring income that can pay costs of operation
“THE MOST VALUABLE PART ABOUT ISSUU IS ITS STATISTICS AND NUMBERS. NUMBERS LIKE ‘29 MILLION IMPRESSIONS ON ISSUU’ REALLY IMPRESS OUR PARTNERS.” WHY ISSUU?
Prior to Issuu, Sweet Paul used a platform that was clunky and unintuitive for their fans to read, download and buy their digital magazine. They decided to take the leap and search for a better solution to sell their magazine online because they wanted a platform that was beautiful, easier for their team to set up and, most importantly, easier for their readers to use. Enter Issuu: within an hour of signing up, editor-in-chief Paul Lowe already uploaded an issue of his digital magazine — and even added hyperlinks — without any hassle. Not only did the ease of use impress Paul, but also how beautiful the user interface was. So, when Issuu first launched Digital Sales, they knew they found the perfect solution to sell their digital magazine. According to Paul Vitale, Marketing and Business Development Director at Sweet Paul, the money from online sales is “all the gravy” because it costs virtually nothing to sell digitally on Issuu. Additionally, he says that Issuu sells itself. “We embed Issuu all over our website and get a ton of new readers because it’s a worldwide discovery tool. It’s one of the best ways to get exposure for Sweet Paul’s brand.
RESULTS:
• Active readers from 150+ countries and 29 million+ total magazine impressions • Detailed statistics that can be used externally for partnership and marketing efforts • The ability to measure success via growth in magazine readers, magazine purchases and social media numbers • Promotion on Issuu gives Sweet Paul exposure to a wider audience and greater brand awareness • A digital sales solution that is easy for Paul to set up and get direct payments, and easy for readers to purchase and download Sweet Paul magazine
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Keep Your Audience Engaged Over the Holidays Predicting how your audience will behave over the holidays is next to impossible. However, there are ways of maintaining engagement over this most hectic season of the year. Don’t get caught crawling your way out of a “whitespace” at the beginning of the New Year. Keep reading for tips on keeping your audience engaged over the holidays. EXPERT INSIGHTS
Social media gurus will tell you that your audience has not checked out, they are simply behaving a little differently. For example, LinkedIn reports a 32% increase in engagement over December. There are three main reasons you should maintain a holiday engagement schedule. First, you protect your share of voice. If you shut up your competitors will gladly take your place. Two, quite simply, your audience expects it. And Lastly, it builds trust. A B2B decision usually takes more than 4 weeks. “Always on” content keeps those longer conversions warm until they are ready for purchase.
SIMPLE STATISTICS
There are some trends everyone should be aware of when planning holiday campaigns. Be careful spending money on paid ads because costs per impression increase over the season. If you must spend money on ad space focus your spending at the beginning before the Thanksgiving holiday and ramp down in the beginning of December. Generally, engagement with brands on social increases 36% from November to December. However, the other side of the story shows us cost per click also jumps 141% with a 41% drop in click through rate. The week before a holiday the cost per engagement drops and the engagement rate increases. This is reversed on the holiday itself. Start the campaign early and let it run it’s steam over the holiday. Most basically, focus on engagement campaigns, not ad space. Lastly, video content has clear benefits. There is a 10% drop in cost per view and a 56% increased view rate November to December. December to January is even better with 64% drop cost per view and 69% increased view rate. Therefore, if you have the budget, invest in video content! It will perform well throughout the season. Or, create video Visual Stories from your long form content with no additional design or engineering resources.
HOLIDAY CONTENT SUGGESTIONS
Remind people you are a trusted resource. As the New Year approaches people are seeking guidance. Inspire their new direction! Repurpose your greatest hits from the past year. Highlight your successes and you don’t have to worry about producing more content. Or, make 2020 predictions. Planning ahead is critical right now. Don’t pause holiday dinner to post on social. Use platforms like Sprout Social or Tailwind and schedule your campaign in advance. ISSUU.COM
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USING THE ISSUU ADOBE INDESIGN EXTENSION 1. 2. 3.
