During Summer 2018 Pocketmags embraced World Cup Fever and launched ‘Pocketmags World Cup of Magazines’. In a very tense final Dr Who Magazine faced iScot Magazine, with iScot lifting the winners cup! We interviewed Ken McDonald, Director of iScot magazine, about his win and how he utilises the Pocketmags back-office to obtain new digital subscribers.

Firstly, congratulations on your World Cup of Magazines win! How did you get your loyal fan base to vote and get involved?
Thank you. We have always leveraged the potential of social media and make a point of following back every follower. We take an interest in our followers and subscribers online posts and we reply to every single question sent to us. We’ve created a very loyal fan base who feel involved in the shaping of our magazine format. We never forget that they are the profit and we are the overhead. :-)

How did you celebrate your win?
We had a small libation [celebratory drink]

What Pocketmags services do you use?
We use the ePub conversion process which readers like as many are using smaller and smaller electronic devices to access their magazine. We also use targeted promotions in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to promote our magazine to expats.

You’ve continually seen great sales through Pocketmags with the majority coming directly to the site as opposed to alternative platforms such as Apple/ Google Play (meaning you are avoiding any additional fees which many other publishers are having to pay!) What’s your secret in getting users to purchase directly on Pocketmags?

We only ever use the Pocketmags links in promotions to maximise revenue levels.

What’s your favourite marketing tool within the back office?
The ability to create hidden landing pages in a matter of seconds is a particularly neat function.

What single thing do you love about Pocketmags?
Two things - 1) The overall simplicity of the back-end dashboard that lets me know how our product is selling and 2) the ability to drill deep into the statistics. The front end is a very well designed intuitive interface for our customers old and new to navigate with ease.

What do you think the biggest challenge is currently in digital publishing?
Over 10 years ago 80 per cent of the public relied on paper magazines, today that figure is reversed and growing for digital . As the market expands digital publishers need to be ultra creative to ensure they can capture their served market share. I don’t envisage that to be jazzy graphic design - that will be down to the quality of writing. People will always buy quality.