The text below is about a Pink Magazine package description I did with designer Rob George. It appeared in a recent ParadyszMatera email newsletter.

Pink Magazine Launches Targeting Business Women

A new women's magazine targets professionals seeking success in business and fulfillment in their personal lives. The independently published Pink mailed a glossy 6" x 9" package in a bright shade of its namesake hue, with a teaser that promises to tell recipients "How to have a beautiful career... and a beautiful life."

The enclosed letter describes editorial coverage at length, and explains the decision behind the atypical (for business magazines) title. It reads, "The new magazine flips the word 'pink' on its ear -- just as American culture did with words like black (black is beautiful) and gay (gay pride)."

Pink hopes to represent those women who "embrace their femininity along with their strength." The letter promises profiles of successful and inspirational women, from corporate executives to entrepreneurs using their skills to change the world for the better, as well as tips on business topics like marketing, sales, branding, finance, negotiations, public speaking and philanthropy.

As for the personal life angle, the magazine tackles articles on reducing stress, maintaining good relationships amidst a hectic schedule, and planning to have a child. A color brochure offers several sample covers, showing profiles of executives Anne Sweeney of Disney and ABC, Linda Sawyer of Deutsche Inc., Cathie Black of Hearst Publishing, and Dawn Hudson of Pepsi. Designer Kate Spade and supermodel Iman also have their own covers.

The brochure echoes the main teaser, calling Pink "the only national magazine designed to inspire professional women to achieve a beautiful career and a beautiful life." It describes Pink as "Fortune meets Oprah." The offer is presented as "An Exclusive Invitation," and the response is dubbed an "R.S.V.P." The hard offer is $19.95 for seven issues.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 11:02 AM | Link   

 
I recently received one of those offers to use up my inflight miles for magazine subscriptions. So I ordered about a dozen subscriptions.

In this day of rate base pressure, it quickly became clear which magazines were suffering the most. One title used especially aggressive back-starting.

One of the bi-monthlies I ordered sent me two old copies, and the very next day I received the current issue. What that meant was that as a customer, I was :

1. Offered holiday recipes in the summer.
2. Invited to enter drawings for merchandise that expired months earlier.
3. Asked to renew immediately (since I had already received 6 months worth issues).

While backstarting is a legitimate rate base management tool, it seems publishers should use a little more common sense and have the decency to not send out stale issues. Or, if they do, they should be prepared to have lower renewal rates and higher customer service costs.

Incidentally, just out of curiosity, I decided to call the toll-free number to lodge a complaint and see how this very successful publisher would handle such calls. I was told by the CSR on the phone that the reason they sent me those issues was so I could "catch up" on recent issues I might have missed.

When I told her I didn't want to catch up on holiday recipes this summer, she offered to extend my subscription by those copies, which helps to keep me on the file longer and stopped the renewal efforts, at least temporarily.

One other note: I have seen examples where ABC auditors did not catch those who backstarted in violation of ABC rules, but it's just a matter of time before they also catch on to that trick.

I recently heard that this magazine is folding. Maybe if you are continuosly back-starting to the point of bad customer service, it could be a warning sign of failure.

Here is the complete set of rules from ABC about backstarting:

F 7.2 Back Copies

(a) An issue of a publication shall be considered a back copy immediately upon the appearance for sale of the next issue for newsstand copies and the mailing of the next issue for subscription copies.

(b) Back copies served in connection with a subscription offer shall be recognized as paid up to three months preceding the date of the order, provided the subscription offer has specifically included the offer of back copies, or the subscriber has requested a back dating of the subscription, and provided consecutive copies served and are paid for in accordance with rules governing paid circulation. The number of subscriptions resulting from specific offers involving the distribution of back copies shall be reported in the paragraph of the Publisher's Statements and Audit Reports devoted to general explanations.

(c) Only copies that have been distributed in connection with orders dated during and 30 days after the regular Publisher's Statement period may be included in paid.

(d) A new subscriber who has not specifically ordered back copies as part of a subscription is eligible to be served one issue preceding that which is currently being mailed in the case of monthly publications and two issues preceding that which is currently being mailed for publications of greater frequency and such copies may be included in paid circulation. (In order that publishers conform to a consistent policy of start issues, the above applies irrespective of different cover dates and/or mailing schedules of publications.)

