How to Use Stories to Drive Sales

Issuu connects content to people.

One of the best ways to do that is through Stories: bite-size, mobile-optimized segments of your publication that you can share easily and effectively throughout social media. But Stories are useful for more than just promoting your publication—they actually present a whole world of social marketing opportunity. And Issuu is more capable than ever to help you excel.

How to use the Issuu Story Cloud1

Think of the Issuu Story Cloud as your toolbox. How you use the tools is entirely up to you, but we’re here to improve your experience. With new Visual Stories and the Issuu Story Cloud, as well as premium features like Digital Sales and our uniquely in-depth analytics, Issuu can help you drive sales. Here’s how to best use our features.

Issuu Embeds

If you’re a publication that already generates a lot of traffic, Issuu Embed is your best friend. By embedding your publication onto your website using Issuu, you can improve your reach and drive impressions. Or, if you’re selling digitally, you can display preview pages on our flipbook style reader alongside a prompt to buy digitally. For interested readers, the process couldn’t be more seamless. No lengthy downloads, emails, or codes. Just a quick payment, and instant access to your content. The best part? Stripe makes transactions simple, straightforward, and without strings attached.

Issuu Analytics

An understated but equally important aspect of digital marketing goes beyond just writing copy and designing splash pages. And it doesn’t matter if you’re an indie magazine, a local biweekly, or a student journal: if you’re looking to sell, market research matters. Here’s the good news: if you have a premium Issuu plan, the Issuu Story Cloud automatically gives you access to all the most important metrics. From the big numbers (total impressions, reads, sales), to the nitty-gritty (read times, read locations, link-outs), to important overviews (publication performance), Issuu offers you powerful insights you can use to better market your publication.

But when it comes to social media marketing in the Stories Age, Issuu Stories offers possibility, creativity, and unique engagement with your publication that you simply can’t find anywhere else.

Stories as Teasers

If you’re well-versed with Issuu’s digital sales capabilities, you know that part of setting up digital sales is selecting preview pages. But did you know you can create Stories from those teaser pages, and share those freely? If you have an exciting cover story, a fantastic creative spread or an exclusive interview that you know will hook readers, a great strategy would be to build half of it as a story. This leaves the other half to the eyes of those who’ve bought the issue digitally. This is a classic marketing move, updated for modern publishing tools. The advantage here is that you can share whatever you’re teasing across all social platforms easily. Essentially, you’re creating an ad for yourself that you can send to all your followers (and others, if you choose to promote it). If you have something in your publication that you think is marketable, market it! Issuu Stories make it easier than ever.

Stories as… Stories!

With Issuu’s new Visual Story tool, you can convert existing Article Stories and create engaging video Stories from them. These can be shared just as easily as Stories themselves, and work even better on certain platforms.

Visual Stories are especially powerful for marketing your business on Instagram and Facebook. By targeting your social marketing on these sites, you can drive sales even further. Combine stories with embedding and Digital Sales, and, well, you’ll be unstoppable.

What’s more, is that with the Issuu Story Cloud, you can have your Stories tell stories themselves. By serializing Stories, or planning them on thematically appropriate days, Issuu Stories can help engage your audience on social media and beyond.

Stories as Ads

If you’re using your publication to sell something, Visual Stories can help you advertise those products in an engaging format. Let’s say you’re using shopping links within your publication to redirect readers to your product. The unique benefit of using the Issuu Story Cloud to do this is that after making the story once, you can share it everywhere.

Get started with the Issuu Story Cloud

So while Issuu Stories offers a unique ability to market your content creatively, you can unlock their full potential by pairing Stories with all of Issuu’s other publisher tools. Together, they can help drive sales and build your online presence, on social media and beyond. With the Issuu Story Cloud, this is easier than ever. Get started today with the Issuu Story Cloud.