Open Document in InDesign Under Window -> Extensions, select Issuu - Create a Story, Or Under File -> Issuu - Create a Story Select your Story Style (Issuu Styles are templates that reflect your brand needs). Voice Story Style: Fast paced. Strong quotes are the hero. Make use of image takeovers and dynamic text animations to create a strong impact. Inspire Story Style: Get ready to inspire with big images and visual breathing space. Tell your story, where Editorial meets Interactive for an engaging experience.
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Click PREVIEW to preview your Story Style and Click SELECT THIS STYLE Select Pages and Images that you want to appear in your Visual Story and Click PREVIEW TIP: Include at least SIX High Quality Images in your Visual Story.
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Provide Story Title, Publication Title and Publisher Name to your Visual Story and Click EDIT AND SHARE To Edit, Review and Share your Visual Story, you need to have an Issuu Account where you can also Save your Visual Stories Once you login to your Issuu account, you will see below screen where you can Review, Edit and Share Visual Story
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10 Publishing Habits for 2020 Ready to take your publishing game to the next level in 2020? Here are Issuu’s 10 publishing habits you need to learn for 2020 to elevate your business.
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Share to Social The first publishing habit that is crucial to implement in 2020 is to share to social. Now more than ever, readers are digesting all kinds of content on their preferred social platform. So, leverage The Issuu Story Cloud‘s suite of integrated publishing tools to reformat and redistribute your content. First, create and publish your content to Issuu. Second, leverage Issuu’s many tools to ensure your work is seen by many. Format Your Content into Stories 2019 brought us story-sharing experiences on all types of social platforms. From Instagram to Twitter, to Facebook and more, Stories are now the most popular format to connect with new audiences. Thus, it is imperative to make Stories sharing a publishing habit in 2020. Transform your content with a few simple steps so it can easily be viewed on mobile. Think long bulky text that is reformatted into simple-to-read and scrollable content. Optimized for mobile, now your content can be viewed anywhere and at any time. Next, leverage Issuu’s innovative Visual Stories tool to take your content to the next level. Think, imagery and eye-catching quotes, that will do all the heavy lifting and draw in readers to your publication and social platforms. Create Multi-Media Experiences The days of text and image only content are behind us. Instead, leverage embedded video within your publications to create a multimedia experience for your audience. Simply link to a YouTube or Vimeo video, and let the content instantly play right on the page. Let Your Content Design Shine You’ve spent hours upon hours crafting creative copy and capturing vivid imagery. Don’t let sloppy design overshine all of your hard work. Instead, ensure your content shines with sleek and easy to read publication design. Publish Creative Covers Sadly, in most cases, books (or any publication for that matter) are judged by their covers. So, ensure you’re publishing your work with creative, unique, and eye-catching covers. A few key tips to learn when making creative covers a publishing habit of yours: be innovative, be who you are, and have fun with it! Use Captivating Copy A major habit to ensure you’re learning in 2020 is to use captivating copy. In today’s over-saturated content-driven world, ensure your work stands out with fresh and innovative use of words!
Create Revenue Driven Content Looking to scale up your digital publication in 2020? Why not leverage Issuu’s shopping link and digital sales features to turn your creative work into revenue-driven publications. Whether it’s an editorial magazine, digital lookbook, or catalog, earn money by directing readers to your own marketplace or to e-commerce sites like Amazon, Etsy or eBay. Preferred affiliate links programs work too. To set up shopping links: Go to the “Links” section of your publication. You can highlight the clickable areas and then add the link where readers can shop for the item or service. Additionally, with Issuu Sales, publishers can sell digital access to their content on Issuu as a subscription or sell as single issues. Now, sell your content to readers all across the globe. Thus, increasing your potential customer base to the 100 million+ monthly Issuu readers. Looking to make more money in 2020? Then make revenue-driven content a publishing habit today. Understand Analytics Understanding your audience and the way they interact with your publication is a powerful publishing habit to learn in 2020. Issuu offers powerful page-level data analytics on the Issuu Story Cloud that enables brands, content creators and marketers to know when their audience is the most engaged, view which pages perform best and track their ad’s performance. First, understand your publications analytics with Issuu’s innovative tools. Second, leverage those understandings to pivot and create work that will perform to its very best. Leverage Collaboration Whether you’re a team of one or a team of many, collaboration is the key to business (and publication) success. Don’t let all of the pressure and to-do’s lie solely on one individual. Instead, leverage your team, mentors, creators, and more to help within the publication process. Whether it be a design critique, words of wisdom from a friend, or hiring a professional to help with a complex job — let the expertise and mind power of many help along the way. Be Inspired The last publishing habit to learn in 2020: be inspired. Over 15,000+ publications are uploaded to Issuu daily. Thus, let all of the unique brands, creators, and businesses inspire you and your work. Whether you’re looking for design inspo, fresh branding techniques, or simple spins on classics — Issuu is home to thousands of creators pushing the limits and thinking outside of the box. Find your next get idea within the publications of Issuu.