(e) Single-issue sales of back copies shall be recognized as paid for a period of three months following the on-sale date of an issue provided the purchaser has specifically ordered the back issues. With prior approval from the managing director, back copies sold from three months to six months following the on-sale date of an issue, and therefore not eligible for inclusion in paid circulation, may be reported in Paragraph 1 as "Other Distribution, Back Copies" with complete explanation in the Explanatory Paragraph. When back issues are packaged with current on-sale issues, only the current issue shall be recognized as paid and only if the amount paid is the full single copy price of the current issue or 50 percent of the combined full prices of all the issues in the package, whichever is highest.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 11:01 AM | Link   

 
It looks as if ABC problems surrounding "sponsored" and check-swap subs is expanding beyond circulation audit bureaus. Now the federal government is getting involved, too.

Newsday, March 11: Circulation probe spreads to magazines

There's no need to panic at this point, but it's probably one more reminder that all the non-revenue circulation sources we use should be looked at with a more critical eye. Placing magazines in waiting rooms and on airplanes is a very valid way to build readership and find new subscribers. And advertisers may be happy to reach those "public place" readers, too. But let's just call it what it is!

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 11:50 AM | Link   

 
If you want a quick reminder of the rules that are causing ripples of trouble throughout the magazine industry, you need to pay attention to these two things:

1. Make sure your magazines are properly classified.

It seems that sponsorship rules are causing the most trouble. ABC is proposing a clearer definition of what a sponsor can be. Any "agency" that sells subscriptions directly to consumers cannot be a sponsor.

Here is the “rule” ABC wants to follow:

The Board reaffirmed its position that publications and subsidiaries of the publications business operations are not eligible purchasers of consumer magazines. Frequent application of this rule include the inability for a publisher of multiple publications to present a transaction for paid sponsored copies being purchased from one publication for another publication. In addition, an agent, or a third party subscription selling organization may not purchase qualified paid sponsored copies of a publication. Organizations, which are qualified sponsored purchases, shall be those, which can present that an arms length relationship, exist between the purchaser (sponsored) and the publication. Where there is question as to the relationship, those involved should contact ABC auditing department for further discussion.

Organizations that provide service to the reception room industry, transportation market, lodging, and other programs that have similar characteristics would be considered eligible purchasers provided those organizations are not divisions of the publisher or a subscription selling organization (agent). These copies will qualify as paid circulation provided all rules governing the qualification of sponsored sales are met.

For qualification of sponsored sales, the purchaser must pay a qualifying price for each subscription purchased. For consumer magazines, this qualifying price is one cent per subscriptions.

2. Make sure payments for your subscriptions fall into the time period ABC has specified, or you may find some surprise deductions during your audit!

There is no change in this rule, as far as I know. However, now that ABC is looking for back-up in the form of checks from agencies, etc. the 7-month rule is getting reinforced in new ways. Payment for the subscription must be received within the credit payment period as established in Rule F 8.14 Credit Subscriptions, that being 7 months after start of service for subscriptions sold in North America and 9 months after start of service for those sold outside of North America.

Publishers are starting to put pressure on agencies like in-flight services, who have been traditionally slow to pay -- and finding that they may be left "holding the bag." If payments are not received in the time frame, deductions will probably be made by ABC.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 9:53 AM | Link   

 
Here's how DMI, one of the largest list broker/management companies, predicts the impact of next year's postage increase.

Dear Colleague,

There may be good news ahead on postage rates. Jerry Cerasale of DMA sent the following on Tuesday, January 25th, indicating that the 2006 increase may be as low as 6%:

The USPS financial picture is far better than expected. By the end of December, USPS was $700 million above plan in net income. The greatest generator of that was a 14% increase in standard mail volume. 1st Class volume was above a year ago in Oct and Nov but below same period last year (SPLY) in December. In Oct and Nov there was a significant increase in 1st class advertising mail volume.

This improved picture—possibly a $1 billion surplus—has USPS considering what action to take vis-a-vis its next rate request. As you know, USPS must collect and fund the CSRS escrow in 2006. This amounts to a little over $3 billion per year. USPS could be fiscally sound with a rate request for new rates in calendar 2006 that asks for only the CSRS escrow.

