Ecommerce

Will people pay $500.00 for a content they can buy for $5.00 on the news stand?

After the annual release of the Fortune 500 magazine issue, Fortune Magazine noted that tens of thousands of digital versions of the issue had also been downloaded from Fortune.com. Did this mean that Internet users might be willing to purchase a digital version? Yes. Kelly Cook developed and launched The Fortune Datastore, offering digital versions of Fortune’s company lists:

By year three, the Datastore generated $1 million in incremental revenue for Fortune. Customers raved about the utility of the digital version, finding it an invaluable tool for market and sales prospecting analysis. Later, the model was replicated for Fortune’s sister magazine Asiaweek.

Will online magazine archives cannibalize my renewal rates?

Fortune Magazine was concerned that online magazine archives might cannibalize renewal rates of certain print subscriber demographics. Was an online solution available? Yes. Through a partnership with an online search technology firm, Kelly Cook developed and launched the Fortune Archives. These generated incremental revenue to the magazine through online advertising and online sales of articles to consumers:

Sports Illustrated’s “Insider Authentics” catalogue needed to sell the previous season’s merchandise before the new season began. Could a website help speed this process up? Yes. Kelly Cook worked with Sports Illustrated to launch TheUltimateLockerRoom.com:

Within three weeks, it achieved 100% ROI and set the stage for the roll out of three more Time Warner merchandise sites: Entertainment Weekly’s Studio Store:

and the Virtual Garden and The World Championship Wrestling (WCW) store.

See an example print advertisement developed jointly with Sports Illustrated and the ecommerce vendor:

Curious to know if it would sell online, The CNN/Sports Illustrated team identified spare photography and video footage from Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit edition. Together with CNNSI.com, Cook developed “Swimsuit Extra”, an e-commerce website offering exclusive access to the additional material. In year two, over 8,000 memberships were sold.