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How Brochures Help to Grow Your Business IN TODAY’S EVER-CHANGING BUSINESS LANDSCAPE, IT’S IMPERATIVE TO LEVERAGE THE MOST EFFECTIVE TOOLS OUT THERE. FROM STORIES TO SALES TO SHOPPING & WEB LINKS AND MORE, ISSUU OFFERS A VARIETY OF INNOVATIVE FEATURES TO HELP ELEVATE BUSINESSES. ANOTHER EFFECTIVE TOOL TO ELEVATE ANY BUSINESS, LARGE OR SMALL, IS BROCHURES. WHETHER PRINT OR DIGITAL, BROCHURES ALLOW COMPANIES TO HIGHLIGHT THEIR OFFERINGS IN A SLEEK AND EASY-TO-DISTRIBUTE MANNER. ADDITIONALLY, WITH THE ISSUU STORY CLOUD, BRANDS CAN REFORMATE THEIR BROCHURE CONTENT FOR VARIOUS PLATFORMS, AUDIENCES, AND MARKETING TACTICS. KEEP READING TO LEARN HOW BROCHURES CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS. 20
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HIGHLIGHT YOUR OFFERINGS Brochures can help brands as a quick and easy way to highlight their offerings. As a key marketing tool, it displays a company’s key details, products, services and more. Here are a few quick tips to ensure your business brochure is done right: 1. Keep it simple: When crafting your brochure, ensure it is done in a straightforward, simple manner. Keep the text short and use a clean, easy to read design. 2. Leverage quality images: As a key piece of marketing collateral, ensure your brochure includes high-quality images that best reflect your brand and its offerings. 3. Provide the details: In an effort to keep the text short, still be sure to include all the necessary details for your audience. Think: company background, products, services, key information and a clear call to action. With Issuu, your business can insert clear Shopping & Web Links directly into your brochure.
REF ORM AT + E X PA ND YO U R CON T EN T Not only do brochures help brands as an effective tool to highlight their offerings, when publishing to Issuu they act as a valuable source of marketing collateral. First, publish to Issuu and get discovered by 50 million+ monthly readers. Second, leverage The Issuu Story Cloud to reformat, redistribute, and expand the brochure’s content. Here’s a few tools from Issuu to get the most out of your online business brochure: 1. Issuu Stories: With Issuu Stories, reformat your brochure’s content into story-like segments. Easily reformat the content into quick, scrollable formats for the web and on social. 2. Visual Stories: Enhance your marketing game with visuals. With Issuu’s Visual Stories, take those high-quality images from your brochure and create stunning social stories that will attract more customers. Thus, a slick piece of marketing collateral can be reformatted for social for each service, product, and offering you have. 3. Embedded Video: With a digital brochure, your multi-media creation opportunities are endless. Leverage Issuu’s embedded video feature to include vivid videos directly on the page. Now, your customers can get an even deeper understand of your business in no time. 4. Digital PDF Reader: You’ve published to Issuu, now show off your work! With the Digital-PDF Reader, your business brochure can be displayed directly to your website in a compelling and brand-first format.
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