That scenerio would be as follows:

A request filed in March, 2005 for a 6% across-the-board rate increase (i.e., all rates up 6%) with implementation on Jan 1, 2006. This would be an expedited rate case—USPS would be looking for a settlement from mailers. In April, 2006, USPS would file a "normal" rate case, hopefully asking for an average 5% increase. All this would be accomplished WITHOUT any CSRS fix. If we could lobby for a reduction in the CSRS, the 6% could be changed, the date of either rate case could be changed—it is fluid.

I do not know the effect this will have on the push for postal reform and our push for the CSRS fix. I do know, however, that the Administration may not use the CSRS escrow funds as long as it is in escrow—it remains an asset of USPS. Thus, the Bush Administration will likely push further for reform and release of the escrow funds.

We'll keep you posted as information comes through.

Cordially,

Larry May
Chief Executive Officer

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 6:07 PM | Link   

 
If you have California customers, and if your company has more than 20 employees, you need to be aware of a new privacy law in California. See the Direct Marketing Association's take on this law, (SB 27).

There you will see two ways that you can comply with the law's requirements. The spirit of the law seems to be that any California resident should be able to keep you from sharing their name and other personal information if they request that (no problem for most companies to comply with that!).

The more unusual aspect of the law, though, is that companies must provide (if requested) a list of all the companies with whom you shared a customer's name. So if the hypothetical John Doe from California writes to you and requests a list of who you rented his name to, you must give him a list of all the mailers and their addresses, along with the kind of information you shared (name, address, financial information, phone number, etc.).

If your mailing list is part of any kind of database program, where additional information is appended, or if your list is one of many in a shared database program, this information seems to be very difficult to get. Some list owners are simply withdrawing their California names from databases where more than one company participates.

Other list owners are telling me that if they get any requests from a California customer, rather than go through the onerous task of figuring out exactly which mailers mailed a given name, they are going to provide the full list of mailers in a given year. I think this will scare the bejeebers out of the average customer.

I'd be interested in hearing from people on how they are going to comply with the California law and will share what I learn in a future blog posting. Please contact me.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 6:01 PM | Link   

 

In a recent rash of ABC and circulation scandals, there has been a rush to change rules, often after programs were deemed "ABC-acceptable." Of special concern was the threatened change in sponsored subs. This e-mail, from ABC to the MPA, suggests that clearer heads are prevailing and we should have at least another 6 months of playing with the current rules.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Lavery, President and CEO, of ABC
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 10:08 AM
Subject: Magazine Buyers Advisory Committee Considerations

Thanks for the opportunity to speak to your Consumer Marketing Committee earlier this week.

As noted, the ABC's Magazine Buyers Advisory Committee met yesterday. Included in their agenda were the issues of sponsored sales purchaser qualification and payments of marketing and distribution fees to sponsor purchasers. You'll be pleased to learn that given the January 1, 2005 changes to ABC's Publisher's Statement, the Committee agreed to recommend NO changes in the rules governing these sponsored sales / purchaser matters.

As you know, the recommendations of ABC's advisory committees will be considered by the Board in November, however, both the MDAC and MBAC are of the same mind on these matters.

As always, if you have any questions or require further detail please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best, Mike

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 4:41 AM | Link   

 
We keep hearing about how magazines need to develop marketing partners. We see evidence of these deals in a few places . . .

1. Every time we deal with Ticketmaster, we are pitched a TimeWarner magazine.
2. J.Jill catalogs have insert cards pitching O and other women's magazines.

Occasionally, you see a subscription offer on a bottle of wine, or salad dressing or a bicycle helmet package. Often, those offers are way too complicated for anyone to have the energy to respond to them:

Send in this form, along with your grocery store receipt, and we'll send you two free issues. After that, we'll sign you up for automatic renewal program, etc.

Here's an example of a partnership offer sent via email. If you've been wanting to test something like this, this might be a good model to follow. A valuable premium, the clear positioning of two brands (Oil of Olay and Real Simple), and an easy way to respond.

