November 2009

Voucher Tweaks

Publishers continue to innovate with copy and creative changes

Discount vouchers serve as a cost-effective and efficient way to communicate benefits of a subscription offer for a variety of publishers. These efforts often resemble familiar forms (e.g. stockholder proxies, bills, invoices), so they get noticed in the mailbox. In addition, they include “professional” language, and offer a complete statement of benefits.

Exterior notes and teasers can be powerful
In addition to a note about the time sensitive materials enclosed, the envelope from high-end audio magazine Stereophile reads, “Look inside to find out how you can add free issues to your subscription!” The “Professional Discount Order Form” spells out the benefits of subscription and details the exterior promise by specifying “If you send your payment now (or sign up online) we’ll add 1 free issue to your subscription for each year you’ve ordered!” The hard offer is $7/$12 for 12/24 issues, but the “Best Deal!” rewards those who pay now with 13 or 26 issues. An annual $3 postage and handling charge also applies. A new premium t-shirt is presented on one side of an insert; the opposite (“See what you should be hearing”) outlines the magazine’s range of editorial.

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Black Friday Search Trends, Past and Present

“Black Friday” search data from Hitwise underscores how consumers are increasingly plugged-in to online retail research and deal hunting.

I sat in on a good session from Hitwise Research Director Heather Doughtery this week that looked back at Black Friday 2008 and offered some preliminary stats for Black Friday 2009. The findings are fairly predictable and mirror what we know from our own data:  consumers are researching earlier and looking for deals.  The bigger question for this season is to what degree the economy and unemployment will accelerate the thrifty, marketing-savvy behaviors already in play.  Below are a few takeaways:

Black Friday searches start earlier each year. Per Hitwise, early “Black Friday” searches in 2006 started the week ending 9/30; for 2009 those same searches started the week ending 8/8.  At this rate, “Christmas in July” may lose its oxymoron status by next year.  Of course we’re talking searches, not purchases.  But unless a retailer is sitting on headline-grabbing price reductions for late in the season, capturing mindshare early is crucial.  Consumers need to know where the good deals are coming from, and a retailer may have to expend more effort now if they haven’t laid the groundwork already.

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Consumer Subscriber Lists See Expected Declines

The publishing subscriber universe has experienced losses similar to other categories, but it remains a giant in terms of overall size and reach.

As the final installment on direct mail list universes for the first half of 2009, the following is a look at active subscriber file counts. I wish I could report that consumer magazines somehow bucked the sagging list trends reported for nonprofits and catalogs, but the fall off for magazine files is pretty much the same as every other category.  In fact, it’s a bit more severe if you look only at the past 12 months.

In 2Q 2009, active subscriber files totaled 210 million names.  Year-over-year this represents a decline of 9.8 million (4.5%) from 2Q 2008.  As 2007 and 2008 were relatively stable periods, the two-year decline (off 9.6 million or 4.4%) is essentially the same as the one-year decline.  The most recent numbers offer no respite, as 2Q 2009 was the lowest for the study period charted here.

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