Your team has spent a fortune on beautiful layouts and photographers. The printers have (rightly) up-sold you on that stunning uncoated stock for your latest magazine edition. But I’m sorry to tell you, you’ve missed a bit.

Digital publishing, it's the print magazine industry's equivalent to the cocky wonderkid, fresh out of college, you just can't wait for reality to slap in the face. There, we’ve said it. We know you’d rather focus on your loyal print audience. But like the wonderkid, a little time and effort invested to shape accordingly and you'll quickly realise the potential.

Print and digital can work together. Digital magazines have the ability to enhance your existing print strategy and bring new benefits right from day zero. So, here are our top 10 actionable benefits to publishing digital magazines:

1: Instant Access

You’ve poured everything into creating a magazine and finding your audience. They’ve fallen in love with your content and tone of voice. Let them find it anywhere - a digital magazine can be accessed instantly from any location, any time, through countless digital channels.

2: Mobile Access

In the UK, 78% of people own smartphones. 70% of those use their smartphones to read online magazines and news. Your audience is already online. Going digital, you give them the ability to access a print replica of your magazine straight from their smartphone, when their print copy isn't at hand.

3: Global Distribution

The beauty of the internet is the absence of geographical limitations. Trends and stories can circle around the globe in nano seconds - so can your online magazine.

Sending print subscriptions overseas is costly and takes time. Your digital magazine can arrive via email or push notification at the click of a button. Cutting distribution costs, improving your margin and offering content availability to a new overseas audience.

4: Interactivity

The touch, smell and feel of interacting with a print magazine, you can't come close to replicating that experience in te digital space. But there are things digital can do to drive interactivity that print can't.

I'm talking about video, animations and 360 degree product displays that you can embed directly into your digital magazine. Plus, there is always content that doesn’t make the print version - like additional photographs and video. Or copy you’ve created for your social channels. Digital magazines offer you the opportunity to put your surplus content to work, repackaged for the benefit of the reader.

5: Cost saving for improved revenue margins

The cost of digital publishing is a fraction of print. Not only does a digital magazine offer customers a new way to consume content, it gives you flexibility on pricing which creates opportunity. Let me put this into context with a few scenarios.

• A loyal customer has decided they can no longer afford their print magazine subscription. A digital alternative, with a lower price point, gives you the opportunity to retain the customer. You won't have to devalue your product by offering sale saving discounts, which really just eat into profit margins. Plus, the cost saving on magazine print and distribtuion cost may mean their switch to digital ends up generating you more revenue per head.
• A prospective new customer doesn't want to commit to a print subscription. A lower priced digital alternative means you can still convert the customer, build loyalty and then upsell to the print subscription at a later date.
• Going digital means customers have a choice of magazine subscription options - Print Only, Digital Only, Print & Digital. By creating a new Print & Digital subscription option, you unlock the opportunity to upsell loyal print customers for increased revenue.

6: Analytics

While you might have an idea of how many print magazines you sold, it's impossible to know how many times it has been read, by whom or where.

Digital magazines you analytics insights to better understand how readers engage with your magazine. You can see which content topics are popular, where your customers are coming from, which pages they engage with longest, or where they decide to exit your magazine. All of which can be used to improve future editions and offer an effective way to raise advertising rates over time.

7: Sustainability

The energy and resource used to create and recycle a magazine is enormous. It takes 3 gallons of water to make one sheet of paper. Once you add in the carbon footprint of printing presses, distribution and waste, print isn't always the most eco-friendly and sustainable channel.

Digital offers you a way to convert a section of your audience to a medium with a more sustainable future. Here at YUDU, we serve our publishers digital magazine content using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Who are committed to using renewable energy alongside a global sustainability strategy to minimise environmental impact.

8: Easy to update

With print, once it's on paper, there's no taking back your past mistakes. Like the time I wore double denim. It's different with digital, you can magic away mistakes with the click of a button, as if they never happened.

No need for magazine recalls, or waste through unusable print runs. Also, once you make a change, it's available instantly and can be pushed out to devices to overwrite incorrect digital editions.

9: Archive

Before computers (I FEEL OLD), you would have to sift through pages and pages of content to find what you’re looking for. Unless you were rich, in which case, your butler or personal assistant would do it for you.

Today, digital magazine software allows your readers to search your magazines for specific search terms - this is especially valuable for publishers of academic content. You wouldn't even need to Ask Jeeves.

10: Sharing

I once lent someone a book about 6 years ago. Never got it back - still rankles. Anyway, with digital magazine publishing, your readers can share content (you can control how - screenshot, page, full edition) to help build your audience.