If this doesn't work, nothing will.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 7:57 AM | Link   

 
My husband always finds it a bit odd that I read magazines about magazines. Now there's a new magazine being launched. I haven't even seen it yet, but from what I've seen on their web site, it looks as if it'll be a worthwhile read. Their web site is M10 Report and the print magazine is called M10 Leadership Review.

While at their web site, notice how good it is! The registration form is clear and gathers controlled circ statistics quickly. It took me just seconds to register, note their clear privacy statement, sign up for e-newsletters, and review a few articles. Even the web sponsorship ads are placed in a way that makes the sales message prominent but doesn't interfere with getting the editorial information you want.

I'm looking forward to getting my first issue.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 4:32 PM | Link   

 
In the past 6 months or so, I witnessed three publishers sitting in on circulation marketing meetings make comments about how they really didn't like direct mail, didn't respond to it, thought it was wasteful, and so on.

I understand their sentiments because that's how I feel about telemarketing when I am home (though I am open to it in the office).

Recently, one of my clients (Yale Reivew) thoughtfully provided me with a summary of a direct mail campaign, for which I did the creative.

At the end of the report, they recorded comments written by customers who had responded to the direct mail solicitation. Here they are:

"The letter was terrific!" -- DL, New Jersey

"I would love to send a year of your enchanting sounding Yale Review to my son. It will be enjoyed and shared, and who knows, may bring you new subscriptions. Thank you for suggesting good things about my intellect in your letter." HH, Washington

"I loved your examples and your elegant flattery." FH, Washington

"...thanks for bringing the existence of Yale Review to my attention!" CG, New York

"...beautifully written, beautiful presentation!" LB, Kansas

Yes, direct mail is more expensive than ever. Yes, list sizes are shrinking. Yes, it's hard to get a higher price. But direct mail is still better than a lot of sources, more efficient than most forms of advertising. And, once in awhile, it's good to remind ourselves that some people welcome the chance to learn about our products in a way that respects their intelligence, gives them clear information so they can make a decision about your product, and perhaps leads to some word of mouth subscriptions.

When we send direct mail letters to our prospective subscribers, we should remember that. It will help us approach them with a respectful message about our product, and why they can benefit from it.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 3:18 PM | Link   

 
The next time you're in a meeting and someone brings up how the Web is killing magazines, you might want to come armed with these statistics. They are published by GAIN, a graphic artists' industry group.

The survey was conducted by Insight Express, a company that specializes in on-line research, and showed that:

* Only 32% read any magazine on-line

And here's why more don't read on-line:

** 54% say it's inconvenient
** 47% dislike the banner ads, pop-us, etc.
** 43% cited the price
** 23% blamed eye strain

When it comes to delivering content in a user-friendly format, it's hard to beat magazines. They're portable, inexpensive, can be take anywhere (beach, bathroom, bed, office, etc.), require no electricity or batteries, are disposable or can be kept indefinitely, easy to copy, etc.

Still, if 32% have gone on-line to read a magazine, it means that any content provider should be figuring out their strategy for delivering (and selling) their content on-line.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 10:43 AM | Link   

 
We've now added RSS to this weblog. What's RSS?

"Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site." See Intro to RSS for more info.

The XML icon in the signup box for the Weblog Email Digest is the cue that we're RSS capable.


So you can now subscribe to the weblog via content aggregators like Amphetadesk and NewzCrawler and many others.

Posted by Griff at 10:42 AM | Link   

 

An article titled Clients: Kable Would Maintain EDS's Colorado Facility in the January 2003 issue of Circulation Management quotes me on my thoughts about the upcoming acquisition of EDS by Kable:

"Many of my clients who are at Kable are nervous. This would be a major undertaking, and no one knows how it will pan out. Then again, it seems that the whole industry is worried about the fulfillment situation in general, these days."

While it's always great to get a little ink in Circulation Management, the main point to take away from all the speculation about what the merged organization will be like is in Karlene Lukovitz's Editor's Note:

"It's becoming increasingly imperative that publishers take a long, hard look at their business realtionships with their service bureaus. With the volumes of busines now changing hands, there is opportunity for publishers and suppliers to forge more realistic win/win partnerships."

