How Habitat Magazine turned its annual attorney survey into multiple revenue streams

Like many magazine publishers, Habitat Magazine has a long history of creating quality content targeted to its specialized audience: property managers and condo board members in the New York area. But, with its potential audience maxing out at about 7,500 subscribers, Habitat has had to get creative with digital media opportunities that have enabled it to repurpose and leverage its content in order to grow. 

By taking a deep dive into its branded content, and by taking an incremental approach to digital innovation, Habitat has been able to create new digital revenue streams that have been critical to its survival.

The evolving attorney survey

Habitat launched an attorney survey in 1997 as a special topic issue designed to capture legal opinions from top attorneys on topics of interest to its readers. The survey proved to be an effective means for Habitat to connect with a specialized audience, and to generate income from attorneys, who don’t often advertise.

Over a decade later, Habitat took the successful print showcase online in the form of a legal podcast. Habitat editors recorded the attorneys’ survey responses, and a podcast series was born. The podcast offered fresh content for website visitors, gave participating lawyers a way to stand out from their competitors, and was an additional source of revenue for Habitat.

Then, in 2017, Habitat enabled legal sponsors to participate in a video series that was packaged as course offerings through Habitat U, an e-learning platform for registered users. The third-party platform, which is integrated with Habitat’s content management system (eZ Publish), enables registered users to access free courses pertaining to condo board management issues, and leverages repurposed content from Habitat’s magazine and website. This additional revenue stream for Habitat also gave sponsors new ways to engage with readers.

Digital extensions power growth

Habitat’s approach to digital investment has been to piggyback on its print strategies, finding unique ways to leverage its existing assets incrementally. By spreading the development of new digital features over several years, Habitat has been able to add robust new multimedia sections to its digital properties, each of which has created a new revenue stream. 

And these revenue streams have become critical. Video sponsorships now represent 33% of Habitat’s web revenue, and all of its growth is now coming from web revenue. Innovating incrementally by leverage existing resources and assets has proved to be a winning strategy for Habitat.

Read more about our work with Habitat Magazine.