One of the biggest challenges for many companies is merging their offline products or services with online offerings.  Sometimes the conversion is easy.  Sometimes it isn't.  For some, the struggle revolves around how to offer online services compelling enough to attract new customers without taking business away from existing offline products.

MarketingSherpa has a great example of a publisher who was able to create a supplemental, paid website that offers customers of its print magazine additional content and non-magazine subscribers an online portal worth paying for.

Taunton Press, which publishes several trade magazines, already had a website to supplement it's Fine Woodworking magazine.  The existing magazine offered archived versions of past magazine articles that the company sold for $3.50.  The company revamped FineWoodworking.com and turned it into a paid-content website with great success.  MarketingSherpa interviewed Michelle Rutkowski, Interactive Marketing Director for Taunton Press and gave them the following tips to help other companies do the same thing:

1. Find a Focus:  It's better to be a great source for a select target audience than to try to be a mediocre service to several audiences.  When people are asked to pay for a service, they want it to be worth spending money.  A focused, targeted body of content can help you create that stellar service that people don't mind forking over cash for.
2. Keep Current Users In Mind:  Taunton sold articles individually and in mass on its old website.  When the site was relaunched as a paid service, the publishing company offered customers with article credits three months of free access to the new website.  Not only did they feel as though they were still getting their money's worth, but it also gave them three months to experience the new website and decide if they wanted to keep paying for it.
3. Don't Skimp:  Don't just republish existing content in online form.  To be successful, online portals need to offer something above and beyond what can be found in the existing service.  As Rutowski tells MarketingSherpa, it's a huge waste of opportunity to not take advantage of the possibilities the internet offers.  Taunton added videos and a specialized navigation system custom designed for woodworkers to add value to the site.
4. Use Existing Resources:  Rutowski invited local subscribers of the print magazine in to the office to have a look at the emerging redesign to get feedback.  Luckily, many of the magazines editors are also woodworkers so they were able to help the company steer the site redesign in the right direction as well.
5. "Dovetail" Marketing:  Taunton was able to launch the website without hurting magazine sales by marketing the products as dovetails of one another.  Both products offer something that can't be found in the other so they are much more complementary products than competitors.
6. Offer Free Content:  Few people, if any, will pay money for a service they can't at least sample.  Finewoodworking.com offers enough free content to give new visitors a good sample of what the paid service offers.  How much is enough?  It depends on the service.  Testing and feedback can help you determine if you're giving away enough or too much.
7. Trust the Customer:  Taunton resisted the urge to constantly offer customers the option of upgrading their membership level.  As Rutowski puts it, "They're perfectly capable of choosing" when to spend money.
8. Market Within Existing Avenues:  As the publishing company for several magazines, Taunton was able to cross-advertise the new website within the other magazines.
9. Test Everything:  Rutowski said her company constantly tests the website and all new content.  She said they test to make sure new additions to the website don't hurt their search engine rankings or conversions rates.  It's always a work in progress