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I have forward-thinking clients who work hard at their relationships with their fulfillment companies. They share their plans for growth, new strategic directions, changes in staff, their wish lists, and so on with their account reps and the upper management of their fulfillment bureau. They visit at least once a year to give them updates, and send frequent communication the rest of the year. Kudos to those organizations.

But hard as it is to believe, I still run into situations where publishers just don't do their parts (yeah, yeah, we can all give examples of where fulfillment companies don't do their bit, but let's save that for a different day).

Here are real live "lose/lose" examples of publisher failures that I encountered within the last month:

1. One publisher was searching for a new fulfillment supplier. Their current supplier could not perform several functions they needed, and there was no promise these services would be provided in the future. After months of preparing RFPs, visiting suppliers, negotiating, etc., they decided to stay with their current bureau. WHY? Their costs were lower than the companies who could provide all the services they needed. So the supplier they kept continues to be brow-beat about services they can't provide, and the publisher keeps applying unrealistic cost pressures on them, and everyone is unhappy -- including the publisher's former, disgusted customers, I expect.
   
   
2. Another client switched to a new fulfillment supplier. I manage the direct mail projects for this client. The old supplier was used to my way of doing things, and was very good about questioning anything I did that didn't seem right (I admit it, I make mistakes!). I made a minor mistake in my directions to the new supplier. They didn't question me. But later, I asked why they hadn't questioned me about what I did -- didn't it seem like a mistake? The rep told me they don't question mistakes. The reason? Because over the years, they learned that to question a client meant they were challenging the publisher's way of doing things and would be rebuked for it. I, for one, have always appreciated an account executive saving my bacon. I think we should encourage our fulfillment suppliers to suggest better ways of doing things. Who are we hurting if they're afraid of our wrath as the powerful, all-knowing -- and unpleasant -- client?
   
   
3. A third client has had a long. trouble-free relationship with their current fulfillment bureau. However, they needed help figuring out some banking issues, so they hired me to help out. I needed the help of their fulfillment company to fill in a few blanks. While doing my research, I asked the publisher for the name of their account executive. When I called that person, I discovered that she wasn't the account rep at all, and got the proper name. When I finally did talk to the account executive, I discovered that the client never called him. The client did not actually know who the account rep was at all. As you can imagine, this is not a fulfilling or creative relationship!

The surprising thing is not that these things happen, but that they happen with such frequency. It's vital that both publishers and fulfillment companies work hard at better relationships -- the survivability of our businesses will depend on it.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 2:44 PM | Link   

 
In an article titled American Girl Achieves Dual Mission in the October 2002 issue of Circulation Management magazine is this quote:

A breakthrough was achieved with a stretch package (6.12" x 11.5") designed by an in-house team and written by consultant Rebecca Sterner. The outer envelope featured a colorful photo of energetic, smiling girls and copy that straightforwardly addressed parents' concerns: "Girls! You gotta love 'em. You want to help them. While everyone else is pushing them to become adults too soon, how do you push back?" This package produced huge response lifts (54 percent on gross, 34 percent on net).

See my complete American Girl portfolio for more.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 12:27 PM | Link   

 
Publishers are faced with rising costs, an advertising recession, and consumers demanding FREE content. They all add up to consumers' unwillingness to pay more for their magazine subscriptions.

The November 25, 2002 issue of Capell's Circulation Report reveals that while newstand cover prices have risen 42% in the last decade, subscription prices peaked in 1996. The average basic subscription price has decreased from its high of $29.44 to $25.30 in 2001.

Virtually all the price testing I've been involved in reveals that higher prices yield lower p/l on new subcription promotions. $20.00 seems to be a really tough barrier to overcome.

One publisher said he waited 3 years for subscribers to get used to a new price above $20, but consistent price testing over those years showed that the lower price yielded more (and more profitable!) subscriptions. During the same time, he was able to raise newsstand prices, though eventually he hit a brick wall with one price increase too many, and had to scale back the price. What will happen if consumers won't pay higher rates? And why do our prospective subscribers, who eagerly pay $14.99 for a CD, $8 for a movie, or $12 for a trade paperback, refuse to pay even $3 each month for a magazine delivered to their mailboxes?

To get more info about Capell's Circulation Report, call 1-201-652-1283.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 12:04 PM | Link